Last week, I shared with you a portion of Bishop Alan’s address to our Diocesan Convention the weekend before, in which he reflected on the need for Jesus’ law of love of neighbor to guide us in our churches as coronavirus surges again this fall. He noted that there would be forthcoming worship guidance from the bishops, and yesterday we received that in a joint statement by the three bishops of the Episcopal Churches in Massachusetts and Western Massachusetts.

The bishops don’t mandate that we stop indoor, in-person worship. But they do urge, in “the strongest possible terms,” that all churches suspend indoor, in-person worship. (Click here to read the full text of the bishops’ letter.)

I’ll be meeting with our parish Reopening Committee, as well as our Vestry and Wardens, in the coming week, to reflect on what this means for St. John’s and for our worship in the time to come. There won’t be a strict switch that’s flipped from one thing to another. On March 8, we were entirely in person. On March 15, we were entirely online. And for the past several months, we’ve been somewhere on a continuum, with a handful of us worshiping together in person, in the Garden or in the church, and many if not most of us worshiping on Zoom. It’s likely that this Advent, we will shift back toward the Zoom end of the continuum, with just a skeleton crew of worship leaders—Douglas and I, a couple of readers, perhaps a couple of singers—worshiping in the church, and the rest of the congregation worshiping on Zoom.

This Sunday’s worship will continue as it has been in November, and we’ll make plans next week to adjust for the rest of Advent and Christmas.

I imagine that this news is not surprising to you, but it is probably disappointing. It certainly is disappointing for me. And it probably feels unfair. After all, every day I walk by businesses with safety regulations and practices much less stringent than ours. It isn’t fair that schools and churches are closing, while casinos remain open. It isn’t fair. But it is loving, and that’s what the bishops tried to remind us of: that love of neighbor, concern for the most vulnerable, must be our guiding value now.

It’s unsurprising. It’s disappointing. It’s unfair. I think, more than anything, it’s sad. At least for me, it is profoundly sad to face another season of the Church year, another season of holidays, without our beloved traditions; to face the prospect of Advent and Christmas without singing hymns and carols together in church. It is profoundly sad.

But our sadness is pale in comparison to the sadness of the dozens of families who are losing loved ones every day in Massachusetts. Forty, fifty a day in Massachusetts, nearing two thousand a day in our country. I will miss singing with you and worshiping with you, as we move toward a more-online format. But I know that we will do it again. And I know that if all the Episcopal churches in this Commonwealth, by banding together, can prevent just a few coronavirus cases, could prevent even one death, that would be a tremendous achievement for a few months’ work: to save just one life.

So, it is hard, and it is sad, but it is necessary. And whatever format that takes—however many of us remain in this church, however many of us are worshiping on Zoom instead—I hope and I pray that we can worship together in the spirit of love, remembering that the Holy Spirit is with us, that Jesus is with us, wherever two or three of us are gathered. Even if it’s just on a Zoom window.