Category Archives: From the Rector

Weekly articles from our Rector published in the News & Notes newsletter.

Entering Holy Week

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The tradition of holding special services on different days during the week between Palm Sunday and Easter—in other words, the tradition of Holy Week—began almost seventeen centuries ago, in the city of Jerusalem. Early Christians there, two or three hundred years after Jesus’ death, had begun celebrating a series of services at different locations that were important in that last week on the days when they would have taken place. So on Thursday night, they went to the upper room where Jesus had his Last Supper with his disciples before he died. On Friday, they went to the site of the crucifixion; on Saturday and Sunday, the site of the tomb and the resurrection. At each place, they’d hold a service, in a kind of pilgrimage to those important places in Jesus’ final week.

Holy Week is a kind of pilgrimage for us, too; not in space, but in time. It’s a way of methodically and slowly walking through these events of Jesus’ last days and the completion of his ministry: his death, his resurrection, the precious last moments with his disciples, and the anguishing last moments of grief and loss.

But like any pilgrimage, this isn’t about the past. It’s not about the places or the times we’re visiting. It’s about the present. It’s about our own lives.

There’s a beautiful invitation in the Easter Vigil before the long series of readings and psalms begins: “Let us hear the record of God’s saving deeds in history, how he saved his people in ages past; and let us pray that our God will bring each of us to the fullness of redemption.” (BCP p. 288)

In the events of Holy Week, we always balance those two halves: hearing the record of God’s saving deeds in history, and praying that God will bring to each of us the fullness of that redemption. As year after year we re-enact these moments in Jesus’ last days, it’s important for us to remember that they’re always about what Jesus is doing in our present day. It’s not so much that we need to be like Jesus and wash one another’s feet; it’s that we need to understand what it means for Jesus to wash our feet. We don’t offer the sacrifice of Jesus again on the cross; we try to understand what that sacrifice on the cross two thousand years ago means today. And while we proclaim the resurrection Sunday after Sunday, we mark our Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday services with special celebration because there’s a reminder for us of the greatness of that triumph over all the powers of death and evil in the world. So I invite you, this Holy Week, to join in however much of that pilgrimage you can, whether it’s just Palm Sunday and Easter, or the full Triduum from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday to the Vigil. Let us hear the record of God’s saving deeds in history; and let us pray that God will bring each of us to the fullness of redemption. Amen.

Waking Up

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There’s nothing quite like the sound of a city waking up in the spring: the birds, the garbage trucks, the construction noise beginning; a cacophony of humanity and nature that’s comforting to me as a city-dweller. It just screams “spring morning!”

And it reminds me that we’re beginning to come out of hibernation now, in many different ways, as individuals and as a society. We had happy news from the CDC this week that vaccinated grandparents can visit their kids and grandkids safely. Younger students have had the opportunity to return to at least hybrid education in schools. More and more of us have access to the vaccine. We’re beginning to make progress. The end is finally in sight.

I had a funny experience last week: immediately after I sent out our newsletter with a similar message about the end being in sight and the need to remain cautious while we waited for further guidance from the bishops, I received a message from our bishops with updated guidelines!

The bishops are targeting April 19 as the date to begin loosening restrictions on worship. (That’s a Monday, so Sunday, April 25.) At present, the bishops are strongly discouraging indoor, in-person worship; churches that are worshiping indoors have a capacity limit of 25. Beginning April 19, the bishops suggest that we can begin indoor, in-person worship again, and they are loosening the capacity limits pretty significantly, to a maximum of 75 people or 1/3 capacity or 6-foot distance between households, whichever is the lowest number and therefore the safest.

In our case, that would mean access to about 20 pews in our sanctuary, allowing indoor worship for a congregation that is, honestly, about our usual size. (Note that all other safety precautions will remain in place: universal masking, distancing, communion with bread only, no congregational singing, etc.)

We have not made any decisions. This is not an official announcement that on April 25, everyone can or should come back to worship indoors. The Vestry and our Reopening Advisory Committee and I will continue having conversations, but I wanted to share this news with you from the bishops about the future.

