Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2020
“The Real Normal” (Acts 2:42-47)
We’re hearing a lot of talk these days about “the new normal.” “The new normal”: It means that the way we’ve been living these last seven weeks is how we’re going to have to continue to live for the indefinite future. Depending on the state you live in and who your governor is, you’re going to have to stay at home, self-isolating, and not do any unessential travel. If you do go out for anything deemed essential, you’re going to have to practice social distancing–stay six feet apart from anybody. You’re going to have to wear a mask–or not wear a mask, depending on who you listen to. You should wash your hands every twenty minutes and not touch your face. You need to stay shut in and locked down. Flatten the curve, slow the spread, and wait a year or two for a possible vaccine, which may or may not come. And this is supposed to be “the new normal.”
And for churches, this has been especially rough. Religion was deemed “non-essential.” We were told not to hold public services. In some places, you could have services, but only for ten people or fewer. In other places, you couldn’t have services at all. They even sent police around to give tickets to people attending drive-in services, people staying in their cars in parking lots. The police would write down license plate numbers to keep track of violators. And again, depending on your state and your governor and the local officials, they may be telling you, “Get used to it. Do your services online. This is ‘the new normal.’”
For our congregation, St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Bonne Terre, Missouri, we voluntarily decided not to have services temporarily, out of concern for public health and safety. This is now the seventh straight Sunday we’ve missed, plus services on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. We’ve tried to do the best we can in the meantime, doing these live mini-services on Facebook. You’re still getting the Word of God, the gospel of Christ, proclaimed in this way, and that’s good! But in some respects, it’s not the same. Virtual church is not the same as real church, full-bodied church, the church gathered as the people of God.
Right now, we are still in exile. As the psalmist wrote about a previous time when God’s people were in exile: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.” Their exile lasted seventy years. Our exile has lasted seven weeks. But it still stinks. It’s not normal. The new normal is not “The Real Normal.”
(more…)
