Proceeding with Palm Sunday

There are a lot of things that I was looking forward to this Palm Sunday. 

I was planning to work with a group of readers from St. Monica and St. James to present the Passion Gospel. I had visualized a situation where our Jesus and narrator would occupy the ambo and the lectern while our other readers popped up from their seats...at the altar, in the middle of the sanctuary, and in the choir. It would have been, I think, a powerful way to place the Gospel with the people and made them feel a part of the story. I had been thinking through some talking points that I would have liked to have had with my readers, making sure they understood some of the evil that has been the unfortunate outgrowth of the Matthew Gospel account of Jesus' death. There are verses that some have used to justify their anti-Semitism. The whole idea of "blood libel" comes from Matthew's Gospel, and I think it is a point worth addressing with people charged with reading so they understand the importance of being careful with the language. Especially in our American culture today where hatred of "others" is running rampant. Add the fears generated by the pandemic, and I fear what hateful thing might happen to Jewish people this week. 

But, the pandemic put a halt to my participation at my CXM site. And now I find myself learning the ways of Facebook Live as I bring my services to an Episcopal Church in Bainbridge, GA. And rather than take an active part in Palm Sunday, I was in the place of passive observer over the internet. 

And guess what? It was not devastating. 

I don't know if it's that I have been exhausted from worry about school, how to pack my room (which a classmate very helpfully did for me).  I don't know it's that we had a week of trying to find a home for a stray kitty who followed us home on a walk (we did find a home for him!). Maybe it is that I have been carefully folding bandannas into masks between wandering in and outside the house in an effort to force myself to sit down and engage in my school work which feels so meaningless at this point. But whatever it is, I was OK not being physically involved in the liturgy of Palm Sunday. Instead, I could really take a moment to worship...and witness the innovative ways in which churches in the diocese of Georgia were using the lemons of this COVID-19 moment and making the lemonade of meeting the worship needs of Episcopalians. 

One of my favorites was the procession of palms on video from my sending parish, St. Thomas. We were asked to get any green branch, and take a photo of ourselves holding it or showing it hanging on our door. The organist had the choir members record themselves singing "Ride On, Ride On in Majesty" which she mixed together. That soundtrack played as the video showed the photos of parishioners and their homes bedecked in palms and other green branches. It was a simple and beautiful way to process palms while honoring the need for physical distancing right now. And we got to see each other and our homes! 

The diocese has also been honoring the physical distance requirements, but not letting that disrupt our communal and social media connection. The Palm Sunday celebration today featured a sung Gospel with a woman singing Jesus in one place, the narrator in his own locale, and a third male singer sitting in his room somewhere else in the diocese. The intercessors were a family in another part of the diocese. Music was from two of the diocesan seminarians and their husbands. No, there was no Eucharist, but there was communion through the internet. And some of these little churches in Georgia are suddenly seeing an uptick of visitors to their web and Facebook pages. 

In this time of such discombobulation, what I am seeing for the churches is an opportunity to lean evermore on our faith in God, deliver us from fear, and raise pleas to the Almighty to bring wisdom and persistence to our scientists and medical researchers to find a way to deal with COVID-19. We need our political leaders to rise to the occasion of calming fears, while allowing their knees to knock as they guide us through this uncertain time. And the church needs to remember that our origins and our existence are not tied to buildings but to the mission to keep being a voice proclaiming the Gospel and reminding people that we are not alone. We can emphasize the importance of working together to protect our neighbors and ourselves by following recommendations to stay at home, wearing a mask in public, and practicing thorough hand-washing. We each have a place and a job to do to help flatten the COVID-19 curve. 

Georgia looks to be coming up with creative ways to get that message across. Bravo!

Ride on, ride on in Majesty!