Week of the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Dear Friends in Christ:

Our return to celebrating Holy Communion on the day of Pentecost was a momentous occasion on our slow road to the resumption of usual churchly activities as the pandemic continues, we pray, to wane. Another momentous occasion will be our return this coming Sunday, Pentecost 5 on July 4th, to worshiping indoors.

Why is returning to our church building such a big deal? After all, we have been assembling in person in Jesus’ name by the power of the Holy Spirit as church outdoors for several months now. As a Sunday School song of my youth puts it: “The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple; the church is not a resting place; the church is a people.” Indeed, for Lutherans, church is an event, a verb, as the Holy Spirit gathers God’s people in assembly, in community, around faithful preaching of the gospel, and administration of the sacraments according to the gospel (cf. Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession).

Thus, church happened, at least in part, during The Three Days of Holy Week as we were assembled outdoors amidst our congregation’s Memorial Garden. And church has been happening on the parsonage side of the church building in our serendipitously well-equipped outdoor nave. Church even occurred live but virtually and partially when we gathered via Zoom for various occasions of Evening Prayer during Advent, Lent, and other festivals. So again, what is the significance of returning to worship indoors in our church building when God’s people can be assembled as church almost anywhere?

Quite importantly, buildings are extensions of human embodiment. The physical dwellings that become our homes gain significance when our own personal belongings furnish and adorn our dwelling places. I have shared with you previously how delightful it has been for me to make your house, the parsonage, my home with my personal adornments. And with our return to the church building, I can also begin to invite you into my home, your house, for social and spiritual occasions!

Likewise, a congregation’s building becomes an extension of our particular incarnate embodiment as a community of God’s people in this place, at this time. You bring with you to our church building memories of significant occasions in the life of your families – baptisms, confirmations, weddings, funerals, ordinations, and more. It is common for congregation members to be devoted to beloved church buildings not necessarily because of the artistic significance of the architecture, but because of memorable, often sacramental, happenings, events.

Of course, devotion to church buildings can succumb to idolatrous dynamics, too. There is a saying among pastors that “the building always wins.” The way our naves, our sanctuaries, are furnished and configured can limit if not dictate the kinds of assemblies that can occur therein. Moreover, buildings are quite demanding of time, attention, energy, and financial resources. Just ask members of our Property Committee about that!

Thus, we are beckoned as we are on the brink of returning to our beloved church building to remember what ends our building serves. Our building is a vessel of servanthood; it is not an end in itself. In short, again and essentially, our building serves as a place of assembly of God’s people in the Spirit around the means of grace. As we mark a new beginning in our life together, let us not miss the opportunity to appreciate anew and afresh what end our building serves.

In this place, in our church building, are the fuller, richer, more enduring, incarnate symbols of what we are gathered around. In this place, in particular, is a large baptismal font, the place of being washed in the Trinitarian name of God, bathed in water, word, and Spirit to become children of God. In this place is the substantial table around which Christ gathers us in the Spirit for the meal of his corporeal presence. This place, our place of assembly, is furnished in a way that gives focal attention to where God’s word is read and proclaimed. In this place are musical instruments – pipe organ, piano, harpsicord, handbells, and perhaps more – which serve our singing songs of praise, the assembly’s share in the proclamation of the gospel. In this place is comfortable seating for God’s people making it possible more easily to attend to the central things of our faith without the various distractions we encountered outdoors.

Yes, we’ve had our sacred symbols outdoors – a glass bowl for baptism, an ordinary patio table that served as a sacramental table, a fence that has served as an altar rail, a brick patio as choir loft, a grassy yard surrounding our community garden as nave – but all of this has been temporary and less capable of showing forth the fullness of the symbols of the means of grace. What we have indoors, to reiterate, are the more enduring expressions of the central things around which we are assembled. But kindly remember: Our building serves these things, and not the other way around. The tail does not wag the dog.

Moreover, our building makes possible other features of our missional life together. Leading from the places of the bath, and of the word’s proclamation, and the meal are the other gathering places – classrooms for Christian education and formation, rooms for administrative meetings, a lovely hall for socializing, for communal meals as extensions of the Eucharist, offices for our staff members where two or three gather in Jesus’ name for holy conversation, rooms where community groups meet, and more, all flowing forth from and related to the more central things.

Thus, with our return to the use of our church building after some sixteen months of it being virtually unused, we reclaim the greater fullness of our life together, a three-dimensional expression of our incarnate life in person, in community, and not just a two-dimensional, virtual, partial expression of our churchly life.

