Engaging Life Anew

April 4, 2021 • Easter Sunday •
Reading: Isaiah 25:6-9 (The Voice)
Pastor Jeff Wells

Good morning, Beloved, I am Pastor Jeff Wells. I use he/him pronouns. I am so grateful to be celebrating this Easter Sunday with you and to be preaching from the pulpit in the Church of the Village building at the corner of 7th Avenue and 13th Street in New York City. 

Happy Resurrection Day! Most of you participating in worship morning are online, while some of us leading worship and others who are handling technical roles are here in the building. In a few weeks, we hope to slowly and safely begin inviting members of our community to worship in-person in this space. We are calling this our new reality “online and onsite” – a model for our worship and other kinds of connection as well. Our goal is to grow as a permanently online and onsite community. This is our first Sunday implementing this bold new experiment and I hope you are as excited about this as I am. 

This past year, we have lived through some terrible times and a lot of anxiety, pain, loss, and grief. We all heard the litany at the beginning of worship. It is about the Covid-19 pandemic, but not just about that. It’s also the murder of George Floyd and so many others. It’s the worsening effects and dire predictions about climate change. It’s the plague of hatred and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. It’s also the horrific attack on the Capitol on January 6 – a grave attack on our very imperfect democracy in the U.S. – and sadly, an attack supported and defended by a large percentage of the population. 

In the face of all of this pain, distress, and dread, as humanity begins to get a very tenuous and still very reversible hold on the Covid-19 pandemic, we can begin to wonder what it will mean to return, restore, and re-engage in our individual and communal lives. Covid-19 hasn’t gone away – it will be several months until we can know with some confidence that we are past the worst of it. Even though industries are opening and hiring, the economy is not likely going to rebound overnight. It may take years to recoup the jobs that were lost and to create new, good paying  jobs. Redressing income and wealth inequality will be an even greater task. Racism and white supremacy have not gone away and it will take decades, if not generations, to see fundamental transformation of access, income, wealth accumulation, and life circumstances of the majority of people of color, especially Black people in the U.S., that we so desperately need.

On the other hand, there are signs of hope. We are seeing faster than predicted access and vaccination rates. While it is a messy process, we can be very grateful for the changes in the U.S. government’s treatment of immigrants. Even though they are imperfect and painful, conversations around racism are happening in thousands of organizations and communities where they were previously muted or absent. Finally, people are listening to one another’s stories and perspectives – learning from one another.

In the midst of all of this, there is one thing we know – we can’t go back to the way things were before. We have seen too much, our eyes have been opened and our spirits awakened. So much needs to change and so much ought never be the same again. 

Certainly, our own Church of the Village community will never be the same. With blessed imperfection, uncertainty, stumbles, lots of grace and love, and a whole lot of guidance from God, we are creating something new. And what we are doing is part of a much bigger new thing that God is doing.  

I am inspired this morning to hear the hopeful spirit captured in the words from the from the Book of Prophet Isaiah, who said:

“God will swallow up the oppression that weighs us down…. 
She will wipe away the tears from every face
and deflect the scorn and shame that people have endured…. 
[In response], we say, this is our God, in whom we placed our hope!
We know that God saves us!
This is our God, for whom we have endured and persevered.
Let us rejoice and celebrate in the liberation God is delivering.”

I trust in God to lead us into a future with hope. I depend on God to show us the way to a world built on love and justice. 

I wouldn’t blame you if this picture scares you a little bit. Change is hard and this is new to all of us. I feel really good about it. Those leading this effort – and that’s a big group of leaders – are doing our best, but we can’t guarantee it will succeed. If you were part of the church before the pandemic, you might want our community to go back to being mostly in-person in the building. If you joined since we have been online, you might worry that it won’t feel the same – that you may feel the distance more, that it won’t feel as intimate as it has this year together on Zoom. I have been anxious about it too, but I think we have to do this. We don’t know exactly what we are becoming, but we know the God who gave us life before and during the pandemic, will give us life going forward. So, I encourage you to sit with the uncertainty. Together, let’s see what is possible – and not only see it, but go for it, put ourselves on the line for it. We are on a journey and I think we are ready to sing a new song. 

Re-engaging our building is a sort of resurrection for us. Yet, as with Jesus, our community emerges today in a very different form. We are engaging life anew, with profound hope for the future. God is always at work among us so we continually try to open ourselves to the ways God is leading us. And that’s something to be excited about. God, I love this community. After a year of absence from our building, today we celebrate our return, not coming back to what was, but becoming the community that we will be.

There is a tangible sign of resurrection among us this morning. In August 2019, we removed the pews from our sanctuary that had been there since the building was constructed in 1933. We did not want to just dispose of all of that beautiful carved oak, so we saved about 20 of the ends of the pews. 

Over the fall, we hired a carpenter to fashion those pew ends into a new baptismal table and a new communion table. We used something from our past to help us create something new for our future as a community. We will use the baptismal table to bathe our spirits and wash off the crust accumulated in the midst of the devastation and death of the past year. We will also use it to sanctify new life, beginning on April 25th when we baptize Monica’s and Robert’s son. We will use the communion table as a visible sign of our connection to the sacrifice and the teachings and love of Jesus. Week after week, as we gather onsite and online to share communion, we will grow as the body of Christ for the world. 

On the third day after Jesus was crucified, a group of women showed up at his tomb to give his body the proper treatment for burial. Though they were anxious and afraid, they showed up. And they found an empty tomb. They believed in the power of God’s Spirit working among them and they came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. They opened themselves up then to the new thing God was doing in and through them. 

Over the past several months, we have been showing up and preparing for this day by completing the necessary repairs to the exterior of our building, installing a new heating and air conditioning system with Covid-19 protection, and upgrading our internet and audio/visual systems in the sanctuary. We have continued to fine tune our online worship experience and devoted dozens of hours of thought and work to preparing for being together online and onsite. 

Really, it is about something much bigger than air ducts and wiring and even our worship experience. Resurrection is always about transformation. We are part of a deep desire – widespread across humanity – a desire to create something new and good out of the devastation we have experienced and witnessed. With millions of people across the world, we are groaning for a re-awakening to and participation in God’s vision for humanity – what some call “ecological civilization” – a new reality of love and justice and sustainability across the whole earth. We can be a small, but bright beacon in this effort. Let us join in this great work with hope and determination, with love and grace. Amen. 

(c) 2021 Jeff Wells
All rights reserved.