Presentation of Our Lord/Candlemas

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like …

Endless winter. That may be your first thought after the past week of weather.

It may seem a long time since Christmas. Blustery and cold as it is, yet one by one, the days are getting longer.

But we get a brief reprise of Christmas today. Well, not exactly Christmas. Yet, Jesus is a baby again. On the church’s calendar it is the feast of the Presentation of Our Lord. The feast day has a nickname as well. It is sometimes called “Candlemas,” because of the tradition of blessing candles on this day.

Our church calendar can seem out of sync if you think too much about it. Each year, we mark the entirety of Jesus life, from birth to resurrection. Yet, the cycle of pregnancy and birth dictate certain festivals. The annunciation is nine months before Christmas. The nativity of John the Baptist is exactly six months before Christmas, at the summer solstice. And Presentation/Candlemas is forty days after Christmas, even in years when Lent follows on its heels.

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus is presented in the temple forty days after his birth. The remarkable story involves two memorable, aged saints—Anna and Simeon. Before they die, they see the fulfillment of God’s promises as they take the Holy Child in their arms.

The story even includes a hit song from scripture—sometimes called the Nunc Dimittis. You may recognize the first line: Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace … Simeon proclaims that Jesus will be a light for revelation to the nations and the glory of Israel. Light, candles, you get the picture.

You may think of February 2nd as Groundhog Day and consider it a mere secular flirt with the coming of spring. Yet the origin of the day is in folklore of northern Europe. German farmers believed that if they saw an animal’s shadow on Candlemas, there would be six more weeks of winter.

February 2 is a hinge—between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. We get a little taste of Christmas again. At the same time, we look to the coming of spring and the lengthening of days, as we celebrate Jesus as the One whose death and resurrection brings light and healing to the world.

Spirituality Group Resumes January 19

Third Tuesday of the month, 7:00 - 8:15pm

Each month we ask you to read an article or book excerpt which will explore a spirituality-related theme. The Zoom gatherings will include conversation in large and small groups, and will conclude with Compline (Prayer at the Close of the Day).

For group continuity, we ask you to sign up for these four dates: January 19, February 16, March 16, April 20

Preparing for All Saints

For our All Saints celebrations (October 31/November 1 this year) we typically bring photos of departed loved ones and display them on the tables of remembrance in our worship spaces. This year, of of course, we will be doing this digitally.

We invite you to:

• Email photos of your departed loved ones to Beau Surratt at office@htchicago.org. Please indicate the name(s) of the people pictured and their relationship to you.

• Put together your own table of remembrance with photos of departed loved ones, objects that were important to them, candles, etc. Record a video of you/your family placing objects on your table of remembrance or of the already prepared table with burning candles. You can upload your video here. Or simply take a photo of your table of remembrance and email it to Beau Surratt at office@htchicago.org.

Help us create a visual great cloud of witnesses as we celebrate All Saints!

Fair Tax Ballot Initative Workshop Followup

Below is the link to the recent Fair Tax Ballot Initiative worship with ONE Northside along with some followup resources provided by ONE Northside:

• Pledge to vote YES on Fair Tax: bit.ly/holytrinityfairtax

• Sign up to phonebank or textbank: bit.ly/fairtaxphonebank

• Handout: bit.ly/fairtaxhandoutnew

• Tax calculator: https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/gov/fairtax/Pages/default.aspx

Confirmation: A Team Sport

It’s no secret that I love doing baptisms at Holy Trinity. It is a delightful experience to hold each baby (even the crying ones) and dunk them in the water of new life in Christ. As the water drips off of their naked bodies, we sing ♫“You have put on Christ” and I can’t help but beam with joy for the newly baptized. 

On the day of your baptism, God said “yes” to you. You are wanted, loved, forgiven and chosen to live among God’s faithful people with grace and purpose. On each person’s baptism day, God’s people gather to add their “yes!” to God’s “yes!” for the newly baptized. As baptized Christians participating in another’s baptism during worship, we promise to receive them as wanted, loved, forgiven, and chosen people. 

And we make promises to be in relationship together with God’s people as they develop in Christian faith and life. 