To mark the occasion of our return indoors, several members of our congregation have been lovingly devoting much time and energy to cleaning and sprucing up our church building’s interior in preparation for our return. Others have gathered to talk and walk through the logistics of the movements of our assembly, keeping in mind the continued need for appropriate physical distancing. Thousand thanks to these persons whose devotion to our life together is evident in their volunteer hours.

In conclusion, I am quite curious to see what our three-dimensional life together will be like. Join me, join us, in this renewed adventure of return!

With thanks to God in Christ for this opportunity,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Week of the Third Sunday after Pentecost

Remembering the Emanuel Nine

The Metro D.C. Synod Racial Equity Team invites you to pause on Thursday night, June 17, 2021 at 7:00 PM as we commemorate the 6th anniversary of the massacre of the Emanuel 9, with a communal Bible study via Zoom. Mindful of the deep presence of God at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston South Carolina, we will take the scripture that was part of the bible study in 2015, that night when Dylan Roof was welcomed as a stranger. Rooted in the Word and in small groups, we will ask what was God saying then and what is God saying now.

Dear Friends in Christ:

I am delighted, encouraged, and relieved to report that our Congregation Council has approved our return to worshiping indoors beginning on Sunday, July 4, 2021, almost sixteen months since the beginning of the pandemic’s lockdown. Thanks be to God.

Several factors contributed to our making this decision, including: recently revised and relaxed CDC guidelines concerning vaccinated and unvaccinated persons, the CDC’s official word that the risk of contracting the coronavirus is minimal with surface contacts, the extent of vaccinations among RELC members and persons in our wider communities, the fact that many neighboring churches are now also returning to indoor worship.

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost on July 4th, of course, occurs on a holiday weekend. Our leaders are considering this a kind of “soft” opening so that we can begin to get used to a somewhat altered routine indoors. We will have a more celebratory and perhaps poignant way of marking our return to indoor Christian assembly on a Sunday later in July when we will observe a “Rite for Re-Gathering” developed for use in congregations throughout our wider church.

Here is what you can expect upon our return to worshiping indoors. There will be one liturgy each Sunday beginning at 9:30 am. It will be very much like that which we are currently using outdoors – the full set of readings, communal hymn-singing, intercessory prayer, sharing the Peace of Christ in an appropriately safe way, Holy Communion in both kinds, using our usual baked bread dropped into uplifted palms, and wine offered from a pouring chalice into containers that you will continue to bring from home.

We still ask that you wear masks out of loving concern for and solidarity with younger children who are not yet permitted to be vaccinated and others who, for whatever reasons, have not been able to be vaccinated. Moreover, we will continue to practice physical distancing indoors with seating available in designated pews. Thus, we continue to err on the side of caution as has been our practice throughout the pandemic.

Some congregations are asking that worshipers pre-register to attend worship, observing strict maximum attendance numbers, as well as cordoning off sections of the nave for vaccinated persons in one area and the unvaccinated in another – and more such overly-cautious, in my opinion, measures. Such strictures, it seems to me, add dimensions of stress and anxiety to public worship, which otherwise is best offered in a more relaxed spirit. Moreover, some of the measures taken by other congregations are perhaps antithetical to the ideal of fully inclusive, non-exclusionary worship. Thus, Resurrection Church will proceed in a spirit of trust that worshipers will do the loving and responsible things of wearing their masks and being mindful of appropriately safe distance between people. I have full confidence, based on my experiences of our worship outdoors, that things will proceed among us safely and naturally. Our team of ushers and other worship leaders will also think through and practice our routines of movement indoors in advance of our July re-gathering. Our practice will undoubtedly evolve in nuanced ways as the coming weeks unfold.

It is also important to note that beginning on July 4th, the production of our weekly watch-through home worship video along with the home worship bulletins will be discontinued. In the meantime, as an alternative, we will begin the practice of producing video recordings of our worship indoors, making these available on YouTube and via Constant Contact messages for those still unable to join us for worship indoors and in person. This effort may also evolve to the practice of live-streaming our worship services. Discipline will be undertaken to limit video images only to those leading public worship in the chancel out of respect for the security and privacy of worshipers who may not want to appear on video. In this meantime, we will discern the appropriate and faithful nature of what our congregation’s digital life might be in the future.

