SERMON FOR AUGUST 23, 2020            TEXT: MATTHEW 16:13-20

          I was one of those blessedly self-soothing children. As a little girl, when I was anxious or sad, I sucked my thumb fiercely. Or I sat in my favorite wing chair in the living room and rocked back and forth, clunking my head    to the beat against the chair back as I sang to myself. Throughout my adult years I have depended on the animals who share my home to help me through hard times. I have a grand crew with me now, so this is no judgment on them, but I find myself these days looking for Copper.

          There are lots of wonderful pictures of him with Cher the beloved Beagle in their native California, at my Maryland childhood home, sunbathing on the shore of the Severn River, and then here in the yard of the parsonage or under my desk in the pastor’s office. But most often I find myself coming back to silly little videos on my iPhone from the last months of the Big Lug’s life. He loved walking on the rail trail more than anything else, more than eating, and that’s saying a lot for a Basset Hound. As he aged, it got harder, but he persisted, one digger paw in front of the other, one consistent plodding speed. He was delighted when passersby greeted him with a kind word or touch, but he didn’t dare stop for fear he wouldn’t get started again. Even as the paralysis advanced in his last months, he did what he could until there was nothing more to be done. Copper knew the meaning of that phrase, “It is what it is.”

          This is a strange image to turn to, I know, but the sight of dear Copper comforts me in these disheartening days. I marvel at his determination in the midst of unrelenting loss and his ability to make his peace with it. And still remain his own Basset Hound self. He was the best of companions in the good old days of life in the church; his memory helps steady me now in my fears for the future. And these are fears shared by many of my colleagues, pastors who anticipate that lots of small congregations will go the way of too many small businesses in the months ahead. You may be able to hold on for six months, maybe even a year, but church membership in this country is generally a pay-for-play activity. If there is no gathering, there is no collection. I have friends who have been pushed by their councils to reopen to avoid what is tactfully referred to as “a stewardship problem.”   

          And pastors do recognize what is critical for the folks in our congregations. They surely don’t want to hear preaching that is twaddle, but the fellowship, the connection with people who matter to them, is for many the preeminent means of grace on any given Sunday. That is the chief attraction that brings them to church week after week, and if they don’t gather for months, then new habits are formed to replace the old. And by the time the old patterns of worship life are restored, if they ever are, for how many people will it be too late to matter? Why come back to what you’ve learned to live without?

          People find Zoom meetings and live-streamed worship services unsatisfying — “I get nothing out of them, and so I stopped watching in May,” one person told me. As Marshall McLuhan said decades ago, the medium is the message. And this virtual world doesn’t work for a lot of us, not in school or in the workplace or in church. Does it make sense then to shape some form of in-person worship that respects the new pandemic reality but preserves a version of flesh-and-blood fellowship? To some people it is a risk (and, in their judgment, a minimal risk, given the low infection rates where we live) worth running. To others the fact that even the best public health practices cannot guarantee safety makes it    a chance they are unwilling to take. “No one is obliged to come,” says one side. “People can determine what is best for them.” “But if we open, it communicates to people that it is safe to come, and we don’t know that,” the other side worries. “How would we live with ourselves if someone got infected in our church, or, God forbid, died?” “But how likely is that to happen here?” “Yes, but isn’t once one time too many in our community of faith?”

          Protecting our health and that of our neighbors is critical. But the longing to congregate is to be respected as well. After months of quarantine in Oakland, CA, my daughter’s mental health was clearly taking a hit. I encouraged her to fly to San Diego to visit her best friend, to brave a flight and two airports and the lax (in comparison to northern California) safeguards of that area of the state. Given the infection rates in California, it was risky, and it was necessary. The isolation was hurting Lucy; the isolation is hurting so many of us. Coming together to know God’s presence in prayer and praise and sacrament is a pearl of priceless worth. Yet the best we can offer now is a severely discounted version — masked and strictly distanced, CDC guidelines that caution against singing, sharing the peace, and gathering at the Lord’s Table — does it meet the need, satisfy the hunger, or only make them worse? I do not pretend to know. That is why I find comfort in my stalwart Basset Hound, setting one foot in front of the other, unflappable as he moved into the future, a future he could not control.

          “[Jesus] said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.    And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it’” (16:15-18).    As we shall see in the continuation of this story, Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, was right on the money, but his understanding of what that recognition would mean for him and his world was way off. He had a lot to learn, and so do we. But the rock of this confession of faith stands firm, and the people who have gathered around it over centuries have entrusted it to us. Small though this congregation may be, tucked away in the Upper Valley, our life is worth fighting for. We brood over a nest of faithfulness and love like a mother hen, and empowered by God’s mercy we can do so much in our community to make this Messiah and his power known. Step by step, one foot in front of the other, we move towards a future we can neither wholly foresee nor control. Whatever happens, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit will never disappear.

          In his explanation of the third article of the creed from the Large Catechism—“I believe in the Holy Spirit, one holy Christian church, the community of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and the life everlasting” — Martin Luther writes, “I believe that there is on earth a holy little flock and community of pure saints under one head, Christ. It is called together by the Holy Spirit in one faith, mind, and understanding. It possesses a variety of gifts, and yet is united in love without sect or schism. Of this community I also am a part and member, a participant and co-partner in all the blessings it possesses. I was brought into it by the Holy Spirit and incorporated into it through the fact that I have heard and still hear God’s Word . . . .”    Truly the gates of hell will not prevail against us. Amen.