At Six Months: Overwhelmed

“The six-month mark in any sustained crisis is always difficult,” writes Dr. Aisha Ahmad, political science professor and Director of the Islam and Global Initiative at the University of Toronto.

Ahmad goes on to say that it is completely normal at six months for us to struggle or slump, to want to “get away” or “make it stop.” We’ve learned a new normal: new ways to eat outside at restaurants, host meetings, teach and learn, even have fun. But the autumnal equinox brings shorter and cooler days. Our patience is running thin even as we realize that more innovation, creativity, and patience is being called from us.

Many of us feel irritable and exhausted. Overwhelmed.

As a faith community we turn to our spiritual ancestors for inspiration. One Lutheran I would hold up is Martin Rinkart. During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) he was pastor in Eilenburg, Saxony (Eastern Germany). The walled city was a refuge from fugitives suffering from epidemic and famine.

As other clergy fled the town, Pastor Rinkart sometimes officiated as many as forty or fifty persons per day—some 4,480 in all! During 1637—the worst year—his wife died as well. Refugees had to be buried in trenches without services.

Amid great risk and overwhelming conditions, Rinkart continued to minister to the people in his city, giving away nearly everything he owned to the poor and needy, barely able to clothe and feed his own children.

During hardships beyond imagining, Pastor Rinkart wrote a table prayer for his family. In all things he taught his children to give thanks for the “countless gifts of love” provided by our bounteous God.

May this beloved Lutheran hymn inspire us with hope, clinging to the grace of God that “frees of all ills” as we live into an unknown future.

Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices,

           who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;

who from our mother’s arms, has blessed us on our way

           with countless gifts of love, and still is our today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

           with every joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;

and keep us all in grace, and guide us when perplexed,

           and free us from all ills in this world and the next.

Communion In A Time of Pandemic: A Pastoral Message from Lead Pastor Craig Mueller

June 18, 2020

Dear Holy Trinity community,

It seems like another world when 214 of us gathered in person on the weekend of March 7-8 for three eucharistic services. Since then most of us have not shared holy communion, after all aspects of our congregational life moved to online: worship, meetings, classes, even some pastoral check-ins.

ELCA Responses

In the early weeks of the pandemic, many ELCA bishops and theologians rapidly penned diverse responses to whether it is most appropriate to “fast” from the eucharist or whether it is possible to commune online in these extraordinary times. Since then, congregations have moved forward with a variety practices, such as pre-recorded services, live-streamed services on Facebook and live Zoom liturgies. Some congregations are still fasting from communion and celebrating a Service of the Word only on Sundays while others moved quickly to offering communion during online services.

Whereas Roman Catholic and Episcopal bishops are inclined to make proscriptive guidelines regarding eucharistic practices, Lutherans traditionally respond pastorally within the freedom of the gospel, which often means there are not uniform practices, for better or worse. Thus, the ELCA is not likely to make a definitive statement regarding communion this far into the pandemic. 

Holy Trinity Discernment 

As the Holy Trinity pastoral staff discussed options for communion during the past three months, our thinking evolved. When we realized how long it will be until vaccines and effective treatments are available for COVID-19, and how difficult it will be to gather in large groups—when singing is discouraged and communion distribution will need to be overly cautious—we wondered whether online worship will be normative for many folks in our community for quite some time. Even when groups of 10 – 50 may share communion at church, others in high risk health categories may not feel comfortable returning to church for much longer than we first imagined.

The above considerations have led us to propose a path forward for Holy Trinity that is as pastoral, adaptive, and inclusive as possible. A few of our members remember when communion was offered four times a year. Personally, I have experienced weekly eucharist since the late 1970s which is coincidentally about when Holy Trinity began offering communion each Sunday. We are now in an extraordinary time. Though weekly eucharist is Holy Trinity’s normative pattern, the proposals below reflect pastoral compromises needed at this time. 

As the Holy Trinity staff—and 24 others in our congregation with theological training—discussed possible individual paths forward, none of them seemed ideal for either practical, pastoral or theological reasons. (Please contact Beau in the church office if you would like to receive a number of documents and links to online theological articles regarding communion in a time of quarantine.)

Realizing our diverse community’s contexts, needs and preferences, we recommend a threefold (we like three’s!) approach to communion in the coming months. We intend for these to be provisional rather than normative.