The Council’s decision to return to worshiping indoors also paves the way for other groups to begin using our church building again – for committee meetings, occasions for socializing, group events of local community organizations, and more. These groups will need to decide for themselves how and when they wish to proceed to a return to indoor activities in our church building. It may also be that some of our congregation’s meetings and events will be hybrid in nature with some participants being present in person in the church and others Zooming in from remote locations. Time will tell what our “new normal” will be going forward.

The Council’s decision to return indoors also begins a new phase of our life together as a congregation. Who and how many will return to our fold in person with something resembling a more normal routine? How much activity and of what sort will our reconstituted congregation be willing and able to undertake? What, in fact, will be our capacities and energies for mission and outreach to our wider communities? What resources, financial and otherwise, will be available to us moving forward together? These are all crucial questions which don’t yet have answers. But again, time will tell as God in Christ leads us faithfully into an unknown future together in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus’ name, and thus, with hopeful anticipation,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Week of the Second Sunday after Pentecost

Dear Friends in Christ:

I’m drawn again to the theme of the garden. The paradise of Eden from which our forebears were expelled in response to disobedience. Gethsemane, the garden of which was watered by Jesus’ tears and bloody sweat. Golgotha, which became the garden where the cross, the tree of life, was firmly planted to flourish for our salvation. Our Memorial Garden, which contains the earthen remains of so many of our loved ones, and which was transformed this year into a stage for the liturgical drama of the Three Days of Holy Week into Easter. And then also our more ordinary garden places – my fledgling plot for flowers at the parsonage, your own places of garden inside and outside of your homes and apartments. And finally, our garden planet Earth.

But my mind is most focused currently on our “Plot Against Hunger.” A year ago, I wrote about our congregation’s community garden, the produce of which is given to feed in wholesome, healthy ways those in need in our community. I turned the theme of gardening into a metaphor for our life together as a congregation during the pandemic period of dormancy or fallowness.

Right now, my imagination is riveted on the “Plot Against Hunger” as a centerpiece and focal point of our gathering place as a reconstituted worshiping assembly. It’s our nave outdoors, as I have shared repeatedly. In this place the seeds of God’s word are planted among and within us via a diversity of scriptural readings. In this place, we are fed with the harvest of fields of wheat and the fruit of the vineyard in our sacred, sacramental meal of Christ’s corporeal, real presence. In this place, the Spirit’s dew descends upon us as we are watered with baptismal remembrance and thanksgiving, as we sing our songs, when we uphold the world in petitions of prayer, and as we extend gestures of Christ’s Peace to each other.

But this place, our community garden which plots against a cruel world’s efforts to hoard garden blessings, depriving so many of just nourishment, this place is also a launching pad back into the world from which we were gathered. It’s an excellent place to hear the words of dismissal, “Go in peace, serve the Lord!” We serve, in part, by feeding those in need. Healthy produce is a central feature of our congregation’s social ministry.

Such sacred serving is undertaken by the loving, caring hands of persons who regularly make an appearance throughout the week to prepare the soil, to plant seeds and seedlings, to weed, to water, to erect protective barriers to keep away hungry rabbits in search of a salad buffet. There is clearly an infrastructure of dedicated volunteers who are quietly organized behind the scenes. They nurture the system of roots hidden below the ground which at harvest time also networks with the system of nonprofit organizations in the Arlington area with whom we collaborate to make certain that the fruit of our garden gets into the right hands and hungry mouths of those who need it most. Thanks be to God for the many who serve the Lord via their tender, loving care for our “Plot Against Hunger.”

But here’s the gospel thing. Like Paul and Apollos, we plant, we water, but God gives the growth (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9). Mostly, at least to the naked eye, our community garden just sits there without much human activity. Again, our volunteers appear only occasionally, though regularly. The season of growth unfolds in its own time, over the course of late spring, summer, and early autumn weeks and months. It’s unhurried, unrushed. This process does not succumb to the anxieties and urgencies of our days. Storms may rage about us. But the garden is still there, even if it be battered by the elements. And if it would become victim of drought or infestation (thankfully, the cicadas are comparatively harmless…), there are other gardens elsewhere to help fill the void.

It strikes me that our “Plot Against Hunger” is a lovely example and incarnation, therefore, of the link between contemplation and social action. In the case of the garden, the unhurried and unharried quality of the growing season will likely result in hundreds of pounds of healthy food that will benefit the hungry and food insecure. This being leads to doing, bearing fruit, the good work of feeding those in need. It is contemplative activity, a doing rooted in being that is ultimately grounded in God’s sovereignly creative initiative.

