Entering a time of pandemic

With the church closed as we enter a time of distancing and quarantine to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 virus, we began a new stage in the history of Sunday gathering at Fifty with a live Facebook feed.  Here's the outline and text of much of the service:

Welcome

The Creed

We are not alone, we live in God’s world.

We believe in God: 

who has created and is creating,

who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new,  

who works in us and others by the Spirit.

We trust in God. 

We are called to be the Church:  

to celebrate God’s presence,
                to live with respect in Creation, 

to love and serve others,
                to seek justice and resist evil,
                to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
                our judge and our hope.

In life, in death, in life beyond death,

God is with us.

We are not alone.

Thanks be to God.

Opening Prayer / Lord’s Prayer

Hymn: This Day God Gives Me

This day God gives me strength of high heaven,

sun and moon shining, flame in my hearth,

flashing of lightning, wind in its swiftness,

depths of the ocean, firmness of earth.

This day God sends me strength to sustain me,

might to uphold me, wisdom as guide.

Your eyes are watchful, your ears are listening,

your lips are speaking, Friend at my side.

God's way is my way,God's shield is 'round me,

God's host defends me, saving from ill.

Angels of heaven, drive from me always

all that would harm me, stand by me still.

Rising, I thank you, mighty and strong One,

King of creation, giver of rest,

firmly confessing God in three Persons,

Oneness of Godhead,Trinity blest.

Reading:  I Cor. 12:12-14, 26-27

Meditation

How has the first week of social distancing and self-isolation gone for you?

Hard?  Maybe it’s come with a lay-off and loss of a pay cheque.  Or with other anxieties like a cancelled surgery, fear of shortages of one kind of or another, or just the pain of being apart from grandchildren – or grandparents.  Or, in the other direction, having too much time with cooped-up kids, or with stressed-out parents.

Maybe it’s been good.  Better than you feared.  A nice break from routine busyness?  A time of quiet and peace that’s settled like a nice holiday blanket over your neighbourhood?  Maybe a chance to catch up on a few things – like quality family time, or time to rest?

Probably it’s been both.  At different times and in different ways, both hard and easy.  Both nerve-wracking and welcome. 

And life is like that – a constant movement back and forth between ups and downs, despair and hope, doubt and faith, fear and love.  And it’s not the constant presence of both ends of the pendulum in our lives that’s a problem.  More often, problems come when we either try to deny or just wish away the one – usually fear and doubt, or we don’t find a way back to the other – the hope, the faith and the love.

When our Church Council first contemplated the realities of closing our building, I think anxiety was one of our first feeling responses.  It was the only sane, wise and loving thing to do.  But we also wondered how we could be a church without meeting and being together in our building.  We count on shared worship for support, for fellowship, and for that weekly renewing and deepening of our faith in God.  And we count on our building being the place where we welcome people in and reach out together to the community.

But there have been lots of times in human history when for all kinds of reasons – natural disaster, epidemics like this, or political persecution, believers have not been able to meet, and they survived.  Sometimes even thrived.  And our presence in the community and our mission to the world happens not just in and through our building, but in and through each one of us in the ways we live our lives, the relationships we carry on, and all the individual ways in which we each know and share God’s love for all.

None of this stops just because we can’t meet here for a while.

And there’s something else I want to mention.  When we first began envisioning not being together here, we immediately rushed to find other ways of being connected – like this live-stream on Facebook this morning, so we can still have the feeling of being together.  In the letter I sent out I likened it to what Hockey Night in Canada used to be in the old days, except with a focus on God instead of the Leafs and without Foster Hewitt.

And that’s great.  Probably even when things are back to normal we’ll try to keep something like this up, and build on it.  Well past time for us to join the 21^st century.

But at the same time, this is not the answer to everything. 

Even this does not reach and include everyone.  Not everyone has or even wants a Facebook account, so some are excluded from this live-stream and I wonder if that makes them feel even more isolated.

Plus I’ve been reminded this week that being apart from community and even from family and friends, and being isolated and alone with God, even in (maybe especially in) dire circumstances has always been part – in fact, an important part of any journey with God and any deepening in a person’s experience of God and of faith in God.

Sometimes we get to choose times like that – booking time away for spiritual retreat at a really nice place, or setting aside a special time each day to connect with God and our higher self in private prayer and meditation.

And sometimes the time is forced on us – like now.  This break from normal life and separation from other people is not our choice.  But it’s no less an opportunity for entering into that deeper encounter with God, and that struggle between our own inner demons and our higher self, whatever that may mean for each of us.

I asked Japhia if she had any idea what that might be for me in this time.  She thought it might have something to do with me learning to accept not being able to fix everything, accepting things beyond my control, and learning not to be rushing around trying to give all the answers, come up with solutions, and make everything better for everyone.  To live with my own powerlessness, and start living into the first line of that famous Serenity Prayer: to know the serenity of accepting that which I cannot change, cannot control, cannot fix, cannot solve or predict.  To let my serenity come not from my own power to do things,

but from God and from openness to God’s care, God’s presence, and God’s good purpose.

I think she’s right.  There is something in this time especially for me to grow into, and to learn to live with more gracefully.  Something related to my particular inner demons and idolatries, openness to God, and the growth of my higher self.

And I don’t want to miss out.  Don’t want to pass by and walk senselessly through this time. 

Even a time of global crisis holds within it the kernel of spiritual gift, an invitation to grow, to change, to be transformed – a possibility of experiencing God and becoming myself in a deeper way than before.

I wonder, in the times ahead and that we’re already in, what’s the invitation for you? 

What kind of growth or change does this anxious, unfamiliar time open up for you? 

How will you become more open to God and to your higher self in this time that we’re in?

Hymn: Do Not Be Afraid (by K Segrave)

Day after day; night after night

You speak to us through everything: 

“Do not be afraid.

This is My world: you’re not alone.

My Love is stronger than anything! 

Do not be afraid!  Do not be afraid.”

Lord, please teach us how to hear Your voice

Through raging storms and life’s constant din.

And Lord, please teach us how to keep fear out,

and let Your Spirit in!

Night after night; day after day,

Our lives get too busy to hear You say: 

“Do not be afraid.

This is My world: you’re not alone.

My Love is stronger than anything! 

Do not be afraid!  Do not be afraid.”

Lord, please teach us …

For this is Your world:

We’re not alone.

Your Love is stronger than anything:

Do not be afraid. We are not alone.

Do not be afraid.

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Commissioning – to know and to share God’s love for all

Closing Song:  Go Now in Peace

Go now in peace; never be afraid;
God will go with you each hour of every day.
Go now in faith -- steadfast, strong and true;
Know God will guide you in all you do.
Go now in love, and show that you believe;
Reach out to others so all the world can see:
God will be there, watching from above.
Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.