Confirmation instruction is one of the many ways we live out that promise to help them grow in the Chrisitan faith and life. At the time of their confirmation those now grown babies will affirm their faith--the faith in which they were baptized. We’ll repeat the the marks of a Christian faith and life that were spoken at their baptism: 

to live among God’s faithful people, 

to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper

to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed

To care for others and the world God made

And to work for justice and peace in all the earth. 

Promises made at baptism are nurtured in the life of the congregation. Confirmands need mentoring and nurturing from their community of faith to grow, question, appreciate, learn from and live into a baptismal way of life; a Christian way of life. In other words they need you; yes, you! 

This year’s confirmation instruction will be guided by a curriculum called Chosen Together. I like the name because we are in this together. Confirmation is not just for the pastors, confirmands and their parents, but the whole congregation is encouraged to be part of their faith formation. Throughout Chosen Together confirmation, the students will be expected to talk with others in the congregation about their faith and they’ll ask you questions that help us to reflect on what we are learning in class. Typically this would happen in the pews after worship, but because of the pandemic, they’ll need to do phone calls or zoom. It would be helpful to have a long list of people who say “yes” to being contacted by our confirmands. If you're open to 10-15 minute conversations with our confirmands, please let me know. 

Confirmation is a “team sport,” meaning that confirmation is only ever as strong as the surrounding community. Thank you for being part of the Holy Trinity “Confirmation Team” and committing to engage with others in the Christian faith and life through words and actions.

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.

Update on Holy Trinity’s Prison Ministry

The pandemic has for now suspended our usual collection and mailing of used books to several prisons and personal visits to the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center for Women in Aurora IL: visits which have included resume and job interview seminars conducted by Ryan LaHurd and hygiene kits donated and delivered by Patrice Macken.

However, the 75 women residents, who are permitted to leave the residence for local employment, rely also on our annual gift of supplies for journaling. Using past loose offerings to this ministry fund, we recently sent hundreds of composition books, poly three-prong folders, and colored pencils. The Center supervisor emailed these words, “Thanks immensely again for your kindness and generosity! Your donations allow us to expand resident access to additional items and activities that allow residents to experience joy during these challenging times.”

Fair Tax Ballot Initiative (Ken Duckmann)

Why am I involved in the work?

Since joining Holy Trinity in 1994, I have been involved in many social justice issues important to our church community as well as to the larger community around Holy Trinity. Since the late 1990s I’ve been involved with the Lakeview Action Coalition, the predecessor agency to ONE: Northside (ONS), working specifically with police accountability and hate crimes in the Lakeview neighborhood. I’ve served as our representative since 2012 and helped guide LAC’s merger into the ONE: Northside organization we work with today. My faith compels me to work for justice, whether its been on the LAC or ONS, Lutherans Concerned (now Reconciling Works), the Synod’s Anti-racism ministry or our own anti-racism ministry, the Chicago CROP Walk, The Night Ministry or the Lakeview Pantry. The reality is that Jesus words in Matthew 25:42-44, “for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” And Jesus reply in verse 45, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” – is my guiding principle as to how I attempt to live out my faith.

What does it mean for the HT community?

Currently, one of the most pressing issues before us is the November election, specifically on a local level we have a ballot initiative on Fair Tax. Maybe you’ve heard about it on the television. Lately you cannot miss the advertising – either for or against it. On Sunday, September 27, after worship we’ll have an opportunity to learn more about the Fair Tax and what its implications are for us and the entire state of Illinois. This ballot initiative to amend our constitution happens very rarely. You’re probably wondering why, Ken, are you involved in the Fair Tax initiative. One, because of my work and involvement with ONS but secondly, and more importantly, because it is a place of fairness and equity. Currently, our tax system is out-of-whack and has been for much too long. The bottom fifth of Illinois taxpayers (those making less than $21,800) contribute 14.4% of their income to state and local taxes compared to 7.4% for the top 1 percent of Illinois taxpayers. The change will generate additional revenue for our state which can then be used to address funding for critical programs; such as: education, public safety, and social service services (mental health and substance abuse, as examples). It’s a place of justice and fairness. It’s why I’m helping work to get people to understand the implications on this ballot initiative.

Please join me on Sunday, September 27 following the 9:30am service for a special forum on the Fair Tax ballot initiative with representatives from ONE Northside.

Turning Our Stories into Song: Seminarian Sarah Krolak's Ministry Project

Good morning! My name is Sarah Krolak and I was a ministry in context seminarian at Holy Trinity last year. I was primarily at the Loop but you may have seen me at the Lakeview site a few times as well.

My spring project last semester was to write an offertory song using some of the words and stories I collected from the Holy Trinity community. The story gathering process started at the end of February with conversation during a forum at the Loop. And then I put questions on posters in the reception space for people to write on, I made a Google form, and when we went online, I posted questions in the Holy Trinity community Facebook group.

Once I had a plethora of responses, I read through them all a million times and let them simmer for a while. Then I compiled them all onto a single piece of paper and looked through them to find recurring experiences and themes. It was next to impossible to find words that would fully encompass everything that you shared, but the thread that connected every single one of your responses was God’s presence in our lives, so this became the central focus of the song: God is here.

From there, I narrowed it down to a few different spaces where you’re especially aware of God’s presence, and these became the verses.

-God is present in the city, in Chicago. In the people here.

-God is present in nature, there were a lot of specific examples for this one!

-God is present in life passages and community. Weddings. Baptisms. Moving and transitions. Funerals. The family of God holding each other through it all.

-And God is present in Holy Communion.

God is here! God is here all around us, God has given us all these things, and we are called into the world to share this abundance with others.

I am so excited to finally share this song with you today! Since we aren’t able to debut it in person yet, I recorded it for you. I hope you are able to hear some of your stories reflected in this song. Thank you for sharing them with me and for letting me write a song that lifts all these things up to God.

At home... (Pr. Craig Mueller)

Several weeks into the pandemic The New York Times suspended the travel and sports sections of their Sunday edition. Instead, a new section, At Home, includes simple recipes, ideas for family games and art projects, and creative suggestions for making the most of quarantine.

We are into the twenty-second week of this weird reality of staying home and experiencing much of life through our computers: video conferencing with work colleagues and families; classes, advocacy and interest groups; and yes, even church. Thanks to all who filled out Holy Trinity’s survey regarding online worship, communion, and returning to our building. We have had a great response so far, but we would like as many as possible to participate—this coming Sunday is the deadline.

The more we learn about the coronavirus and vaccines, the more we sense we will not be returning soon to the lives we knew only a year ago. It appears that most churches, schools, and other organizations will be moving to a hybrid approach in the future: a combination of in-person and online gatherings.

There are many losses that I grieve in not being together in person for the multisensory liturgy that we treasure. At the same time, these next months and years will be an opportunity for us to see our homes as a locus of ritual and spirituality. I envy Jews for the rich ritual experience centered in their homes: Passover seders, lighting Chanukah candles, and of course, the weekly Shabbat meal that ushers in the Sabbath. Throughout the day faithful Jews recite blessings, connecting faith and their everyday lives.

In some Christian circles the home is sometimes called the “domestic church.” Though we may gather on Sunday as the assembly of God’s people, it is in the home where most of the daily rhythms of life occur: preparing meals and eating, cleaning and working, conversing and sharing hospitality, resting and sleeping.

Yet to use the word “home” does not suggest simply one picture. It may be a large house, an apartment, a single room, or a bed in a care center. It can be a retirement home or a convent. It may include children with one or more parents. It may be for one person, a group of people living together, or roommates. In all these settings the ordinary patterns of daily life hold the opportunity for celebrating God’s gracious presence.

I hope that our congregation, denomination, and publishing house develop new materials to help us pray and observe rituals in our home. Someone suggested to me that we should not only bless backpacks, but we should also bless masks and computers, for example.

A simple way to begin is meal blessing and prayers, if you are not already doing so. Here is a starter kit. Mix and match among these options:

• Make the sign of the cross.

