June is the month for winding down the church year…
We had our Congregational Meeting on Sunday
You approved a Budget
You elected Trustees
a Clerk
members to the Leadership Development Committee
You approved a Bylaw change
And you heard annual reports from myself and the Church Historian
If you were unable to attend that meeting there will be documentation
Available in some manner soon.
Winding down…
This Sunday is our Music Sunday
A celebration of our music program
And a look back at the work of the previous year.
Our music program typically takes a break over the summer
Before starting again in late August
The following Sunday, June 14, is our RE Sunday
That’s a Sunday to celebrate and look back at a year in our children’s religious education program
Before we start a different kind of summer RE program
The Sunday after that, June 21, is my last day preaching to you
As your Interim Minister
That will also be a time to put a close on the current church year
As well as a close on our two and a half years of interim.
Strangely,
As our church rhythm is encouraging us to move
Toward quiet and close
The energy in the world around us is extremely high
This leads us to a temptation to be pulled one direction or another
I know I’ve felt this
To choose
To join the high energy calling us to the streets and to action against racial injustice
And forget the needs of this season
In our spiritual community
Or to shun the noise and anxiety of the outside world
And retreat into an oblivious self-contained “peace”
And justify our withdrawal as “spirituality”
And the two sides are not shy about demanding one or the other response
Which only increases the pressure
The activists tell us that to be silent is to be complicit with injustice
But we’re told by mayors and law enforcement to obey curfew
Hurting and exhausting people are encouraged to attend to self-care
But we’re told now is the time to use our voice and power
Our politics longs for effective action
But we wonder what is effective when the problem is so deep
And so longstanding.
The coronavirus demands we isolate and stay safer at home
But not everyone is safe at home
And prolonged isolation leads to its own health issues
Of depression and loneliness
Or pent-up energy that gets released unhealthfully
Childcare forces us to stay home
But family relations are strained when we never get a break
Some jobs demand we report to work
But work may not be a safe environment, right now.
Social media incites our passions, while connecting us to a distorted reality
We long to turn it all off
To escape this anxious time
But the needs and perhaps the opportunity of this time demand we stay engaged.
So what to do?
Which to choose?
The German, 20th Century, theologian, Karl Barth, told pastors that they should preach with the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.
He meant
That the role of the church is to simultaneously,
Uphold timeless principles, values and vision
And to engage in the particular circumstances of the time we live in
To stand apart from the world
And to be of the world.
But how can we be in two places at once?
In 1966, Barth in an interview said, “The Pastor and the Faithful should not deceive themselves into thinking that they are a religious society, which has to do with certain themes; they live in the world. We still need – according to my old formulation – the Bible and the Newspaper.”
He points out the necessary connection between spiritual life and civic life. And he warns religious people not to ignore their responsibility to engage in the world.
Barth is saying that we have two necessary sides: the Bible, and the newspaper. Religion, and the world. Spirituality, and its sense of larger principles and timelessness, and the lived experience of the people in our midst, and this time of our living.
As hard as it is then, to feel pulled in two opposite directions.
(And whichever way you feel is pulling you hardest)
We must not choose
We must stay in both
As we have two hands
In one body
We cannot abandon either
One holds our spiritual principles
One holds the needs of the time and of the people of this day.
I give you one more image, then
An image we are all familiar with in this time of COVID-19 pandemic
Handwashing
You bring your right hand
To meet your left hand
They meet in the middle
They touch
They hold
They engage with each other
Each washes the other
Each cares for the other
They do the necessary work together
And then they separate for a time again
The separation is also necessary to accomplish all the work we must do
each day
But they are never separated by more than a few feet
They are both always with us
Always us
And they are destined, always
To meet again.
See you tomorrow, 1pm.