"Because of Jesus, God experiences our death. And also because of Jesus, we experience God's life - which is eternal, unending, and abounding in steadfast love. This means that suffering and death are not the final story of us. Humanity is drawn up into a life that lives beyond death. Those who have died are not simply memories or ideas: They are alive with God. The author goes on to list a litany of people who preceded us in life and death. Many of them died violent, untimely deaths. All of them, the author says, are alive now with God. They are witnesses. They have witnessed the worst and best of humanity. And they have witnessed the powerful truth of God's Love. They are witnesses of what God is doing in this world right now. And they are witnesses of how you and I are responding to God. They see us like God sees us. They see our beauty and frailty. They see our fear and belonging. They see it all."

"The CARE Team is a great example of this. As a ministry that emerged from our parishioner's desire to make a difference in the midst of this pandemic, and as one that draws on the expertise of the amazing people in our church, the CARE Team embodies the essence of how we live into being Church. And as a ministry that calls for the expertise of nurses, physicians, and public health experts it transforms our understanding of what being Church even means for us."

It is the Christian belief that when we go into the world in Jesus' name, the world will be transformed by our presence. Of course, sometimes we get this terribly, horribly wrong. Sometimes we think it's our job to force "belief in Jesus" on others, to convince, cajole, or - even worse - enforce "Christianity" upon those we meet. This is no gift, but a gross misunderstanding of the Love of God that is manifest in Christ Jesus. So, I get why some Christians ignore Jesus' command to Go - but Jesus does indeed command it.

In Jesus we see the suffering of both God and humanity when God's desire for closeness is frustrated. In Holy Week we see that God's Love can live in the tension of desire and suffering.

Remember: We are trained by the world to believe that love is conditional and binary. So, if we are good to God, God will love us, and if we are bad to God, God will hate us. If we make Jesus suffer, then how can he still desire us? If we do not act lovable, how can we be loved? In this mindset, Jesus' passion seems impossible to us. We stand before the cross stupefied by the idea that anyone could call this Friday "Good".

While we are waiting for things to get back to normal, our church is making new connection and finding new ways to know God, to know Love, to know each other. I can hear Christ saying, "See I am making all things new!"

Proclaiming the blessing of LGBTQ+ people in this world will change us as Christians. It will change our church. It will change how we understand God. It will change how we understand one another. Every time we see blessing in someone, our experience of God's presence is expanded and deepened. God's magnificent Love becomes more obvious, more powerful, more clear in our lives when we see it in places we hadn't before. And we are transformed in a way that glorifies God.

When I sat down to write to you this week, I was considering talking about March 8th as the last time we were all together on a Sunday in the sanctuary. But I realized that was not true: By that point, many of our parishioners living in retirement communities had already gone on indefinite lockdown. We were not "all together" without them. I remember the week before that even, as people were leaving from worship and one faithful friend said to me, "You won't be seeing us for a while," and I just was not ready to hear that or understand it. He saw what I did not.

I think this is the way of things: Listening can bring comfort, to have someone else sing or say the things that are alive in your heart is a great gift. But stepping into the role of the singing or saying or playing presents a challenge and a frustration: Can I do justice to the truth of things? Can I accurately present the music I hear or the Gospel that I know?

The goal is for us to have a deeper, fuller sense of the whole human experience. In Jesus, the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. This was an act of honoring and loving humanity in its fullness. God did not merely dress up in human disguise or manifest as a human for a day or two. In Jesus we see God living a human life, which means we see divinity in the broad spectrum of our feelings, in our suffering and joy, in our exuberance and annoyance.

Pandemic or no, we as a church can allow times and seasons and years to blend together. We can forget why we exist, forget that church isn't just a thing that we do or even just a group to which we belong. God gathered us together. God forged this community. God put you and I - all of us - together, and God did this with great purpose. We exist to know Jesus and grow in love. We are united in order that we might grow, be inspired, and then sent into our neighbor's lives - rolling up our sleeves and participating with God in the healing and reparation of the world.