From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

Last week was our first Sunday back in the church building for public worship since March of 2020. There were so many lovely high points even amidst the inevitable snafus that come with regathering after so long apart. In the weeks ahead we will make a couple of small adjustments that should make things run even more smoothly.

It did make me think, though, of my experience of worship in other places. For example, one of my favorite places to worship is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. If one worships there, one is in for a confusing treat! First, there’s often a language barrier. Second, there are people kind of thronging around you all of whom seem to know what they’re doing. Third, there’s an inevitable feel of being rushed through it.

However, even with all of that, there’s the far more overwhelming sense of the place and the purpose for which you are there. Standing in the shadow of the tomb of Christ brings home, like almost nothing else, the vastness of that into which we are being called. Those throngs of people are there for the same reason you are. The variety of languages and people are gathered by Christ. No matter how much time you spend there it almost always seems as if you’ve rushed through because time takes on a kind of liminal quality in such spaces.

As we return to our own sacred space for worship it seems a good and holy thing for us to remember what a gift it is to be here together. We’re coming back together for love’s sake and always in the light of the resurrection. We’re being welcomed back not just to this one place or space but back into the centuries of praise and prayer, through good times and bad, that bridge human experience and cultures.

So, sure, there will be some jostling, some being rushed, some mixed signals that almost sound like a foreign language (who knew what the Pastor’s Toolbox registration system or Vimeo or Zoom were last year?!). There will be a bit of confusion. Yet, when one imagines the Last Supper, that First Eucharist, it is hard to imagine it being anything other than a little confusing and hardly as well organized as the standard Episcopal service!

But here we are, confusions and snafus and all, coming back together. We’re always doing so in the shadow of the tomb and in the light of the Resurrection and, as we watch for the end of the pandemic, that seems a more needed and powerful reminder than ever.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert