Exiles Like Us...

On Maundy Thursday I will be interviewed on television.

www.C19.TV

Not on BIG television, like CNN, Fox, MSNBC or anything; and not by anyone with a lot of name recognition or has the President on speed-dial (or vice versa).

Instead, my old Geezer bandmate, Greg Tillman, who teaches communications at Cleveland Community College, used to run the Shelby CNN affiliate and still produces TV shows for the college to show on the local access channel, has asked me to come talk about COVID-19’s current and long-term impact on the church.

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He will be the interviewer. I have a 13-minute spot. Sure.  Plenty of time.

I am sure he wants me to talk about some of the practical aspect of things—and there is much to consider, a lot of it financial, and not least: whether small congregations will be able to survive, how long it will take larger congregations to recover, if pastors and staff people will be furloughed (no; at least five years after the “all clear”; yes, lots).

But I will be more interested in talking about a real paradigm shift that is, I think, inescapable—for better and worse.

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A bit of history:

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When Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE, the leading citizens were deported from the holy city to the pagan kingdom. They “hung up” their harps by the rivers of Babylon” because they did not know how to “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land” (Psalm 137).

Only, eventually, they did. Learned. Adapted. Wrote new songs to sing. It took a while, for the people and there worship were “coupled” to the Temple, to the priests and sacrifices. For generations they have made glad pilgrimage pilgrimage “up to Jerusalem,” and the trip and the worship were worth all the effort.

Over time in their new “home,” though, they began gathering in small groups—eventually called
synagogues. They prayed together and studied the sacred texts under the instruction of lay Teachers—eventually called rabbis. Their time in Exile, their displacement from the land and their accustomed practices forced them to adapt. No longer was God “located” only in Jerusalem, nor did worship have to include either religious experts or animal sacrifice.

I think of the ways many churches are adapting in this time of exile: live stream worship services, virtual communion, online Bible studies, mid-day Facebook prayers, email encouragements, “together, but separate” praying using a common source or the Psalms. We are not together physically, but we have maintained the ties that bind our hearts in Christian loves.

When the exiles came back to Jerusalem, thirty-nine years after they left, many people (especially the priests and other religious professionals, wanted to jettison the synagogue and get back to the ways and means of worship from before the Exile (Temple, priest, sacrifice). But some felt more at home, closer to God and each other, in those small groups, worshiping in the ways they learned to sing of the Lord in that land (synagogue, rabbis, prayer).

I suspect that when our time of exile is over, we too will find some who want to put our adaptations behind us and get back to church and worship, choirs and Sunday School, mid-week dinners and other activities. And surely we will. But…

I also suspect that there will be many who feel very much like the adaptations are the new norm, and that the ways we used to do it, while still important, will not be as crucial as they were. Perhaps we gather once a quarter, for baptisms and Holy Communion (the way faithful Jews went up to Jerusalem three times a years). The rest of the time, small groups, house church, dinner church, love feasts.

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The good thing is that the new normal will attract and keep people who have no interest in big church. And every big church will have to decide what they have to keep and keep doing, and what can be let go. Phyllis Tickle reminds us that during every “great emergence” there is division, house-cleaning, re-patterning… with the result that the church spreads, grows, and attains new energy and enthusiasm.

The downside, of course, is that there also come resentments, frictions, animosities: the priests and rabbis had an uneasy relationship; there was jealousy and competition between Temple and synagogue; the necessary business of the Jerusalem religious establishment was a constant irritant to those whose souls were devoted to prayer.

Jesus, of course, got caught in the crossfire.

So… for us: big churches or small groups? Professional clergy or lay preachers/small group leaders? Sacraments, or prayer/ethics? Yes.

All I will say is that the Methodist movement was itself an adaptation, not on account of an actual Exile or a pandemic virus (though it could be described as a pandemic of heartless religion that drove those seeking a warmer religion from the parishes). The form it took was small groups—where Bible study, spiritual accountability, prayer fed a “heart religion” and fueled a socially engaged ethic—with the occasional trip to the church for the Sacraments.

Resentment and animosity eventually separated them. But as Tickle says…

I don’t know whether I will be able to say all on TV come Thursday. I would tell you to tune in, but in Charlotte I am not sure you can.