THREE MEANS OF COMMUNION

1.     In-person small gatherings with communion. Beginning this month, we will offer small (ten persons) midweek services in the HTLakeview garden. Eventually, such small services will also be offered at HTLoop. Eventually, we anticipate a time when we will gather inside at 25% capacity of the worship space (approximately 50 at HTLakeview and 30 at HTLoop). Body temperatures will be taken on arrival, social distancing will be practiced, and masks will be worn. There will be no assembly singing, and only bread or wafers will be offered at communion. These liturgies will be brief and simple. 

2.     Communion as part of the Sunday online service. Later this summer we will include the eucharist on select Sundays as part of our Zoom liturgy. We will encourage those who desire to participate to prepare carefully and reverently: setting out a special cloth, obtaining wine or grape juice and some form of bread before the liturgy begins. Since baking bread has been so central to many during the pandemic, we will invite folks to bake their own bread, perhaps using a recipe used at Holy Trinity.

Eucharist is an embodied liturgy in real time and space, yet we have experienced a strong sense of community during our Sunday Zoom services. We hold and display our bowls of waters, crosses, palms and candles. We see each other’s faces. We cross ourselves and pray with outstretched arms. We sense the Spirit in scripture, preaching, prayer and singing. To many of us, it seems reasonable that the Holy Spirit can bless bread and wine, and us—the community—through digital means. How important it is to remember that eucharist is communal: we eat and drink together, and through this act God transforms us to be the body of Christ for the world.

However, there are cautions to name. Though most Holy Trinity members have access to computers or mobile phones, some do not have these devices. The eucharist is strongly connected to social justice and the hunger of the world. An online eucharist may preclude an open table and may create a digital divide marked by privilege. We must to continue to raise up the social justice dimensions of the eucharist, reminding ourselves that we are nourished to live out our baptismal calling to be the body of Christ for our broken world.

At the same time, this is a time of unrest, anxiety, and isolation. The eucharist is a gift of grace to strengthen our faith for these most difficult times wherever we find ourselves. While some insist that worship in front of a screen is disembodied, could it be that dipping our hands in a bowl of water, and sharing bread and wine are the very acts that remind us that we are bodies and connect us to the multi-sensory liturgy so central to Holy Trinity? 

Rather than predetermine a schedule for online communion, we will experiment and adapt our pattern based on the spiritual, health and safety concerns that emerge in the coming months.

3.     Distribution of communion to those at home. The ELCA currently has a practice of taking bread and wine from the Sunday assembly to those hospitalized or homebound. We anticipate there will be situations in which a pastor, deacon, family member, or church member will be able to bring communion to someone who is homebound or should avoid gatherings for health reasons. Whether individuals would be able to gather and commune inside or outside with masks, or whether the elements are delivered at a door with the words, “peace be with you; the body and blood of Christ for you,” (with a printed text or recording to use), will vary based on personal circumstances as well as health and safety issues.

Provisional rather than normative

You may be more or less comfortable with one or more of the options above. I hope that we will continue to embody Holy Trinity’s value of openness with added measures of humility, patience, and compassion for one another as we discern wisdom for these challenging times.

Since our situations vary and it is hard to know what the next months or years will hold, please consider these proposals as provisional rather than normative. These extraordinary times call for pastoral approaches that are grace-filled and expansive.

We are one body in Christ. May God continue to strengthen and nourish us with the gifts of community, word, meal, baptismal remembrance, silence, music, and a passion for justice and peace in all the earth.  

Pastor Craig Mueller

Church and COVID-19

During these days of COVID-19 (coronavirus) concerns, there are several best practices that we can undertake to protect each other, especially the most vulnerable among us, from illness as much as possible:

• Come to church as long as you are free of symptoms and have not been in conscious contact with persons and places of known exposure to the virus. If you are sick, please stay home from worship. This is a practice of “thinking beyond ourselves” and caring for all members of our community, particularly the most vulnerable. More and more we are offering livestreaming of services and sermons and service recordings are posted on Mondays.

• Wash your hands often. Soap and water are your best defense. Wash your hands long enough to say the Lord’s Prayer. Hand sanitizer is always available for your use before receiving communion. Your pastors will wash their hands immediately before communion and those who administer the wine will use hand sanitizer before receiving the cup.

• Consider a no-touch sharing of the peace. A simple bow is a wonderful no-touch way to recognize the presence of God in each other at the peace. It is always a best practice to ask before touching one another during the peace at any time (read more about consent culture in the church here).

• Drinking from the common cup is the most sanitary way to receive the wine at communion. Intinction (dipping the bread in the wine) is discouraged. AT HTLOOP, because we don’t have separate cups for common cup and intinction, we ask you to REFRAIN FROM INTICTION and either drink from the common cup or receive only the bread. Receiving the bread or gluten-free wafer alone is a full and complete reception of communion.