You probably didn’t turn to Ezekiel’s vision in chapter one for comfort during this crisis, but its message is timely. When the Lord appeared to his exiled people with wheels under his throne, he was telling us that he goes where we go, even when we’re scattered from our home. Ironically, that is what a year of stay-at-home orders did to the Church—since the Church is our home. His benevolent mobility is one of his great gifts and provides a category for the blessings Jessica experienced during the lockdowns. Of course, this was minor compared to the dreadful diaspora of the Exile. But diaspora is a more apt word than you might think and offers us a fruitful category for spiritual take-aways from our sojourn.
Evangelicals aren’t used to the idea that God is more-or-less present.
The Presence of God
The people of God experience diaspora whenever they cannot gather with God in their homeland. When Israel was scattered they felt far from God even while they experienced his presence in very real ways, as Jeremiah 29 promised. But Evangelicals aren’t used to the idea that God is more-or-less present. How can that be?
Jesus said he is with us whenever two or three are gathered and that the Spirit dwells in every believer. But ask yourself: why is that so comforting when an omnipresent God is always everywhere anyway? The answer is that God is present in two ways; by his divine nature and by his promises. He is omnipresent by nature, but he is with his people by the promises of his Covenant. We are more familiar with the first kind, so let’s consider some examples of the second. They might help with the conflicting, and nearly universal, feelings Jessica had about the return to real church.
This helps explain why many of us felt a kind of distance from God last year while we also experienced his presence, just like Jessica.
Every Christian enjoys the fruit of God’s promise to dwell in our hearts with an intimacy that he only grants in Christ. But God also made promises that unite his grace and presence to certain acts performed by his people; acts like prayer, reading Scripture, preaching, fellowship, and sacraments. We commonly call those Means of Grace, but they are also rituals especially when enacted by a congregation. Whatever term you prefer, God is present through these ritual means more acutely, as it were, than he is at other times because of his promises.
This should raise a question for Christians about God’s presence—Is he present in the same way with individual believers as he is with a gathered church? The answer is yes and no. As a pastor I thank God that he doesn’t leave the ministry of his presence up to us on Sundays! God dwells in each of us and met us all during those digital Sundays and all the days in between.
Yet, he is also present when we gather as one Body in unique ways. No other setting offers a fuller measure of the things by which God reveals himself than congregational worship. God’s presence in each of us is an unfathomable blessing, but that presence does not make two or three gathered Christians “the Church” or their songs and prayers simply smaller versions of what we do together on Sunday. This explains why many of us felt a kind of distance from God last year while we also experienced his presence, just like Jessica.
This reality is especially poignant in the Lord’s Supper, which is given to demonstrate the power of God’s presence to his gathered people. The Sacrament is a family fellowship meal, but when the Bible speaks of the Church as a family, it describes a more structured and formal reality than “koinonia” can convey, as important as that word is to us. The Church is overseen by shepherds, has a Creed and ethical obligations, and, importantly, is not simply an association of households or individuals. Its basic biblical unit is the local church.
That’s why Paul used the phrase “when you come together” five times while urging the Corinthians to honor the Table.
As an expression of our corporate nature, the Sacraments’ physicality requires the community to be together in order to partake of benefits that Baptism and the Supper grant. The Sacraments are given, in part, to ensure that the Church sees itself as an incarnate community bound by the experience of redemption in the world God redeemed. That can’t be done in a hundred living rooms. That’s why Paul used the phrase “when you come together” five times while urging the Corinthians to honor the Table.
Learning from Returning
The Psalmist said,
The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Psalm 87:2
The Psalmist means God loved Jerusalem more than all the rest of Israel. Why? Because the Temple was in Zion and only there could his children gather to fully worship him. No wonder his people wept when God sent them away. Later, the Spirit told us that believers have, “come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12.22).
Paul said, “because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10.17). In God’s providence the Body was scattered by a deadly virus and Governors’ edicts. That was sorrowful, even tragic, but God’s hard ways are also tender. Now that our diaspora appears to be ending, we have the opportunity to reflect on what we lost when we lost our ability to sing and sup side-by-side and more fully celebrate what has been given back to us.
