Dear People of St. James’,
On Sunday during our celebration of Thurgood Marshall, saint of God, we are going to sing one of our favorite songs, I am gonna sit at the welcome table, and I am kind of hoping that you will get up and get moving in your living room – just like we are accustomed to getting a bit rowdy in our sanctuary whenever Sharon strikes up this tune!
This is our hope. This is our history. This is our song. We, as the people of St. James’, seek to live with a table of welcome at the center of our lives, so that all people may come and receive and be nourished by God’s love. We are committed to the eucharistic life, whenever we are together and wherever we may be, even when we are parted by deep waters. When you think about it, that’s really the beauty of our Anglican theology of the communion of the saints. If we can live with the understanding that even death cannot destroy the eucharistic life that binds us to each other in love, surely we can figure out ways for the eucharistic life to triumph over social distancing.
As a Church in the time of COVID-19, we are discovering what the eucharistic life really means and looks like.
When we live with God’s table of welcome at the center of our lives, we find that our primary identity is not that of consumer, no matter what our culture tells us. We are not just swooping in to pick up bread and wine because there is something magical about it. Jesus doesn’t call us to church to pick up our holy vitamins for the week.
Instead, when we live with God’s table of welcome at the center of our lives, we find that our primary identity is guest. To share eucharist is to live as people who know that we are always guests, that we have been welcomed, and that we are wanted. When we come to the welcome table, we find that Jesus is asking us to make the choice that Mary of Bethany made: to put down our identity as producer/provider/consumer for a moment and be with him. Jesus wants our company; and Jesus wants to teach us how to accompany each other in this life. At the welcome table, Jesus is inviting us to look to the person next to us and to see there someone who is also wanted, welcomed, and loved by God. One of the signs of the real presence of Jesus is this kind of new sight – that helps us to recognize in each other those whom God loves and that empowers us as Jesus’s guest to also become a host, like Jesus, to set a welcome table, to invite each other in, to break down the walls that divide.
And so, an agape meal, where a few households gather to pray and to bless and to hear the word together, or Zoom Night Prayer, which helps us lay eyes on each other even from a distance and hear the prayers of each other’s hearts, which has the power to include people who are otherwise isolated, might be a more eucharistic form of life for this time than some peculiar form of drive thru communion. As we move forward, we are seeking in our togetherness (online or in person) to enact signs that point to the always countercultural, always grace and mercy-filled life we see in Jesus.
When we participate in eucharist, we don’t just ask that the Holy Spirit effect a miraculous change in the bread and wine, we are asking that the Spirit effect a change in all of us: so that we might see the world in a new light – so that we might see human beings with new eyes (not the appraising kind of sight that asks – what can this person do or produce for me?) but rather eyes that rejoice just that the other is.
As we approach Phase II, and, mind you, we are not there yet, we are seeking ways to live out the eucharistic life such that there is room at the welcome table for our most vulnerable brothers and sisters. We know that we cannot be who we are without the elders of our community. We know that we cannot be who we are if we cease to choose multicultural ways of being community that honor the deep and rich African American history and present of St. James’. We know that we are called to make space and offer radical hospitality to the unexpected visitor. We know that we must find ways to strike a balance between the two basic human needs for community and security, and that people will be thinking about how to do that for themselves in a diversity of ways.
Over the next couple weeks, we are going to be sending out brief reflections to ignite your imaginations about how we might live the eucharistic life together. For example, what could it look like to take some of the strategies offered by the public health community for meeting the human need for connection while reducing risk and to wonder what then could Church look like? We will dig into the rich text of 1 Corinthians for some guidance. We will offer some thoughts from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and our bishops about how we might meet the challenges of this new time. I am holding space in my calendar for online or on-the-phone Q&A times with groups of you or with individuals; and I will hold an open Q&A on Saturday, the 16th and the 23rd, at 10 am. Just go to the Calendar page on our website for details.
If you haven’t filled out your congregational survey yet, please do by March 17! We want to hear from you.
May the peace of the Lord be always with you,
Rev. Eileen
