Those who sowed with tears….

Serving as a parish priest is always challenging; serving in a time of pandemic is even more challenging. All of us are, in one way or another, grieving. I think part of that grief rises out of our realization that there is no way to go back to the way things were two years ago. And that realization comes in the wake, if we have been honest, of the realization that there is no way back to the way things were a generation ago when church-going was the norm in North America. 

Although there was no de jure establishment of Christianity in the United States and Canada, there was a de facto establishment during much of the last century. That has ended and we have been faced with a difficult choice. Do we resist disestablishment or do we embrace it? I have for at least the past decade believed that embracing disestablishment is what God requires of us. And that involves honest grieving. 

Twenty years ago I was unemployed for several months. I had decided not to continue teaching and the interim work that I was doing came to its inevitable end. As I began looking for work one verse of Psalm 126 became part of my daily prayers. “Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy.” (v. 6) It was for me a promise. After some none too patient waiting and an embarrassing encounter with a deployment officer, I was asked to serve a parish that was in crisis. When I arrived and began to post that verse on the sign board outside the parish office, the parish secretary immediately recognized that it was from Psalm 126. That was, I thought,  confirmation that the promise was not just for me but for the parish as well.

During the pandemic I have prayed Psalm 126 during Compline each night. It is an affirmation of my belief that the tears we sow, our grieving, will be seeds that God uses to bring new life to the Church. Not a return to what once was but something new and unexpected.