On Lent and Worship

 Today’s message has two Big Topics and begins with a Quick Note: 

Our Ash Wednesday service will be an interactive one! Pots, soil, and seeds are on a table outside of the church’s sanctuary doors ready for you to pick up and take home, so you can join in the work. For more information, see last week’s Friday Blast here. 

Big Topic #1: Lent

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent, a journey of 40 day (not including Sundays) prior to Easter. This year, our theme is “Again and Again,” using worship and educational materials from a wonderful group called “A Sanctified Art.” There is a Daily Lenten Reading, Powerful Artwork with reflections by the artists, and lots of materials that we will be using in worship. Our friends at New Hope Presbyterian Church will be walking alongside of us for the journey, including a weekly zoom meeting of our two congregations, to share responses to the daily readings.  From 6:30 – 7:00PM each Tuesday of Lent we will have time to share ourselves with one another. The zoom information will be on the calendar of the church’s website.

The theme “Again and Again” triggers a number of thoughts. I used to teach youth groups that the tri-fold plot of Scripture is “God is faithful; We are not; God loves us anyway.” The fact that God is faithful, again and again and we fail, again and again, is reason enough for a season dedicated to introspection, confession, and repentance. Nonetheless, I do not hear the phrase “Again and Again” as a circle, endlessly going but ‘round and ‘round, but getting nowhere. I hear it as a spiral, where each experience of falling and rising moves the process to another plane. I think of that phrase from Leonard Cohen’s marvelous song, “Hallelujah” that names the “minor fall and major lift.” That’s what enables the circularity to be upwardly spiral in nature. 

Big Topic #2: Worship 

The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision striking down some of Governor Newsom’s ban on gathered worship for churches in California. The decision came down last Friday. On Saturday I had several inquiries of whether we would be “open for worship” on Sunday. Right now, the answer at the moment is “no.” I want to lay out the process that we are following to make decisions about gathering. 

A. The ultimate decision rests with our Session. We will not get a directive from the Presbytery or any other higher governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Our church constitution makes it quite clear that this decision falls to our Session, since you elected them for moments like this. They are the ones who will listen, consider, discern, and decide. Pray for them. 

B. Early on, the Session authorized a “Faithful Phasing Team” that meets periodically to assess the science and healthcare aspects of the pandemic, in order to offer guidance to the Session’s decision-making. This team looks at the numbers and trends, particularly of hospitalizations, deaths, and now vaccinations – all guided by an epidemiologist on the team. We give less attention to ‘testing’ and ‘infection’ rates, because they often fluctuate due to many non-health-related reasons. Frankly, when Governor Newsom began color-coding each country according to the same kinds of numbers, our job became a lot clearer. We consult this page quite often, and you can too. It is a summary and springboard for more information.

C. Orange County is still in the “Purple Tier” of this pandemic, the worst tier, with numbers that none of us imagined we might be seeing a year or even six months ago. Since the numbers have gotten worse gradually and in “surges,” we have not felt the shock that we probably should feel about these numbers. They are as bad as we wished they would never be. 

D. So, from a science and healthcare perspective, the Faithful Phasing Team is not recommending that we begin gathered worship at this time. The Supreme Court ruled, not on the wisdom, but on the constitutionality of banning worship, based on the 1st Amendment. Rightly or wrongly, their ruling is just one aspect of our Session’s decision. They have said that, legally, we can gather; the Session decides when we, wisely, ought to gather. 

GOOD NEWS: I feel that there is light at the end of this tunnel and it is growing brighter, although it has nothing to do with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Between the expanded number of folks who have received the vaccine (including a lot of you, for whom I am glad!), the number of folks who have already had COVID-19 and have developed some degree of immunity, and the continued practice of wearing masks, practicing distance, etc., we are beginning to see the numbers trend in the right direction. And while there may be setbacks (like a post-Super Bowl surge), the directional trend is good. So, we are in the “heartbreak hill” phase of this marathon, where the last portion is the most challenging and we are already exhausted. But, if we run this race with perseverance, we will get there. Together. 

Mark of St. Mark