• Be mindful of the food before you. Pause, look at the food for a moment of silence before you eat.

• Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed. Blessed be God who is our bread. May all the world be clothed and fed.

• Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts which we are about to receive from your bounty. Through Christ our Lord.

• O give thanks to the Lord whose mercy endures forever.

• The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season. You open wide your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

• May all be fed. May all be healed. May all be loved.

• For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.

• O God, bless this food we are about to receive. Give bread to those who hunger, and hunger for justice to those of us who have bread. (Nicaraguan)

• Families: check out Peanut Butter and Jelly Prayers (Morehouse, 2016) by our own Julie Sevig.

Though not together in person on Sundays, may you experience blessings of grace these days even as you bless God in times of both joy and sorrow, plenty and want.

ONE Northside Fair Tax Initiative

Fair Tax Illinois + What is it? What is the purpose?

Holy Trinity has been involved with ONE: Northside (ONS) and its predecessor organization, the Lakeview Action Coalition, since the mid-to-late 1990s. Our involvement over the years has been to work for fair housing, police accountability, healthcare access, and the like. Currently, we are being asked to join our partnership on educating people on the Fair Tax. Over the course of the next few weeks as we move closer to the November election we'll be providing opportunities for you to learn more about the implications of the Fair Tax for us and all Illinoisans. Over the last two months we, Kerry Fleming and Ken Duckmann, have had presentations to our congregation council. Currently, the plan is to provide a workshop on Sunday, September 27 after the 9:30am service, via Zoom. Stay tuned for further details.

Why are we involved in this work. First, because of our partnership with ONS. Second, because we believe a more fair tax system and structure is what our faith calls us to be about. As we presented to council, to sum up our efforts in educating us all on the Fair Tax - Holy Trinity’s partnership with ONE: Northside calls us to facilitate the passage of the Fair Tax Initiative. It intersects with all our social ministry work in that it confronts the same inequalities and inequities in our society. It reminds us, as a congregation, to act with courage and engage intentionally.

Online Liturgy with Communion + Sunday, August 2 + 9:30am

Information on communion at Holy Trinity during quarantine may be found here.

How shall I prepare for communion in my home?

1. Set a table as if you were hosting a special guest, which in this case is the Risen Christ. Put out a tablecloth or piece of fabric. Choose a small plate and a wine glass or cup. Light a candle. Place other sacred items on the table such as a bible, icon, or flowers.

2. BREAD. One option is to purchase a small baguette or dinner roll. Or consider baking bread, which is a holy experience in and of itself. Though any recipe for bread is fine (even without yeast), you may want to make the Holy Trinity communion bread recipe, perhaps making half of the recipe. You could freeze some of the loaves for future services.

3. WINE/JUICE. You may use a bottle of wine and drink the rest of it over the next few days. Some wineries (such as Sutter Home) make small 187 ml bottles. Grape juice (or another kind of juice) is fine, too.

How will communion online work?

Gathered as a live community via Zoom, during the prayer of thanksgiving (in gallery view), the assembly will hold up their bread and wine as we pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon us and the meal we share. At the time of communion, those gathered with others will say to one another, “the body of Christ given for you,” and “the blood of Christ shed for you.” If you live alone, the presiding minister will say these words to you as you eat and drink. Though we are gathered as a community, Christ’s presence and promise of forgiveness and grace is for each individual person.

What if I choose not to commune online?

As we do in the church building, a blessing will be spoken for all those not communing. Christ is truly present in the Word of life, and in the Spirit within us.

When will communion be offered at HTLakeview or HTLoop?

In June we offered communion in HTLakeview’s garden and had only five express interest. We anticipate there will be opportunities for small groups to receive communion in person, at some point. Please speak with one of the pastors to discuss communion brought to your home, if that is advisable.

What should I do with the bread or wine not consumed in the liturgy?

As the ELCA sacramental statement recommends and as we practice at Holy Trinity, the remaining bread and wine are consumed following the service (or at meals throughout the day). It is also possible to pour remaining wine on the ground and to place bread there for the birds and as a gift for creation. In all cases, “the bread and wine of Communion are handled with care and reverence, out of a sense of the value both of what has been set apart by the Word as a bearer of the presence of Christ and of God's good creation.” (Use of the Means of Grace, #47)

How is communion related to Holy Trinity’s mission?

