Easter 2 A 2020: The New “Normal”

Posted by DJL on Apr 13, 2020 in Dear Partner | 5 comments

John 20:19-31

Dear Partner in Preaching,

Well, we made it. We made it through a very different Holy Week and Easter, normally one of the busiest times of the year, a time when our churches typically have more people in and out than during any other eight-day stretch, yet this year stood nearly empty. We made it.

And now we’re wondering when things will get back to normal. At least I am. In Minnesota, we’re two weeks into a five-week shelter-in-place situation and I keep finding myself thinking ahead to when this is over and we can get back to normal. Wondering if maybe we’ll be able to gather for worship sometime in May, perhaps even planning that first Sunday back as the Easter service we couldn’t have together this past Sunday with brass and choirs and hugs and smiles and all the rest.

And then I stop and check myself: really? Do I really think that after we’re beyond this stretch things will go back to the same old, same old? In Minnesota, we’re expected to peak in terms of new COVID-19 cases in late July or early August. And that’s good news, as it means we’ve flattened the curve – which, if I’d heard that phrase three months ago, I would have probably guessed you were referring to a slogan from Weight Watchers! – we’ve flattened the curve sufficiently for hospitals to prepare and lessen the suffering and loss of life associated with the unabated spikes experienced by some communities. But it also means that we probably won’t be gathering in large numbers before then… or anytime soon after. In fact, we may not be gathering in groups of more than 50, let alone 250, until there is a vaccine or a sufficient percentage of the population has already been infected. So we may not be worshiping in person for six… or twelve… or even eighteen months. We just don’t know. Which means that what we’ve been thinking about as interim or emergency practices may become the new normal.

And, truth be told, even when things do resume more along the lines of what we’re accustomed to, we may have pause to consider whether we want to embrace fully what we once called “normal.” This pandemic has exposed more deeply some of the inequities we have perhaps accepted too easily. Those in “white-collar jobs” had a far easier time sheltering-in-place and working at home than those with “blue-collar jobs.” Those making minimum wage, including grocery workers and warehouse and delivery service employees, typically had to keep at their jobs whether they had sufficient protective gear or not. And the fragility of a shrinking middle class, limited financial savings, and healthcare beyond the reach of too many has been devastating to major sections of the population. Will we, can we, do we want to go back to this normal?

All of which puts me in mind of Thomas, the featured character in the second half of John’s Easter story that we’ll hear this Sunday. Actually, we hear this reading each year at this time, as Thomas’ story in one of the few “fixed” stories featured on the same Sunday each year across the three-year RCL. But this year it sounded quite different to me.

I know that we tend to think of Thomas in terms of his doubting, but what if that doubt were part of a larger insistence on dealing with reality, on getting things back to normal, on moving forward now that the worst has happened? I mean, why isn’t Thomas in the upper room when Jesus makes his first appearance? Maybe it’s because, unlike the other disciples who are hiding behind locked doors, Thomas has already accepted what has happened, has moved on, and is now out and about rebuilding his life from the fractured pieces that were left to him after the horrific events of Good Friday. We know he prefers things that are clear and concrete; he’s the one who challenges Jesus’ lofty words about going on ahead of them, saying bluntly, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5). And we know he has courage – he is, after all, the one who urges the disciples to go to Jerusalem with Jesus even if it spells their deaths (Jn. 11:16). Which is why I wonder if maybe Thomas had already moved on by that first Easter evening, or at least was attempting to, attempting to put things back in order and get back to normal.

I think it’s also why it’s so hard for Thomas to accept the testimony of his friends: “We have seen the Lord.” Keep in mind that Thomas had seen his Lord recently also – on Friday – nailed to a cross in agony and isolation. The joyful confession of the other disciples probably seemed like oh-so-much wishful thinking to this hardboiled realist. Which is why, when he does see his Lord, I think his noticeable change in tune is less about simply coming to faith and more about realizing that, after the resurrection, reality itself had changed and there would be no normal to go back to.

I mean, how do you even talk about “normal” when someone has been raised from the dead? What can possibly be the same? Your work, your sense of meaning, your relationships, your purpose, your view of past, present, and future – all of it is changed irrevocably by God’s act of resurrection in the garden. In fact, St. John’s choice of a burial garden for the initial Easter encounter testifies, I think, to John’s belief that there is more going on here than simply the resurrection of Jesus but that we are witnessing the re-creation of human existence itself.

So when Thomas confesses “My Lord and my God,” he is abandoning all his conceptions of “normal” and opening himself to a very different reality than he could have previously imagined because creation isn’t static but is still happening. Similarly, when Jesus affirms but also stretches his testimony – “Do you believe because you’ve seen…” – and then blesses later believers – “blessed are those who believe and have not seen” – Jesus is simultaneously challenging and inviting and blessing all of us to recognize that, in light of the resurrection, the future is always open.

Rather than focus on “how soon ‘till we can get back to normal?” – the question, I’ll confess, that is easy for me to get stuck on – perhaps the question should be “what will we be free to do, try, and be in this ‘new normal’?” What will we carry forward with us from the “interim” steps we took with regard to worshiping, connecting, teaching, serving and more? What part of our old patterns seem suddenly no just non-essential but perhaps not even that helpful in light of our reinvigorated sense of mission? Will we possibly care, for instance, nearly as much about “getting communion right” – per the incredibly unhelpful, liturgically absolutist, and culturally tone-deaf documents my denomination has been putting out – as we will be concerned about how communion fits into a much broader pattern of nurturing our people in faith so they, in turn, can tend our larger communities with both physical and spiritual needs? We will possibly be so preoccupied with style of worship over its substance? Will we turn outward and recognize the painful but essential levelling effect of the coronavirus to make us realize that we are all – as individuals, congregations, communities, countries, and humanity – inextricably bound to each other and dependent on one another? The future is still open. God is still at work creating, re-creating, and sustaining us to do things we could not have imagined previously.

Okay: one last word, Dear Partner. None of this is as easy as it sounds. Thomas, I believe, died when he saw the Risen Lord. Died to his old beliefs, died to his sense of reality, died to his deepest convictions about himself and the world. Which is why I wonder whether his exclamation, “My Lord and my God” was as much an agonized and bewildered cry as it was joyful, let alone exultant confession. And our shift to the “new normal” that will likely not be normal for long may be similarly painful. But Jesus is there amid the necessary changes and faithful adaptations, calling us forward, blessing us to believe though we do not see, and promising to be with us and for us forever. So blessings on your attempts to lead, on what you are learning about congregational life and ministry, on the words you will share, and on your own journey not simply from disbelief to faith, but from one reality (back to normal) to a new one (there is no normal). The work you are doing and the words you will share this week are vital, faithful, and important. Thank you. Even more, thank God foryou!

Yours in Christ,
David