Fireside Chat

I want to speak a little more informally this morning, since many of you may still be in your pajamas. It feels like it’s been years since we gathered a week ago for worship. So much has changed, so quickly, and continues to change, that it’s dizzying. It’s hard to keep up with what is happening - especially because so far we can’t see it for ourselves. In a matter of hours, the decision to halt worship went from feeling controversial to feeling absolutely welcome. It feels like the earth is moving under our feet - and judging by all the bottled water people are buying, I think some folks do thinks this is an earthquake.

In all seriousness, as our minds adjust to one new reality, we are presented with yet another one. We are told that a wave is coming, and the measures that we must take to prepare are increasingly drastic. But absolutely necessary. As difficult as it is for us all to be diligent in our “social distancing,” and limiting our contact with others - I want to say how heartened I am by how quickly we are all shifting. It is a sign of a unified commitment to loving one another, and especially the most vulnerable among us. And this human experience we are in crosses all of our divisions. If our neighbor needs food, we don’t ask who they voted for. We help them get food.

I am also heartened so much this church community. I’ve already had people message me unasked to volunteer to help anyone who needs groceries or errands, and either can’t or shouldn’t be going out themselves. And I’ve had a couple people ask for help, who have been so grateful that you are there for them. But most of the helping each other that you all do goes on without me even knowing about it. I just get little bits here and there, and I know that you are being who you have always been - doing what you always do - loving one another.

I’m also heartened to share with you that our superintendent has freed up $20,000 from the district budget to go toward gift cards for the families of kids in the free lunch program through our school system. This was first initiated by our own Leroy Barber up in Portland, and John Tucker has adopted this for our area. Pastor Adam over at First UMC is administrating it here in Eugene, and if you’d like to donate to that cause, you can send a check to Wesley with School Gift Cards on the memo and we will get it there. 

So in times like these we see the strength of our community and the goodness of people and we can be so thankful for all the love that motivates unselfish care for our fellow humans. In the days to come, we will get more and more creative about how we do this for one another.

I do want to talk for a few minutes about grief, and about fear. Firstly - we are already experiencing grief as things we love and count on and look forward to are being taken away for awhile, or forever. Not gathering face-to-face in worship this morning is a grief. My family has been so invested in our women’s Duck basketball team and planned to root for them all the way to the national championship, and there was no small outcry of disappointment when the tournament cancelled. When our regular points of human connection are cancelled, we feel a pang of grief. School being cancelled. Concerts. Bridge club. Choir practice. And so on. I have been grieving for the sense of normalcy and stability that I took for granted a few days ago. I grieve the freedom to go where I feel like going, that I know must be curtailed for the good of all. 

But those griefs are manageable. It’s the fear of bigger griefs that threatens to overwhelm. The unknown is looming ahead of us like a dark cloud of fear. And that fear looks a little different for each one of us. It’s collective, but it’s deeply personal. And it’s all out ahead of this moment, of this day. How do we plan for the many possibilities that are ahead of us, without succumbing to the sickness of fear and anxiety over those same possibilities? How do we stay grounded, and well, with so much darkness trying to press in on us?

I want to reflect on our scriptures for a moment. So much of the Bible was written under times of great hardship and oppression. We hardly understand it when we read it from a place of peace and privilege. The passage I read from Romans describes the incredible challenges up to and including death that folks were facing, and still makes the bold claim that there is nothing that can cut us off from the love of God in Christ. “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I pray that you and I would take these words into the next week and maybe adapt this passage to our set of challenges and fears and claim this spirit of overcoming in love for ourselves. I am convinced that neither social distancing nor full quarantine, nor empty shelves nor crashing markets, nor grief or despair, nor boredom nor too many Disney movies, nor sadness or fatigue or even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

I have had the privilege of often meeting for lunch with a group a ladies who are over 90 and even over 100 years old. I admire these women more than I can say, and I’m always trying to milk them for wisdom. They’ve lived through wars and poverty and rationing and diseases before there were vaccines. They’ve lost parents and siblings and husbands and even children to death. They’ve watched the world around them go through staggering changes in their lifetimes. They feel their bodies aging and changing and slowing. And yet the sit with me and eat lunch and laugh and I’ve wondered at their resilience. I’ve even asked them point blank how they’ve gotten so good at living so well, so long. And one of the things I’ve heard from their answers is that they have grown skilled at recognizing what they don’t have any control over, and letting it go into God’s hands. And then focusing on what they can control, and doing their best with it. And they are extraordinarily kind to one another. They don’t waste energy on what they can’t help, and they adjust again and again to what is before them. And, they take one day at a time.

When the Israelites were wandering the desert for 40 years, they initially panicked because they saw only scarcity - no food, no water, nowhere to go. And God provided them through the daily offering of manna. They would gather it each morning and have enough to nourish themselves for the day. But if they gathered more than they needed, it would spoil quickly. They learned to trust that they would have what they needed for the day, and to leave tomorrow’s needs for tomorrow. 

This is why Jesus taught the disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And why, in a beautiful passage about worry, Jesus says do not worry about tomorrow - it will have its own trouble. Today’s is enough for today.

The wisdom of the Lord’s prayer, and the manna, and my wizened old friends is that in trying times, we take it one day at a time. We have all the grace we need for the moment we are living. When our worries get out ahead of us, they threaten to overwhelm us. But when we stay in this day, we find that we have the grace and wisdom and courage and love we need for today. And we can trust it will be true tomorrow as well.  In all things, in ALL things, we have the love of God.

So, I want to encourage you to take these crazy times one day at a time! And I encourage you to look for opportunities that each day brings! There are museums offering free virtual tours. There are symphonies offering free virtual concerts. There are projects that have been sitting around waiting for a good time to be tackled. Slowing down, breathing, reflecting, resting… these are good things that can teach us. There’s goodness in going for a walk in the sunshine. In pulling weeds in the garden.

I encourage you to keep connected with one another. The phones still work! I encourage you to call people and just check in, see how they’re doing, encourage each other. If you have a smart phone, there’s this great app called Marco Polo where can make quick little videos and talk to your friends and family and they can respond and you can see faces. If you’re on social media I encourage you to use it as a way of connecting and supporting one another. And also, not to spend too much time there, where fear and anger can breed faster than a virus.

I also encourage you in the days to come, to take mental breaks from the news and virus information. Don’t let it consume you. Also, be gentle with one another. We aren’t always our best selves under stress, so let’s cut each other, and ourselves, a lot of extra slack.

I do want to encourage you in the strongest possible terms to take seriously this call for social distancing, especially in the next couple of weeks. This is a crucial moment to slow down the spread and flatten the curve, and by taking these measures you are loving your neighbor as you love yourself in a very real way. 

We have an opportunity in these times to live more deeply and more creatively into our mission as a church, to Seek God, Celebrate Community, and Serve the World! I invite each and every one of you to think about how can Seek, Celebrate and Serve each new day in this coming week. You can share your ideas on our Facebook page, or send them to me and I will share them with all of you. 

Friends, the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Let’s take a moment to pray together. First, I will leave open some silence where you all can lift up in prayer whatever joys and concerns are on your heart today, and then I will pray with you all aloud, and then we will pray together the Lord’s Prayer. 

This is still holy time, and holy space. Let us lift up our prayers to God. <silent prayer>

The Lord’s Prayer

Would you sing with me the doxology?