I have always known I am in a dangerous business. This Jesus dude is a radical who makes the comfortable uncomfortable, champions the poor, calls us to justice, and constantly challenges us with notions like love and peace. My work, my very life, is based on some one so dangerous he was killed for his zealotry and vision of God’s way of life.
And it’s not just my life. I have been a pastor for over 16 years now and in that time I have seen how dangerous faith can be in the lives of the people in my congregations. These folks give up their resources in the name of God. They change their lives and are transformed in God’s deep love experienced in community and through service to others. I have walked with folks who switched from lucrative jobs to careers with way lower salaries because they felt that their life could be better spent making less while doing more for their communities. I have seen people embraced by God’s love and then finally claim their true gender identity. Time after time normal people encounter God, deepen their faith, and everything shifts. Faith is dangerous.
These days I’m learning that the patterns of our normal church life together is also dangerous. In this time of Covid-19 research has shown that singing in groups, with choir or as a gathered body singing a hymn, is as bad as coughing at someone when it comes to spreading the novel coronavirus. Handshakes, hugs, shared meals, hands held, anointing, and communion are all parts of our gatherings times. All of these things are dangerous to our health, to the health of our vulnerable folks, to those who become carriers and infect others. Heck just even sitting close to each other breathing the same air for an hour is risky.
When it comes to disrupting systems of oppression, living more simply, loving others, changing my life to protect the planet, challenging the powerful, spending my life in service to others then I’m in. When it comes to figuring out how to grow and learn together online, proclaiming the gospel in love to our neighbors through shared resources, and caring for each other remotely I’m in. I am all about that kind of holy danger. But when it comes to serving the god of the status quo or aligning ourselves with the economic forces of late stage capitalism I am out. In fact I believe that the radical Jesus who died for love, who took on the empire of Rome and spoke of wholeness for the marginalized actually requires me to lead my people into a time of staying away. Jesus said the greatest commandments were to love God and to love our neighbors. The very best way I can love my neighbors is to sacrifice the physical gathering of our community so that all might have life and health. And I believe we are loving God in our church community through online worship, weekly zoom gatherings, regular phone calls with one another, virtual small groups, and sharing resources with others in need. Our church is not closed, we are just temporarily losing our normal life together to gain a different kind of life, one grounded in a deep love of those we don’t even know.
As churches across the US are given permission to open their buildings our buildings will remain closed as a dangerous act of faith, as a dangerous symbol of love. We might lose people because of this choice. We might have smaller offerings. It’s dangerous to choose a different way of being connected, but I’m in a dangerous business and there is no other way I would want to spend my life and my career.
-Eilidh
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