On Zoom, Church and Disappointment
Yesterday Zoom, the suddenly popular video conferencing service, was down early Sunday Morning, messing up Sunday morning worship plans of many churches, including my own. It was a frustrating moment because for more than a few of us having to go entirely online for worship has been a challenge both technologically and spiritually. Now, 8–10 weeks in we just have started to develop a rhythm, and this felt like a gut punch. Here we are dissapointing our parishioners (and Jesus) again.
For us, we discovered during our 8 am service that zoom was having problems (after about 40 minutes of trying different accounts and settings) and we muddled through with some people on phones and others on the zoom putting cell phones next to computer speakers. But it was clear this would never work for the larger service of between 70–80 logins, so we adjusted. Readers sent in recorded readings, we found files for the music, I reworked and pre-recorded the sermon, and then ad-libbed on facebook live for 20 minutes while the video rendered and uploaded. Others with less warning faired far worse, some faired better, and many who pre-record some or all of their services breathed a sigh of relief.
And then of course there was the collective lament on Social Media from clergy and laity about zoom, and the quick advertising of new technologies and modalities to avoid this problem in the future.
This, to be honest, confused me. Sometimes you show up on Sunday and the A/C is out. Sometimes the table isn’t set. The basement is flooded. The streets are closed because of a marathon. In our “pre-COVID 19” days, these annoyances were funny, if frustrating interruptions to the delightful routine of Sunday worship. But yesterday’s response felt different. Both in the responses to what we did do: “thanks for making the effort, this was great, we needed this!” To the laments “that was a disaster, we need to do something different, this can’t go on!”
Why was the response so different?
During the COVID 19 outbreak, it appears to me that our responses to many things are not about THE THING, but about all the other things we are missing right now. In this case the issue isn’t ‘zoom failed so sunday morning was messed up’ but ‘I am just so sad not to be in Church this morning.’ No matter how much we say we like online worship, or joke about being able to go to church in sweatpants (which a lot of you did already), we miss being together, we miss worshiping together, we miss communion, and hymns, and seeing babies baptized, and the peace, and coffee hour and we maybe even miss that person who always hugs too close or talks too long because it turns out this embodied faith of ours needs bodies. And virtual church is no replacement for body of Christ. We are in a collective state of lament, crying out with the psalmist ‘How Long o Lord, How Long?’ Even as we keep up a brave face and celebrate our new online life.
Similar emotions come out when the topic turns in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition to the question of ‘virtual communion’. Now, whether or not bread and wine can be consecrated via tv screen or telephone or cyberspace is a serious theological question, but individual responses in this moment often deal more with what the authors miss, what they value about church, and what they want to protect and what they want to uproot in the tradition.
Even the conversations about re-opening churches hinge on this question of lament. Quite a few lay and ordained people I have talked to express serious reservations about having services — not because it isn’t safe for them but because it isn’t safe for everyone. It is tempting to not want to re-open unless ‘all are welcome’. The complaints range from “it would be wrong to exclude people”, “to how do you control attendance” (literally the only time most of our churches have EVER thought that), to “it just doesn’t feel right.” Others aren’t sure they will ever feel safe, or if church is even worth doing, if everyone is in masks and you can’t sing or take communion. It’s less about what we might do, and more about what we wish we were doing together.
We are missing a lot right now. We are lamenting a lot right now. And there is nothing wrong with that.
If this is you, if this is your reality I invite you to do two things:
Love God, Love your Neighbor.
Or more specifically…. Trust God, and Trust your Neighbor.
I don’t know what Church will look like exactly in the next few weeks or months, but I do now that if we gather with the intention to worship God and proclaim the life, death and resurrection of his Son Jesus, then God will be present in that moment. Borrowing from Thomas Merton we do believe that “The Desire to please you DOES please you.” We should trust God to walk us through this unique and challenging moment.
We should also trust each other. Both to make ‘wise decisions and right actions’ with regards to our health, and with respect to how we are worshiping and serving God in the midst of a pandemic. What is right for one church or service might not be right for yours, but don’t tear down each other in your own period of Lament. Trust that the gatherings that do manifest, however different and unfamiliar they may be, will maintain enough Anglican distinctiveness to feel like Church, and that even if our favorite people aren’t in the pews or on the lawn, that they and we are still praying and lifting up each other.
For many weeks, I and other clergy have been saying that this crisis will shape the future of the Church for years to come. But that is only half right. Everything we do — clergy, laity, Bishops, Priests and Deacons, we are not doing for us, but for the future of the Church. For the future of your parish, for the future of the Episcopal Church and the Church catholic around the world. This is a peculiar and important kind of stewardship — to steward and direct the church in a time of crisis so it can continue to flourish in times of abundance. Perhaps, you, me, us, were made for such a time as this? To carry the Church through this difficult time and to mold, shape, and strengthen a better community of faith for generations to come.