The eucharist is not only for spiritual comfort and to strengthen our faith. We become what we eat. We are the body of Christ for a suffering world. In a post-communion prayer that we often use: O God, we give you thanks that you have set before us this feast, the body and blood of your Son. By your Spirit strengthen us to serve all in need and give ourselves away as bread for the hungry, through Christ our Lord.

Is online communion the new norm for Holy Trinity?

Because these are extraordinary times, Holy Trinity’s staff recommends this practice for pastoral reasons. Communion online (as part of a live Zoom communal liturgy) will be offered monthly for the time being.

Composting at HTLakeview!

In the fall of 2018 Holy Trinity contracted with Collective Resource Compost to provide compost collection service at HTLakeview. With this, we began composting food scraps from all church events as well as the compostable cups, plates, utensils, and more that we had begun using.

We also began to slowly explore inviting Holy Trinity members to bring compost from their homes, knowing that many in our urban environment aren’t able to compost at their homes (did you know that with a commercial composting service like Collective Resource you can compost meat, bones, pizza boxes, and other things you can’t compost at your home?) and don’t have composting services provided by their apartment or condo buildings.

If you’ve not been composting during the pandemic, now is the time to resume. And if you haven’t saved food scraps and the like for composting before because you didn’t have any place to compost them, now you do!

Bring your food scraps and other compostables to the HTLakeview garden and put them in the compost bin just outside of the building entrance in the garden.

If your compostables are bagged, please be sure they are in a compostable bag. View a list of compostables here or in the graphic below. Be sure you have your own hand sanitizer to clean your hands after touching the bin as the building will not likely be accessible unless you make arrangements to come when someone is in the office.

If you choose to bring compostables to HTLC it would be helpful if you would let our administrator, Beau Surratt (office@htchicago.org or 773-248-1233), know so that he can keep track of how many are using this service.

We are grateful to be able to offer this way for our community to continue to practice care of creation even as we continue to refrain from large gatherings with food during the pandemic.

#WisdomWednesday "Wage Peace" by Judyth Hill

Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,

breathe out whole buildings

and flocks of redwing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children

and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen

and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening:

hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools:

flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,

imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty

or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.

Don't wait another minute.

Midsummer/St. John's Day

June 24 is a summer festival! June 24 is the feast commemorating the birth of John the Baptist. The feast brings together images of sun, solstice, and midsummer. According to Luke's gospel, John was six months older than Jesus, so this festival is exactly six months before December 24. The nativity of John was established very early in the church's history, about the same time as Christmas.

As Christmas takes place near the winter solstice when the nights are longest (in the Northern Hemisphere), St. John's Day occurs near the summer solstice when the sun is bright and the days are the longest of the year. Summer does not seem as reflective as a cold, winter night. The air is filled with sound, heat, birds, and bugs, for example. Yet the hum of summer and the abundant, green vegetation speak of fullness and even paradise.

In many parts of the world, St. John's Day is a major holiday connected to midsummer (which doesn't mean the middle of the summer, but the days around the summer solstice). The European tradition of spending the whole night outdoors was immortalized in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Both water and fire are emblems of John: the water of baptism and the fire of the sun. On midsummer's eve, in some places around the world, St. John's fires are lit along the water or people dance around huge bonfires. In Sweden people dance around a Maypole and in some places in Germany the village green is decorated with a "Johanniskrone" a woven wreath or "crown" of twigs and leaves decorated with flowers and ribbons.

At the winter solstice we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the sun of righteousness, and at the summer solstice we celebrate another birth: John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth. The births are told in a parallel fashion in Luke 1 and 2. In pointing the way to the Messiah, John says, "he must increase and I must decrease." The sun shines brightest at this time of year, but in the next six months it will decrease, minutes a day, until the winter solstice.

