Finding our way

Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn (Joel 1:13)
This morning I intend to go to church twice. Well, not really go, of course, but attend, remotely, via the internet and live feed. One service will be Holy Communion. Now, I'm not really sure how Holy Communion can work at a distance so I think it's worth pondering for a bit.
It doesn't seem to me that there's a huge problem with the communion part. There are many different kinds of community, and, while virtual communities may not be quite as valuable to our health and wellbeing as physical ones, they are certainly real gatherings of people. The greater difficulty might come with the Holy part. By that I mean the sacramental element. There are of course Christians for whom Holy Communion, or the Lord's Supper, is purely about remembering the last supper and the death of Christ on a cross but I am certainly not one of them. Something happens when we bless and receive the bread and wine beyond remembering. Somehow in God's grace, by the Holy Spirit, we are changed for his good in the taking of bread and wine, broken and blessed. Beyond that the theology gets complicated, and possibly unnecessarily so.
But how can all this happen at a distance? Now I hate to be simplistic about it, but it always happens at a distance. Unless the priest has to be touching every piece of bread and every cup while blessing, like their fingers have some sort of magic fluence, then there is always a gap between the blessing and the blessed. The only difference is one of distance. I, for one, am not sure inches or miles, millimetres or kilometres, is hugely significant for an omnipotent God. So bless and receive, is my view, because we worship a God a bit bigger than our concepts of place and space.
The other service will be fairly modern, with a lot of sung worship and a long talk and pretty much no set written words at all. It's streamed from a church we used to visit when we wanted something a bit different, a bit fresher and more multi-cultural. In some ways this may be more difficult. Singing together is surprisingly hard when you're not in the same room. And yet there is a Zoom room as well as a live feed, so that may work too. And a good talk is aways just that. Hard for the preacher to do it without a congregation to respond, but not hard for the listener. So I'm looking forward to it.
What neither will have much of is sackcloth. Now I'm wondering if this matters. Joel called on his priests to do something different, to wail and mourn, to do acts of repentance, to lead the country in turning form sin and returning to the living God. And I haven't offered or heard much of that from our church leaders. Should I have done?
Let's examine the cause of our misfortune. Unregulated live meat markets seem to always be the source of these species jumping infections. Yet yesterday, I hear they are being reopened in China. Have we wailed and mourned over our treatment of animals? Not one bit. Our plane hopping, country shifting, fuel burning lifestyle seems to have been the spreading factor. Have we shown any sign of wanting to change our globe-trotting behaviour? Well, the juries out, but I just heard of another country opening another international airport.
So let me take a risk and call on us to repent. I'm not sure of what at the moment, though our wasteful lifestyle may be one area we can offer to the Lord. So this Lenten time let's have a Holy Fast as well as a Holy Communion. Let us remember to repent as we wait on an awesome God, as well as rejoice that we worship a loving God. In a time of great suffering let us share with those in great need - let us put on sackcloth.


Disappearing into the mist on top of the Quantock Hills

Comments

  1. Perhaps the truth is that in communion the "fluence" (as you so nicely put it) comes from God. The celebrating priest is the visible representative, but not prerequisite...
    I trust you're keeping safe and well.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Michael. Nicely put. Hope I wasn't guilty of some theological faux pas.
      Keeping well here.

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