A Reflection from Pastor Brown
I am writing to you concerning a couple of things that have been on my mind for some time now. One is a great joy. The other is a lament.
First, I want to express my delight at having been able to join together with you in the flesh again this past 7 months as we gather around the Word each Sunday. What a joy to see your faces again and to hear your voices lifted up together in prayer, praise and thanksgiving! How wonderful to be able to join with one another in study, service and fellowship - in the flesh!
The lament is that I have found myself missing a number of you deeply. I miss those members of my family of faith whose passion has inspired me. I’ve missed others whose essential joy has reminded me that I am the recipient of deep blessing. I have missed still others whose generosity of spirit has so clearly revealed the heart of God to me. I have been missing hearing your voices, watching you connect in grace here in the community of faith, and seeing you realize the blessing that’s found in the recognition of holy community.
Not long ago, I was reading through an old classic: Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Gathering together with Fellow Christians living under severe threat of Nazi oppression, Bonhoeffer wrote the following: (Please excuse the non-inclusive pronouns.)
The believer feels no shame, as though he were living still too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians. Man was created, a body, the son of God appeared on earth in the body, he was raised in the body. In the sacrament, the believer receives the Lord Christ in the body…and the resurrection of the dead will bring about the perfected fellowship of God’s spiritual-physical creatures … how inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God’s will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship of life with other Christians! It is true, of course, that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trodden underfoot by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us… It is nothing but grace that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.
Bonhoeffer’s rejoicing in and longing for Christian community feels so very familiar!
There is no doubt that the virus that ravaged individual bodies the world over, has also left its mark on the body of Christ. Just as some individuals are dealing with the residual effects of Covid for months or even years after infection, our churches are dealing with a sort of spiritual long-covid. The body of Christ has been changed somehow and there are lingering effects. The virus changed our engagement with community… even Christian community. In time, I fear, we got out of the habit of gathering with the whole family of faith to serve, study and give thanks and praise together. (This is true throughout the church and throughout the country).
Now, I give thanks for the technology that has allowed members of our community to continue to connect for worship and fellowship, even when we could not safely gather in person. I appreciate the fact that our online services continue to allow those who would not otherwise be able to gather in person or feel safe doing so, to connect with the community. And certainly, I understand that there are many who simply cannot connect with the church community in person due to impaired mobility, health status or concerns over immunity. We know that there are some form whom gathering together physically in community is either not possible or unwise, or both. If that describes you, I want to take this opportunity to invite you to let us know if you if there is a way we might be able to bless you in terms of spiritual care. Let us know if you’d appreciate an in-person visit or a call.
My concern is that for some, having settled into a new reality that has been less engaged with the communal side of things, it has become easy to lose sight of the essential nature of community/ relationship for Blessed Christian life. We may very well be able to praise God in our own homes, study independently, serve God’s Kingdom individually on our own terms. In fact, I pray that we all do. But Christian discipleship is also a radically relational thing. We are called, gathered enlightened and sanctified, as Luther would say, “together with the whole Christian church on earth.” There is a mutuality about life in the church that reflects the foundational gift of human community given by God all the way back in Genesis 2. This faith thing is not just about what we might get, but what we can share. As Paul writes to the congregation at Corinth, we have each received “a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”. We come together in holy community to be blessed, but also to bless each other, support each other, strengthen each other in faith. We come together for the sake of the church, and ultimately for the sake of the world.
It is a powerful thing in worship to hear not just your own voice lifted in song, but hundreds of voices blending in holy harmony. The shared experience of the holy can bring a person to tears! Hearts joined together in prayer lead to an experience of holy power that can be inexplicably moving and wondrous. To share the peace of Christ with all of your family of faith is a blessed thing. To know that you hold in common the heartfelt desire for peace, grace and hope in this world of deep division and diminished relationships is positively renewing. To come together for the holy meal is indeed a foretaste of the feast to come… together!
As we enter into the new church year, I want to use the occasion to invite you back into the place of blessing. I want to invite you back into community so that you might bless and be blessed.
We hope you join with your faith family in worship, certainly, but there are lots of other opportunities to connect. If you’d like to sing or ring for the Lord, Join the Vocal Choir or Bell Choir when they begin their program year on Thursday evening, September 15. Get your kids connected with friends in faith through Sunday School. (Our Sunday school kickoff will take place on September 18.) Wednesday night adult Bible studies will resume the evening of October 5. The Thursday men’s group will begin their gatherings on September 22. We have a full slate of Sunday Morning Adult Christian Education sessions right after worship beginning Sep 25. Women’s book chat continues to meet monthly. Our confirmation ministry will kick off on September 28. For an opportunity to join in an extended time of blessed community, plan to join us for the congregational Retreat in Fontana, WI @ Lake Geneva, November 11-13. If you want to serve others in the community, check out “God’s Work Our Hands” this coming Sunday, the 11th. You can find full details on all of these events and opportunities in our weekly announcements.
I look forward to seeing you at Trinity very soon. What a joy it will be to see all of your faces again. What a delight to hear your voices lifted up together in prayer, praise and thanksgiving! How wonderful it will be to join with one another, beloved family in faith, in prayer, praise, thanksgiving, service and fellowship ... and in the flesh!
In Christ,
Pastor Brown
