SERMON FOR 3.05.20 – The Sacrament of the Present Moment

by The Revd Preb. Marjorie Brown

Today’s readings remind us of two very important things: why Jesus Christ was born as one of us, and how the first Christians tried to live out his mission. I want to think today about how we respond to these two things during a time of pandemic lockdown.

Why did the Son of God become a human being? So that we may have life, and have it abundantly, John’s gospel tells us.

What did the first Christians do in response, according to the Book of Acts? They followed Biblical teaching, shared fellowship, prayed and broke bread. These were the means by which believers accessed that abundant life.

So what does abundant life look like normally, and what does it look like now? 

We often speak in Church of the common good, because flourishing as a child of God must involve us in relationships. 

We cannot have abundant life without relating to other people.

The common good means valuing each individual, but always in relation to the whole community. So in a time of pandemic, this rules out a number of responses.

We can’t be utilitarian and let the weak go to the wall because they have fewer useful life-years left than the young and healthy. 

We can’t follow some American neo-liberals and say that the market must take priority and if some lives are lost, that is a necessary cost to preserve the economy. 

We can’t be authoritarian in the style of China, and put the good of the state ahead of human rights and needs.

Abundant life and the common good require a holistic commitment to every single person as infinitely valuable. We are valuable not only as individuals but also as members of the whole community, who need us just as much as we need to belong.

So the common good may well require us to make sacrifices because the needs of the vulnerable outweigh the health of the economy. Strong and healthy individuals must go without some of their rights because the elderly and needy must be protected. If we behaved otherwise, what kind of a community would we be? 

But at the same time, the needs of each individual must be protected as far as possible. The pain endured by those who are living on a financial knife-edge, or in miserable loneliness, or in an unsafe situation, must be of grave concern to the community as a whole.

It seems to me that in this country there are temptations to be utilitarian, or neo-liberal, or authoritarian in our response to this crisis, but a commitment to the common good is still the value that most of us share. This is, I would venture to say, a legacy of the historic Christian underpinnings of our nation.

So how do we maintain this commitment? How do we as Christians model living as a community when we are confined to our homes and unable to meet?

The first Christians prioritized four things, as I’ve said: teaching, fellowship, prayer and the breaking of bread. We can continue to study the teaching of the Scriptures by making the Bible a part of our daily life. We can pray wherever we are, and join in the common prayer of the Church through the daily office and online services. We can have fellowship, even if not face to face, by phoning each other, joining in Zoom meetings and helping with good neighbour intiatives.

The breaking of bread takes place here in the vicarage every week on behalf of the whole parish, but of course I am painfully aware of the Eucharistic fast that has been imposed on the people of God. We cannot share the Body and Blood of Christ with one another for the foreseeable future.

In these circumstances, Christians are advised to make a spiritual communion. But how do we do that? I suggest that it requires us to practise the sacrament of the present moment. We need to be fully alive to our senses, our emotions, and our environment. We try to inhabit the NOW without dwelling on the lost past or worrying about the unknown future.

A friend of mine in Hackney, Michele Kirsch, is a wonderfully down-to-earth writer and blogger. She posted a piece about life in lockdown that really struck a chord with me. In it she said that she dances like no one is looking, because no one is. She treats herself on her birthday to biscuits dusted with icing sugar rather than regret the lack of cake. She prays naked when she feels like it, because she can. And she ends her post with the words, “I’m not going to think about what the future has in store for me (or any of us) because I’ve come to the conclusion that the future is none of my damn business.”

There is deep wisdom in living full-on in the present. That is how we practise the presence of God and learn to trust God’s love. So I want to end with some things that are helping me at the moment, and I would be glad to hear what helps you. 

For those of us lucky enough to have a garden or a nearby park we can run or walk in, the sense of being in God’s NOW can come most easily through the beauty of our natural surroundings as we exercise or relax in the open air. Regent’s Park has been a priceless gift to me over the past six weeks. Many people have commented how blessed we are to be enjoying a beautiful spring season while we are locked down. Every day we see new blossom, hear more birdsong, smell the flowers, and watch the season unfold. The joy of this will I hope remind us, when we are able to resume a more normal life, that the natural world is a treasure entrusted to our stewardship for future generations.

For some people, access to the outdoors is impossible right now. But indoors there are other things to savour in the present moment. 

In our privileged world we have ready access to all kinds of music, books and drama. This has been a good time for me to revisit old favourites and try new things. 

When we can’t go out, meals at home become vitally important, and being creative with ingredients brings the sense of taste into play as well as the other senses.

Contact with friends and relatives by phone or online is more frequent these days, and I’ve renewed some old connections. 

Conversations and pastimes with members of our household, if we are not living on our own, probably also play a bigger part in our lives than they usually do. 

We may even find that we have more time and inclination to sit quietly with God.

No one will claim that physical distancing is ideal for anyone. But abundant life is possible in all circumstances, and we can contribute to the common good even when our fellowship is digital. 

If we develop our skills of sacramentalizing the present moment, we will take something out of lockdown that will be of lasting value. Easter hope can be found in surprising places.