The Presence of God’s Prescence
My favorite part of Jessica’s post–other than the inviting honesty we’ve all come to expect from her–is her faith to see God work in her during COVID. We are never away from him who lives in us by his Son. As David said, “If I go to the depths, you are there.” God is with you everywhere, always. His presence is his gift. So find him in whatever circumstances you are, good or bad. Doing so will train your soul to experience him more fully in other spaces and seasons. By way of analogy, every meal is a gift, but not every meal is a feast. Give thanks for the sustenance of God’s ever-present presence, but make sure you come hungry to the feast that is Worship.
Dancing in Public
Since our guest blogger wrote a book on her life in the world of ballet, I’ll mix my metaphors and talk about worship as a dance. “Going to church,” during our diaspora meant going to the TV room. The Church survived of course, but streaming worship is like a Zoom dance party; you can bust all the moves you want, but the medium is flat and isolating. Weekly worship can feel that way. Sometimes it’s more habitual than holy and exposing than safe. Trust me, your pastors feel all those things, too. But that’s actually one of the things 2020 took from us. The Sabbath cadence presses us into one another’s presence where worship’s steady patterns anchor us in community.
But back to dancing, Jessica is an amazing dancer. My family, however, may or may not have held an intervention, so I don’t dance anymore. But I do worship in public, and Jessica nailed the exposure we all feel when we do—kids, grandkids, the alluring phone that suddenly has your attention, raisings hands, or not raising hands, singing off key. And then there’s the internal tension of how we feel, or don’t feel during the service. I have no better counsel than to follow her lead. Remember who worship is for and what it’s really about. And if it helps, press the metaphor: If diaspora worship was like a dance party on Zoom, in-person worship is like a dance party in Junior High. Even the cool kids aren’t dong it right.
Health and Healthy Discontentment
Some of the faithful cannot gather due to real health concerns. Some Churches haven’t returned to in-person services yet. If that’s your situation, then get everything you can from what God has provided. When exiled Israelites couldn’t worship at the Temple they met in synagogues. They were humbled and wanted whatever spiritual nourishment they could get in their diaspora. So, it should be with us. Be present and prepared to worship in the manner God has provided during our scattering. Don’t click the link just to “watch church.” Prayerfully engage the moment and ask God to meet you despite the strangeness of the setting.
Resist the urge to tap out of in-person services
But remember that livestreaming is a proxy, and a dangerously convenient one at that. Instead of leaning into it, honor God with holy discontentment. It may be nice to worship in PJs, but even with excellent sermons and beautiful music, it’s only okay. Christ gave you more than just okay. Be thankful for the manna on your screen but renew your longing for the full feast that we are promised. Godly discontentment is a useful skill if it makes you want more of him. And if you still struggle, your pastor told me you can wear your PJs to service.
Deny the Virtual Placebo
Livestreaming is here to stay, I write with deep ambivalence, but Christianity is an incarnated religion with an Incarnate Savior who calls the Church his Body, not his Avatar. Resist the urge to tap out of in-person services after a hard night with the kids (or with your friends). Illness and other obstacles can make watching service the only option, but your community needs you to be present just as you need them to be.
Community may be inconvenient, but it comes in handy when you want to become more like Jesus. And if that’s not enough, perhaps it will help you to consider what worship is like for God when his people are scattered around the city in a hundred living rooms. They can’t see what he has done in others, praise him for his work in the congregation, or be enriched by spiritual gifts he gave to others. And of course, God is there, too. You’d probably not be interested in livestreaming your family’s holiday meal. You want to be with them. He wants to be with us.
The Blessed Newtonian Reality of Real Church
It’s odd, and frankly bewildering, when Christians claim Christianity is not a religion. I get what they’re trying to say, but this most certainly is a religion. We believe in an Ultimate Being, adhere to a Creed, live by an ethic, and practice rituals like prayer that manifest our faith. Indeed, Jesus put two primary rituals at the heart of our life and liturgy. What’s more, those rituals not only involve our bodies which exist here in the very non-virtual world of Isaac Newton, they also use material elements that we touch, feel, and taste. Whatever happened online over the last year (and God certainly used it), you get more and better in the Newtonian spirituality of worship with other people, at a place and a time that requires you to show up in body and mind.
Once you are there, be there for real. Stand to sing, raise your hands, bow your head, fall to your knees, look around and see the rest of your Body, his Body doing the same. Sing loudly, pray earnestly, listen to others doing the same. Chew the Bread. Swallow the Wine. And when you see your brothers and sisters in that place, you see Christ himself in them as he is in you. And when it’s over give them the Right Elbow of Fellowship until that blessed day when you can give them your hand, or perhaps even the Kiss of Peace.