By that point, most vulnerable adults will have had the opportunity to receive the vaccine, but not all adults will have access, and children will not until later this year. We will, of course, continue online access to worship for the indefinite future, even when more people are returning to the Sanctuary.

We’ll also begin our outdoor garden services a little earlier than usual this year; rather than waiting until the summer, we’ll begin at some point this spring.

You’ll notice that April 25 is three weeks after Easter (April 4), so we won’t have a triumphant return for Easter Sunday this year, but we’ll still have our outdoor and online worship as planned.

I hope this gives some sense of a light at the end of the tunnel. I know that all of us are in different places right now; some are thrilled at this news, and some are cautious. Wherever you are, know that you are still a beloved member of this community, and we will not shut you out. Even as more of us return to the sanctuary, our online options will continue, and this new outdoor option may be another one you’d like to take up—even just to hear the birds on a Sunday morning!

So take care, and I hope you continue to have a holy and blessed Lent as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter, as the days lengthen, the sun returns, and we move toward a brighter and better future later this spring and summer.

Greg

Update on Worship this Spring

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It’s beginning to feel like the finish line is in sight. This week, some of our Boston Public School kids walked into their school buildings for the first time in a full year. New COVID cases continue to decline to their lowest levels since early November; the Governor continues incrementally to loosen restrictions on different activities. And just this morning (Wednesday, as I write this) I woke up to the headline: “Biden Vows Enough Vaccine ‘for Every Adult American’ by End of May,” sooner than had been expected. I thought I’d take an opportunity, then, to give an update on the church’s plans moving forward.

Our bishops have adopted a cautious approach, and continue to urge, in the strongest possible terms, that in-person, indoor worship remain suspended in favor of virtual worship; parishes that do continue with some indoor worship have an upper limit of 25 participants. In late November, we decided to follow the bishops’ urging to suspend indoor worship, and we will continue to follow all diocesan and state requirements.

In consultation with our Reopening Advisory Committee, I have decided to gradually expand access to worship to up to 10 people per service. If you are interested in attending one of these services in-person, please contact me directly at rector@stjohns02129.org. If current trends continue, I expect us to be in a place to reopen safely for in-person worship with a congregation much closer to our usual size in late spring (i.e., May-June).

When the world turned upside down during the third week of Lent last year, I never would have imagined that we’d miss one Easter in church, let alone two. This is not the Lent or Holy Week any of us would have wanted; but with the finish line in sight, it is vital that we stand firm in our commitment to love and protect our neighbors as ourselves, remembering the promise that Jesus made to those first disciples long ago: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Here is a preview of our plans for the rest of Lent and Holy Week:

  • Sundays in Lent (March 7/14/21): worship on Zoom at 10am, with our Lenten discussion series following at 11am. Limited in-person congregation of up to 10 people.
  • Palm Sunday (March 28): an outdoor palm procession led by our kids at 9:30am, with Zoom worship at 10am
  • Maundy Thursday (April 1) — 6pm: Maundy Thursday Agape Meal and Service. Instead of our usual supper at church, we’ll share a simple supper and service over Zoom.
  • Good Friday (April 2) — 7pm, in the church and on Zoom.
  • Holy Saturday (April 3) — 7pm Easter Vigil, in the church and on Zoom.
  • Easter Sunday (April 4) — 8:30am and 9:30am outdoor services at the Harvard Mall, and 11am from the church on Zoom. Our Christmas Eve outdoor services were so popular that we’re bringing them back for Easter morning; the City has a 25-person limit for each service.

(Sign-ups for Good Friday, the Vigil, and Easter Sunday outdoor services will be sent out in the coming weeks.)

Signs of Spring

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I’ve had a strange experience the last couple of days as I go out for a morning run in the park near our apartment. The trees are still bare. The ground is still muddy. The snowbanks are still there, and the black ice is covering the paths where they’ve melted and frozen. But the birds are chirping like I haven’t heard in months; not just one bird optimistically singing away, but what sound like hundreds, all around me. Things have warmed up, spring is almost here, and the birds are just as excited as I am!

