A Letter from Janet, April 23, 2020
Dear Grace Church Community,
It has been more than 5 weeks since we began meeting online to worship, study, pray, and now have our first Third Sunday Supper. I am so grateful to see you, to hear your voices, and to share this continuing journey of being church with you. I love that we can still enjoy our fellowship that is such an important part of who we are as Grace Church. Thank you to everyone who helps plan the music. Thank you to everyone who reads and leads the prayers. Thank you for singing and praying in your homes. Thank you for preparing lovely altars and sharing the feast of thanksgiving in community. Thank you for your courage, your faith, and your resilience.
This is where Easter finds us. Along with those early disciples, the future is not ours to know. We cannot, even with the best information, know what the weeks ahead will bring. We suspect that it will be much longer before we will be able to gather together physically in community. But we are resurrection people. Because of this, we know with God’s help that life will win out over hardship. With God’s help, we claim hope as our guide. With God’s help, we choose love as the way. And we put our trust in the belief that in community, the storms of life will not overwhelm us.
This does not in any way minimize the great suffering that is occurring as a result of this pandemic. Much prayer, much compassion, and much action is needed. But as the body of Christ, we are here for each other. We care for each other. We will walk together, hold on to each other, and share what we can so that the suffering of one is not carried alone.
This Sunday, we will again celebrate an Agape Service. This is an opportunity for our community to celebrate the goodness of God. It is an opportunity for us together to share and remember, Jesus’ life, death, and rising to new life. Communion is an act of relationship with Jesus that goes beyond time and space—and I believe beyond the elements we may choose to celebrate and remember. This is something I believe we need in this time of uncertainty, in this time where physical contact with one another is unsafe and unloving. I believe this invitation to receive communion together in our own homes, speaks to our recognition that God is everywhere, and in sharing and remembering, despite the physical distance, we can with joy be church.
If you have not yet joined us for Bible Study on Tuesday night or Centering Prayer on Thursday night, if you have not yet participated in Books and Bread to share a wonderful book and great conversation or thought about being a part of the next Third Sunday Supper group, please dare to do this. This time of COVID-19 separation does not have to mean that our work of growing as disciples has to be put on hold. In the next few weeks, I will continue to invite you to explore what being church means in this very new space. Thanks be to God that we have each other. With God’s help this time of physical distancing can give us the chance to listen closely to where God is calling us next.
May the peace of God that passes all understanding hold you close.
Janet
Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through this time, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.