May 13, Ascension (Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53)

Tending a church through a global pandemic has been a lesson in the relationship between presence and absence. There was a time when worshipers were present to me only in the form of a camera transmitting our liturgy to the homes of whoever watched that day. They were there, but unknowable and invisible. Video meetings swiftly assumed all the roles of in-person collaboration, with the various kinds of distracted half-absence we’ve learned to notice instantly. Then, as we moved some events and services outdoors, and as conditions allowed for a limited group in our sanctuary, people appeared a few (or few dozen) at a time, behind masks, exiting quickly and quietly without the customary hand shaking and chatting at the church door.

I began to wonder why it now meant more to me to see someone comment on a Facebook Live thread, or to get an email from someone telling me they’d appreciated the ser­vice, than it would have to see the same person in the pews or hear them praise the sermon at that church door a year earlier. Why was I so moved to learn that the family of a church member was watching from New Jersey when I would have given little thought to them visiting church while in town? Why was the silent, masked face of a worshiper so much more poignant as one of 12 such faces than as one of a hundred unmasked? Why did the chaotic struggles of an outdoor liturgy with 20 people fill me with love and even joy when a similar struggle in our very nice sanctuary would have left me glum and withdrawn?

Maybe it’s the emotional need of the lonely streaming preacher. Maybe it’s just the novelty of that peculiar absence-while-present of the pandemic era. What we see reminds us of what we miss, and vice versa.