It’s a good image to me of this “Lenten” season, the season when the days are lengthening—that’s where “Lenten” comes from. We live in this bare, dry, cold time, but we can already see the signs of hope and spring on the other side.

My father-in-law is famous for predicting that spring’s coming. On a warm day, when you can smell the snow melting and feel the sun shining and hear the water trickling away from the snowbanks, he’ll say, “Spring’s just around the corner!” And this is great!

The problem is that he starts saying it in December, while the winter’s very first snow is melting.

This is what often happens in life, I think. We know that there will probably be another snowstorm between now and May. We know that we might have another deep freeze. But today, it’s warm, at least by our standards after a cold month of February. And this happens in all of life: we go through phases of freezing and thawing. There might be a moment when we feel grace and encouragement and consolation, and then a long period where we feel spiritual dryness and despair and exhaustion.

The secret is to hold onto those signs of spring; to enjoy them, when they’re here. To go out for a walk in the warm weather, to take a break between Zoom meetings and get a little bit of sunshine. And then to remember them, when they’re gone again, in the sure and certain hope that they will return. Because the beautiful thing about a 45-degree day in February is not that it’s really warm. It’s that it’s a little hint of the many 50- and 60- and 70-degree days to come.

So hold on, this Lent, to those signs of spring, because the secret is the same in spiritual life as it is in New England weather: to hold onto the warmth when it’s here, and to remember it when it’s gone.

Forty Days

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The rain of the Flood fell for forty days and forty nights, just as long as Moses communed with God on the mountaintop and as Elijah journeyed to reach the cave where he’d meet God in a still, small voice. (Genesis 7:12; Exodus 24:18; 2 Kings 19:8-12) Jesus wrestled with his demons for forty days after his baptism; he appeared to the disciples for forty days after his resurrection before ascending into heaven forever. (Mark 1:13; Acts 1:3)

“Forty days” is an interesting length of time. It’s not forever, as any of us who’ve counted the 346 days since our last “normal” Sunday know. But by no means is it a short amount of time, as any of us giving something up or taking something on for Lent will learn. The forty days from Ash Wednesday to Easter are just the right amount of time, it seems, for us to speak to God and listen for God’s voice; to struggle with temptation and witness miracles; to journey across the desert or try to stay afloat in our hermetically-sealed arks.

Except they aren’t forty days, are they?

You’ll notice, if you do the math, that there are forty-six days until Easter. You’ll notice, too, if you’re very bored during a Sunday service and start starting at the bulletin, that we call them Sundays in Lent and not Sundays of Lent. Each Sunday during this season is a miniature Easter, a joyful feast plopped in among forty days of solemn fasts, but not one of them; so the traditional fasts of Lent are relaxed on Sundays, and the forty-days of Lent are really forty-six, minus Sundays.

There’s a power in that idea, for me, this year. This winter has been unrelenting in its monotony. Day after freezing day, I wish for a break—for one trip to a library, one visit with family, one warm spring day to play outside. We live our ordinary lives in natural patterns of work and rest, of stress and relaxation, of business and leisure, but there’s no such thing as a COVID vacation. (Unless, I suppose, New Zealand would let you in.) I think one of the many difficult things about this year has been its refusal to relax its grip: an Easter with little joy, a summer that felt like it never really began, a Christmas strange and sad for so many of us. We need that break, one day in seven, to make it through the other days.

I’m sorry to say I haven’t solved that problem. If only any of us could! But if the pandemic won’t relax its grip, we may have to loosen ours; to take one day out of seven, and let go of our resentments and frustrations, anxieties and self-criticisms, and simply be who we are, as we are, where we are.

So if you do nothing else to mark this Lent, try to loosen the pressure you put on yourself, just one day out of seven, to somehow be okay in extraordinary times. God knows that will be hard enough work for one Lent!