They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Luke 24:32
Fourth week of lockdown
We are now entering the fourth week of lockdown with all the challenges and opportunities that this time is bringing. Alan Roxburgh reflects on a post East passage of scripture and relates it to our times.
The Emmaus Road
Across social media, lots of us are trying to give some frame to this unexpected, out of our world experience of massive isolation brought on by the seriousness of this pandemic. We are all searching out images, metaphors, and narratives that will help us make sense not just of what is happening but where this is all going. Many are experiencing fear and anxiety around their ability to survive economically. Others are wrestling with being isolated, grieving the loss of a way of life that has been shaped by lively connections and interactions with friends and neighbours. For some, this imposed stopping and being still is, for the moment, a wondrous gift. There are so many different kinds of responses to this sudden, massive assault on ways of life that we’ve taken for granted.
In the midst of this, congregations are asking new questions: How to do on-line services? What does “preaching” look like when you have only a computer screen to address? Do singing and music work online? How do we share the communion/eucharist with one another? These are illustrations of how some of us are trying to respond to a disorienting crisis that seems to be undermining the very basis of our identity as Christian communities.
But others are asking different kinds of questions as well. There is a deepening sense that this virus is upending too many things we’ve just assumed and that there may not be a return to what has been. What if this pandemic has so disrupted our well-formed habits of life that we are now entering a new space none of us could have anticipated? What do we do? What does it mean to be God’s people when it seems like the roads we have so intentionally built are no longer going to carry us?
It is the gift of our tradition as Christians that when we find ourselves in these unmapped spaces, we turn to Scripture. We seek the Spirit’s wisdom in texts that speak into our situation, that open us up to the possibilities of the Spirit at work in disorienting times. We believe that one such text is this story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. These disciples are in disarray. They are filled with grief and confusion. All their expectations for the future lay shattered before a sealed tomb in which a crucified Jesus had been laid. There was no coming back from this ending. So they are returning to their homes, walking away from Jerusalem to … who could imagine. They just needed to get away somewhere and dwell in their grief. There is a lot of grief and confusion in this story around loss and fear. Then, they are encountered by a stranger who asks them about their grief. On the road, this stranger will not leave them in that grief but begins to tell another story, paint another picture until, at the end of the day around a table, these disciples’ grief is transformed by the revelation of the resurrected Jesus.
We believe this “Easter” text is being given to us as God’s people in this moment of upheaval and unraveling. We want to invite you to join us as we Dwell around this text seeking to hear and discern the ways the Spirit is calling us to be God’s people in this time.
News
This is a picture of the Hinckley Church of Christ – now called Trinity Lane Christian Church. The main brick section is the worship area and it has recently been redecorated and looks great. The wooden section highlighted in this photo is where a huge amount of community contact takes place.
A few weeks ago the church inducted its new minister Derek Marvin. Derek has spent most of his life in the world of teaching and brings a wide experience and range of gifts to the ministry in Hinckley. He has recently sent us a helpful report of how it is going. In common with many others, contact with those outside the church are increasing in this time of trouble.
We have become aware of living in a West we no longer understand without a story that can make sense of the times and places in which we live. (Alan Roxburgh)
Connecting
Conversations
In the last few days I have been speaking to church leaders and ministers from Buckie to Bournemouth and it has been fascinating to see the amazing number of responses to the present crisis. Some are fairly high tech and others are very low tech but all of them are imaginative and effective in the particular contexts in which we find ourselves. I may not have called you yet, but I will do so in the next week or so.
Resources
Many churches are streaming live Facebook worship services. That is an effective way to do church in this present time– its very economical (free!) and it reaches many people. The slight downside is that it is not very participative other than comments that people can type – every thing from “Amen” to “do biscuits count as communion?” By integrating Zoom with Facebook you can expand the number of people who participate in the event. I haven’t tried it yet but I am rehearsing using the technology and it looks good. You need to have Zoom professional (which an investment of around £15.00 a month) and it can help to use a Youtube tutorial to give you some tips on how to make this work. Here is a link to that tutorial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oAixkeXcd4 If you need further help email me and I will see what we can do
How do we communicate with those outside of the church in this time of crisis? That’s a big question and of course it depends on precisely who we are talking to. Gareth Russell – a Scotsman from Glasgow and with international experience of communication shares some insights in this area on a helpful video. It’s a bit long winded (sorry Gareth) but very insightful. You might have the time (close to an hour) to view this piece. Here is the link: https://foclonline.org/talk/how-tell-our-story-post-truth-world
Until next week: Martin Robinson