As Christopher Hill writes, "At St. John's moment of midsummer, the cross, where time and the timeless intersect, its arms going off in four directions, takes on the completeness of the circle, the fiery wheel of the summer sun." And what is John's connection to the sun? In the words of the prophecy uttered by John's father, Zechariah (and the Benedictus canticle, sung in Morning Prayer): "You, my child ... shall go before the Lord to prepare the way. In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high (the sun) will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and sit in the shadow of death."

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

Did I Have A Dream Last Night?

While the stay-at-home/social distancing order continues, I gently invite us all into our own interiority via our nightly dreams. Our busy outside life is quieter and our inner awareness has space to beckon us more clearly. Interest in dreams during the pandemic has increased greatly, attesting to what we are all experiencing.

Thank you to the HT group that met last week at our introduction to dream work session. I have included here another poem, In Praise of Dreams, by Wislawa Szymborska. In addition, here is a link to a book chapter Pastor Mueller wrote a number of years ago on dreaming and our spirituality.

Karol Weigelt,
Spiritual Life Center
karolweigelt@gmail.com

Urgent Need from the Lakeview Pantry

Volunteers Needed:  Since the COVID-19 outbreak hit the city, visitors to Lakeview Pantry, Chicago’s largest food pantry, including all of the Pantry’s food programs (physical sites, Online Market and Home Delivery) have increased by over 80%. To help keep up with demand, and offer a safe space for volunteers to help sort and pack food, the Pantry will be setting up and managing a temporary satellite food distribution center on the main concourse at Wrigley Field. They are in need of more volunteers to meet demand, visit  lakeviewpantry.org/volunteer/  to learn more and sign up. Can’t volunteer? Consider making a donation to help those in need.

Exploring the intersections of race and criminal in/justice

Exploring the intersections of race and criminal in/justice

One warm summer day in the 1950s, when I was about four years old, our family drove the 25 miles from our small East Tennessee town to shop at the Sears Roebuck store in Knoxville. My most vivid memory from that “big city” excursion was seeing the two drinking fountains in Sears: a refrigerated one with a big “whites only” sign and a smaller, non-refrigerated bubbler labeled “coloreds.” I am grateful for my parents’ efforts so many years ago to help their very young child comprehend this injustice.

Many decades later Ryan and I witnessed another, much more pernicious, form of racism when visiting a friend serving time in prison. The incarcerated male population there was overwhelming African-American. Partly in response to that experience, and once we initiated Holy Trinity’s prison book ministry in 2013, I have been studying the intersections of race and the criminal justice system in the United States. I have been heartened by the anti-racism efforts of our synod and our congregation, which enriches the lives of prisoners by sending books and supplies the state does not provide.

Each year at the June Printer’s Row Lit Fest, our church’s booth includes a resource handout with blurbs about such important books as The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010) by Michelle Alexander and Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (2017) by James Forman Jr. Especially compelling is Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014), by Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson. There’s a free study guide at https://justmercy.eji.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/just-mercy-discussion-guide.pdf. The newly-released film version about one man wrongly placed on death row is reviewed at https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/just-mercy-movie-review-michael-b-jordan-930607/, and you can see the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVQbeG5yW78.

Educating yourself on the issues is one great way to participate in Holy Trinity’s prison ministry. Here are a few more:

• Donate used books to this year's drive on Saturday-Sunday April 25-26 and May 2-3. See full book donation guidelines at http://www.holytrinitychicago.org/ministries/prison.

• Make a monetary donation to the loose offerings at designated services to help cover the costs of materials for packing and postage for shipping dozens of boxes of books to several Illinois prisons.

• Sign up for a shift at the Holy Trinity booth at Printer's Row Lit Fest on June 6-7, 2020, and share information about this ministry. Previous experience with the prison ministry is not necessary.

• Continue bringing good condition women's clothing, shoes, purses, coats, etc., for use by women entering the labor market from the Fox Valley Transition Center in Aurora. Please deposit items (clearly marked and in a paper or plastic bag) in the basket marked "Fox Valley" in the HT Lakeview narthex or give them to Pr. Ben Adams at HTLoop.

Carol LaHurd cslahurd@comcast.net

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.