Sunday, March 29, 2020
Dear St. Luke Community,
This Sunday we’re changing our worship format to Zoom. All week long Beth and I have offered tutorials for those who needed extra help. We realize that this may still be difficult to access. So if you didn’t have a chance or you’d like another try, we’ll offer another practice session tomorrow, Saturday. Please let me know if you decide to join this practice session by emailing either Beth or myself. Once we know you’re trying, we can get on the phone with you to walk you through it.
Also during the week, I and others have connected with you either by phone, email, text or Zoom. While I’m grateful for the technology, nothing beats a warm body to touch with a handshake, hug or smile. I’ve never been more aware of the importance of the gathering of God’s people on a Sunday morning. And I suspect each week we don’t meet in person will bring with it a deepening of that longing.
This Sunday’s scripture we follow Jesus, who is also experiencing a kind of longing, to make sure the ones he loves know what they need to know before he goes. At his last supper as told in the Gospel of John, Jesus gets up from the table and begins to perform the task of a servant by washing the feet of the disciples. Jesus knows the worst is ahead of him, and he wants to leave his friends and the world with love: love not spoken, but love shown. He shows love in a home no less, around a table. The very commandment he’ll leave us with, that we love one another as he’s loved us, Jesus brings alive at home.
We may not be encountering very many people these days as we’re mostly sheltering at home or out for a walk. But as Jesus shows us, there’s always ways to serve. There’s those we might live with, there’s those who need a phone call, need a smile on the walking path, those who need an email, a text, a FaceTime call. As we’re commanded to love, we are finding new expressions of what that means. God is always in the business of new expression, continuously and unceasingly finding new ways to reach us, touch us and bring to life hands on tangible ways for us to share that love with one another.
With love in Christ,
Nicole