One Year and a Pandemic Later

Jordan’s Installation as Rector in October 2019

2020 has been challenging for so many, and maybe has even left a few wondering "Where is God?" My own experience of this year’s challenges has reminded me that the answer isn't purely academic, it's a lived experience within His body. 

This first year at Church of the Advent has been unexpected: the online ministry, the zooming, the masks, the distancing, the sudden need for janitorial expertise, the constant wondering if what we are doing is wisely managing risk while resisting unhealthy fear. Like everyone else, we've had to rethink everything we do from the ground up. We've probably made some good decisions and some bad ones. We've cared well for some and maybe not as well for others. We've been imperfectly faithful, sometimes bounding freely forward and other times hobbling slowly backwards. There've been canceled events. There've been tech glitches—so many. There've been moments of choosing to be present when it's been practically or emotionally hard. There've been what one of our staff aptly named "pivot fatigue," a sense of exhaustion coming from the need to start with plan B, but be ready to pivot to plan C, D, or E when the Covid dial moves, or a test returns positive, or a cough turns out to be innocent. There've been lost jobs, on the one hand, or on the other, healthcare workers being hit like ping-pong balls between the lulls of empty hospital beds (no elective procedures) and surges of grueling hours accompanied by the looming threat of exposure for themselves and their families. The backdrop for it all, as you are well aware, has been an acidic and politically bipolar news cycle that highlights and reinforces our worst instincts. It has coated everything in a toxic fog—the spiritual compliment to the stifling smoke blanketing our communities. Anxiety, depression, hopelessness, suicide... all on the rise. It feels a little bit like the vital organs of our society are failing. 

And yet, there has been the Church, Christ's body, an alternative society for those who embrace the call of God to find their citizenship in a different Kingdom. At Advent, our body may have been wearied by a new—less comfortable—normal, but the arteries of loving friendship, fervent prayer, spirit-and-truth-word-and-table worship have not failed. They have flourished. A thousand encouraging conversations, dozens of meals for new parents, countless texts and phone calls expressing care and concern, a few hundred feasts at parks all over the city, a million minutes of morning prayer online, back patio classes and vestry meetings, baptisms, confirmations, new members, a Bishop visit, financial gifts given for groceries and rent, offerings sent abroad to help under resourced churches, and cars given away. Counselors, business owners and employees, fathers and mothers, graduates, retirees, scientists, nurses, artists, students, singles—exploring vocation, pointed to the Words of life, sent into their spheres a little more like Jesus. An offense, a shameful sin, a confession heard. Forgiveness spoken. A political conversation, a disagreement, an intent to listen. Relationship strengthened. An ongoing place to hold onto aching grief and stubborn hope with others who know, who understand, who care. Tears of loneliness treasured by a loving friend.  Children let loose from quarantine for a Saturday afternoon birthday party buzzing, like bees pollenating a flourishing garden, with laughter. Tokens of normalcy. A sincere chorus of resurrection expectancy sent into the itching fabric reminder of our sickness. Imperfect, but faithful, because this Church family is held in the stone-strong grip of Jesus whose faithfulness is never in doubt. We hold this truth together weekly as we herald our King and his Kingdom: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again! 

A 2020 lesson for all of us: No man is an island. If you’ve been forced to be one, or chosen to be one, you are feeling that now. I know this because I know myself. If it were not for my vocation, which helpfully challenges me outward when I am more comfortable going inward, it would have been all too easy to embrace my inner hermit this year, as I have in times past. And yet, I know the fruit is isolation, and that it is a bitter reward. The sweet fruit of belonging in a church community requires that you plant a tree in the ground—the investment of your time, talents, and resources. It is costly. 

I simply want to say thank you and well done, Advent, for your example to me, to one another, and to our neighbors and city. Thank you for being this alternative society with flourishing vitals when the world’s sickness suffocates. Thank you for making the costly investment in community this difficult and complicated year. Thank you for your grace to me and our leadership as we’ve imperfectly led you. Thank you, most of all, for your unwavering commitment to be held in the perfect faithfulness of Christ. I know it hasn’t been easy, but thank you that even when you couldn’t always go to church, you were the Church.

May the words of Christ dwell in you richly and the peace of Christ rule in your hearts in these days ahead,

Jordan+