Psalm 63 New International Version (NIV)
A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.
1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
We are longing to be together and to be in worship. We have been staying inside and doing what is right to help others for it seems an awfully long time and we are weary. We long for God and each other. We need to remember that God has not left us, that God has always been with us, through all of this quarantine God has been with us. The church is here and is worshipping. While it is not our preferred way of worship, we still worship together online. We pray for each other; we call each other to see how people are doing. We offer help to each other by running errands for those who should not go out right now. We are still the church. We are still ministering to our local community through our shower ministry for the homeless and our food closet for those on the margins. We are still living out our call to be the church.
I know that it is difficult for most to worship online. It is not the same as being here. I also long for the time when we can be together; however, we need to remember that God and the church has not left us. We are just doing things in a different way for a while. Even when the staff and leadership at CUMC believe that it is safe to come back for most people and when we have protocols in place to make it safe to have people come back to worship on campus it will be different. It will not be the same. For some that will be difficult, for others that will be a good thing.
During this time of social distancing we need to remember why we do this, and yes, the wording and reason from the powers that govern us have changed on that. The one thing that has not changed is that we are doing this to help others.
One of my favorite books is Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living by Ruben P. Job. It is a small jewel of a book. In it Bishop Job gives us his interpretation of John Wesley’s General Rules for people of this age. The three simple but very challenging rules are “Do no harm, Do good, and stay in love with God” saying and remembering them is easy, living into them is any but, for it sound deceptively simple to do.
I have taught this book a few times, I carry a copy of it in my purse. I try to live it out in my life, and fail at it, but I am trying and that is all that anyone can do. Try. CUMC is trying to live into these rules as well, and yes, that can be difficult.
We need to be in the desert a little while longer, however we can still be connected with each other in ways that David would never comprehended, and we are always connected with God, that David understood, most of the time. We can praise God for all the blessings we have every day, and for seeing us through these difficult times. And one day we will be able to praise God in person together, however it will be different.
Stay connected with God, each other and try to live into these three simple rules: do no harm, do good and stay in love with God.
Grace and Peace, Suzanne