Pastoral Thought--December 21

As we are now at the beginning of Christmas Week, I want to talk with you about worship. I want you to consider looking at worship from a more complete perspective. At Plains we have taken steps to make sure that our Christmas Eve worship is as safe as possible. We have continued to remove aspects of our worship while adding items designed to create social-distance. But does that impact how we worship? Does that weaken or lessen the passion of worship that we as the church are called to live into?

My answer is that it shouldn’t.  

Diana Butler Bass, in her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, wrote the following:

"Christian worship embodies the full range of emotions any person would experience in celebration, from sorrow to mirth. As such, Christian celebration is merriment, as in ’to make merry,’ because it participates in God’s festival of life and Shalom. . . C.S. Lewis referred to this as the ‘great dance,’ wherein justice and mercy clasp hands, and the universe moves in rhythm to God’s intention for creation."

Perhaps like many other people, you have struggled to find, or create room, to worship this season. Maybe you say things like, ‘I couldn't worship the way I wanted to in Lent, now Christmas is being impacted’—and that hurts your soul. Perhaps as this pandemic has pressed in upon you, you have felt the joy and passion of your worship in Christmas-time being limited by the community and world around you. And that can cause struggles in our faith to rise and live unchecked for seasons. If so, then Bass’s words can be helpful to the church. 

On Christmas Eve we gather in a spirit of Joy. . . Watchful joy. . . to worship God. But we worship with fewer songs. We will wear our masks, and we won’t embrace in Christian love, as we usually do. That could be challenging to our faith. But if Bass is right, then regardless of how our worship takes shape, Thursday it is appropriate to gather and be with God. For God is with us. That union, even in the midst of a pandemic is what Emmanuel means for us in 2020. 

It means God choosing to dance with us. 

God choosing to sit with us when we cannot be together. 

God choosing share in the human emotions that we are confronted by. 

It is a holy night and not just because we can sing more carols and light candles. But it becomes holy because God ‘clasps’ our hands into His and we are together. We are moving in rhythm with God; holding fast to God even when this year seems so different. God is unchanged. God’s life. God’s peace. God’s presence is still with us even if we do not sing as many hymns, embrace in Christian love, or celebrate communion as the Body of Christ normally might. 

I hope that I will either get the opportunity to worship with you in-person Thursday, or see you on Facebook Live, or in our Zoom service. Just because I have not been able to either shake your hand, put my arm around your shoulder, or felt the warmth of your presence, God is still with us both. There is joy in worship. There is presence in worship. There is unity in worship. And so we come to the Incarnational moment thankful for who God is and what God does. . . 

Blessings

Rev. Derek