And this quiet unfolding that leads to fruit-bearing is a call to us as a church to root our activist ministry and mission in the contemplative grounding of our intentional, unhurried engagement with the means of grace in our communal spirituality, our being and our doing rooted in preaching, baptism, eucharist, confession and forgiveness, and the mutual conversation and consolation of siblings in Christ in the family of God – all of this is the soil in which we grow and flourish as persons of Christian faith, that we may freely give ourselves away for the sake of the world.

Thus, by God’s grace, mercy, and action, our garden place of contemplation of Christ in word and sacrament also bids us to slow down, breathe deeply, listen for God’s voice, standing firm in the ground of our faith, all the while trusting that God in Christ does in fact give the growth in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Think on these things the next time we are gathered for the fullness, the feast of our Sunday worship. In fact, we will have occasion intentionally to turn our hearts and minds and our bodies to our “Plot Against Hunger” this coming Sunday, June 13th when our liturgy’s sending will include a rite of blessing for this garden, for those who tend it, and for the people who will benefit from its fruits. Join us outdoors this Sunday at 9:30.

In Jesus’ name, and for Christ’s sake,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Week of Holy Trinity Sunday

Dear Christian Friends:

For those of us privileged to live in a region where a significant percentage of the population is vaccinated against Covid-19, experts are suggesting that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the pandemic. In fact, the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia issued Executive Order 79, effective May 28, which lifted state-mandated social distancing and capacity restrictions in accordance with recent CDC guidelines for vaccinated and unvaccinated persons.

Given these realities, our congregation’s Reopening Planning Group has been in conversation to make recommendations to our Congregation Council for their decision about returning to worship and other church activities indoors.

The long and the short of it is that in church and in the wider community, a return to a “new normal” beckons. After a year and more of physical distancing, social isolation, and truncated routines, what will this be like? What will we do and how soon? To what activities will we return? What discretionary things will we decide to no longer include in our routines?

Good questions, these. In the early weeks of the pandemic, I recall writing in these Midweek Messages about the opportunity in what has been our set of intersecting crises of the past year – racial injustice, the economy, the pandemic – to discern what is most important in our lives, and in our life together at church. A new normal should not necessarily be like our old normal if we truly claim the opportunities to assess what’s most important in our lives individually and communally.

And the transition to whatever will be is likely to be gradual – not like the on or off of switching on a light. A personal case in point: while I am fully vaccinated and have been for some time, I still wear two masks, not just one, to go to the grocery store – a matter of mere habit at this point. Also, one of my very favorite things to do in life is to dine at interesting restaurants, of which the DC area has an abundance. That said, I have at this point yet to venture much of anything except occasional take-out from a few trusted restaurants.

After fourteen months, we have gotten used to new routines. Some of the current routines are attractive. Many, though not all, for example, speak of a preference for working from home. Who needs to sit in traffic when you can spend more time with your family in comfortable surroundings? Other aspects of our current reality we would like to jettison sooner rather than later, such as the severe social isolation for many of us.

To state it again, it’s likely that whatever a new normal will be, we are not likely to go back exactly to things as they were. We’ve been having church administrative meetings via Zoom during the year and more of the pandemic. How many future, post-pandemic committee meetings will remain on Zoom? Or in hybrid formats, where some are present in person in the church, while others participate via Zoom? Likewise, perhaps for Bible Studies in our congregation. Numbers of participants in our Bible Studies via Zoom have been higher on that remote format than was the case when people met in person – at least according to the memory of some long-time members of our congregation. It may be that Bible Studies going forward will also be a hybrid format that will include a Zoom option.

All of this is to say that I hope and pray that in future weeks and months we fully and robustly claim the opportunity carefully to discern the particular ways in which we may be called to organize our life together in our congregation, informed by our emerging, shared vision statements to guide planning for our mission and ministry. What congregation activities, initiatives and ministries do we sense a call to reclaim with passion and appreciation? Which such initiatives and traditions might we set aside or lay to rest? What new things might we embrace? These are crucially important questions for our life together in this particular season. As your Pastor, I pledge to ground our coming, discerning conversations and decision-making processes in an understanding of what it truly and faithfully means for us to be and to do church, that assembly of God’s people gathered in the flesh by the Holy Spirit close to communal engagements with the means of grace. May God in Christ lead us in confidently faithful ways in discernment and decision-making in the power of the Holy Spirit.

With such prayer in Jesus’ name and for the sake of the ministry and mission which we share,

Pastor Jonathan Linman