From Jack, a retired Episcopal priest and over 60 years of age (but in good health) in unofficial ecclesiastical quarantine because so many churches are in lockdown; to my beloved apprentices of Jesus in all the places where I’ve served (and a few that I haven’t): Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It feels odd not being able to “go to church” when we are in good health and we’re not on the road and the weather is clear. But “going to church” is a troublesome phrase because it can be read as going to a place or going to an event in which we are spectator/participants. A congregation in Brooklyn had t-shirts printed for their members. On the front it read “I don’t go to church.” On the back, “I AM the church!” It was clever and mostly true. I say “mostly” because to be completely true they’d have to change the “I am” to “We are.”
In the New Testament the English word church translates a Greek word ekklesia. Ekklesia (literally “called out”) had an important meaning in the ancient world before the New Testament was written. In the Greek city state of Athens, the ekklesia was the assembly of citizens that formed the first recorded attempt at democratic rule. Although citizens at that time only consisted of free males of 18 years old and above, they were called out on a regular basis to make significant decisions for the city of Athens.
Ekklesia is a gathering of a specific body, whether the body of the “citizens” of Athens or the Body of Christ. But what happens when the Body cannot gather? We’re facing that problem in many places both in the US and across the globe this weekend and probably longer. If church means an assembly then are we still church when we can’t assemble? The answer is certainly yes, but that yes has something to say about how we see ourselves as members of a church.
The citizens of Athens were part of the ekklesia whether the ekklesia was meeting or not. Indeed, members of the ekklesia could be fined for not attending the gathering (how’s that for a fund raising device for churches?). But the point is that the ekklesia existed even when it was not gathered. And if the existence of the church is not dependent on the gathering of the church, then how are we to model the interdependent life of the that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 12?
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1Cor 12:12-27)
Certainly we should pray for one another, for the members of our particular local Body and especially those of that Body who are most at risk in this crisis. At the same time we are the Body of a Christ who was himself Incarnate. As George Mcleod put it, “matter matters.” Thus, prayer in our isolation is vital, but it is not everything. Watching some form of worship via live streaming is helpful in maintaining a sense of connection, but it is not incarnational connection. And since we cannot gather in the same place at the same time during this time, how can we incarnate our community?
I’ve often taught that worship of an Incarnate Christ must be sensual worship, that is it should be engaging all the senses through which we interact with God’s creation. Vision and hearing may be engaged through live streaming, but that is not enough for it does nothing to establish the physical togetherness of the Body. Still, there are ways.
Calling one another to check in and encourage is far more valuable than we might believe. And though sending physical notes through the mail may not be wise (I’ll leave that one to the medical experts), an email that can be printed out and held in one’s hand is a physical representation of our connection in the Body of Christ.
This may seem rather trivial, but, to misquote Scripture, do not despise small things. The COVID19 virus has, for this time, apparently “dismembered” the Body of Christ. We can give lie to that appearance by using every appropriate resource of our sense to “re-member” who we are until that day when we can regather and receive that which we were given in re-membrance of Jesus. Maybe when we regather we will greet one another with gratitude and wonder, giving thanks for one another’s presence in one Body.
The Apprentice Priest 