Theological Reflection: What Has the Spirit Been Saying to the Churches?

When there’s an urgent crisis, a new hierarchy develops to suit the new circumstances. Top of the tree are those too frantically busy saving or rescuing to stop and explain. Not far away are those who have diagnosed, deconstructed and pronounced, regardless or whether the key facts are known. Bottom of the hierarchy are those who are caught up in it but don’t know what to do or how to be helpful. 

In March 2020 the churches discovered some home truths. They wanted to be in category one, frantically busy, with the key workers. As it happened, clergy woke up at the start of the pandemic and discovered we weren’t key workers. We could shout and scream how important we were, but no one was really listening. Some churches and theologians were happy to be in category two, pronouncing wisdom, undaunted by our lack of knowledge of what this pandemic was, how serious it would get or how long it would last. Most of that wisdom, as in many crises, was empty. What churches found hardest was being in category three – not knowing what to do or how to be helpful. What have we learned in the last two years? I’m going to suggest five lessons. 

Number one, no one likes a moaner – still less, a self-important moaner. There’s no point telling the world how important you are and insisting that for you, nothing must change, even though the whole world is having to make endless adaptations. Very little about what we’re attached to about church is basic to what church is. The New Testament says little about buildings, not much about service times or styles of music, and nothing about the liturgical year. But it says a great deal about eating together, washing one another’s feet, every member having a role to play, making sacrifices, and God providing for the community as it faces each new challenge. Necessity is the mother of invention, and those who’ve found a way through the last two years have been those who’ve improvised, adapted and enjoyed the challenge of making old things work in new circumstances. 

Number two, the secret of happiness is to enjoy what God is giving in abundance, not to pine for what is scarce. If the church is closed, this is a moment for discovering the remarkable things like online compline or guided prayer walks or livestreamed choral music that are available online. If you can’t be one body together because of covid regulations, find another way to be one body. Discover new skills from community members who were well down the pre-pandemic pecking order, but can now teach the tech-averse to surf or the medically challenged to lateral flow. Rejoice at the people who find you online whom you’d never find in person. 

Number three, generosity is best investment. People were drawn to the early church because Christians loved one another, not because they claimed they were immune to a virus or demanded their building be an exception or saw every government regulation as part of a sinister expansion of state surveillance. The best evangelism is what it has always been – selfless acts of kindness and thoughtfulness that suggest something wonderful is happening in your heart that I’d rather like to be happening in mine. Be humbled by those who gave up their personal time to supervise vaccine queues. Be inspired by those who delivered food, or rang isolated neighbours, or ran zoom bereavement groups, or offered weekly connection and food hubs for asylum seekers. Call me old-fashioned; but that’s what Christians do. We’re not an interest group, defending our rights. We’re defined by washing feet. After all, love your neighbour as yourself is supposed to mean look out for whom the pandemic has hit hardest and make their needs at least as central as your own convenience in calculating priorities and responses.

Number four, times of hardship renew God’s people. It’s when things are difficult that we rediscover who God is and who we are. We find surprising partners and friends. We find the gifts God brings us through the stranger. We find new joy in faith when it feels like it really matters, not just forever but right now. We realise our tiny choices of whether to wear a mask, or take a lateral flow, or have an in-person meeting have public significance – we’re not atomised individuals, we’re part of a social body, and its workings are determined not by government but by the solidarity of common understanding and the shared shouldering of irritating disciplines. We don’t seek out a safe treehouse where we’re immune and above and beyond: we face the realities of death, disruption and depression together. We get so deeply interdependent with one another that in 20 years’ time we bore our grandchildren with the spirit of the pandemic the way our grandparents bored us about not locking their doors during the war. 

Number five, God is still God. If we can’t share the wine at the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit finds another way to be in communion with us. If we can’t sing in church, the Holy Spirit finds another way to sing God’s song of joy and reversal to us. If God doesn’t seem so churchy when we’re all isolating, then maybe it’s time to reencounter the God made known in the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Never shrink the boundless scope and relentless longing of God to the mundane habits and limited imagination of church. Just remember the main points of the news, according to Paul – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Have any of those been abolished by the pandemic, been rendered impossible, or become irrelevant? Or have we actually had more opportunities to exercise them and grow in them than ever before? 

I may be dreaming, but this is what I would like the rest of society to be saying about church once the pandemic is over. ‘Isn’t it great that there are people who selflessly give up their time to sit in the building or on zoom with those who are isolated, who freely offer to support young people whose schooling has been disrupted, who are glad to walk with those who experience mental illness without judgement or hasty solutions but with patience and love? Isn’t it amazing that there are people whose faith is so great that their attitude to public health isn’t dominated by their own convenience or circumstances, but who see the pandemic as a chance to rediscover our common purpose as one people? Isn’t it impressive that there are people who aren’t overshadowed by what they can’t do, but who embody and inspire others to discover what they can do they never tried doing before? Isn’t it remarkable that, surrounded as we are by lament and grief and resentment and loss, there are people who truly believe in a future that’s bigger than the past – a future God is bringing often despite our faltering efforts? Isn’t it wonderful that people do these things, not to impress anybody, but simply content that God sees, and smiles, because these are God’s ways.’

The pandemic isn’t over yet. That’s a bad thing for our sense of progress and purpose. But it’s a good thing if we realise there’s still time to rescue how the pandemic is remembered. Will it be recalled as the time the churches shrank into their own narrow needs and personal predilections and faltering fears? I truly hope not. There’s still time for it to be remembered as the season people of faith in this country rediscovered who they fundamentally are, and how they could demonstrate that identity in a way that inspired all around them. It’s not too late – if we really want to.

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