Rejoice: from the Sunday Evening Outdoor service Philippians 4:1-9

Hey, it is great to be with you all tonight on this test run of an outdoor service. We know there are all kinds of challenges to any kind of gathering of people in these days of COVID-19, but particularly for churches.

Just last weekend four Syracuse area churches had to contact their members after a church service to tell them they had been in contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19 and needed to quarantine for 14 days.

It’s not that churches are necessarily doing badly handling COVID. It’s just that we have communities that are more susceptible (we can be older and have more medical issues) and we have practices in our worship experiences that lend themselves to the spread of germs!

Part of the challenge is our fondness for big gatherings in small rooms because of the intimacy and energy. Part of the challenge is our love of music, praise and worship songs and hymns and musical groups, singing of all kind at the top of our lungs because we are happy to be together, all of which has the potential to spread aerosol droplets that may contain viruses.

Part of the challenge is that we like to talk and visit and hang around even after the pastor has pushed us out of the worship spaced and locked the door. Some of us even hug folks that we may know well (or not) but don’t live with. We pass the peace with handshakes.

And we love to eat! Well, yes, and talk, but it all means we are hanging around in an environment that is in some ways ideal for the spread of a virus, not as bad as a hospital, nursing home, or jail, but just a notch lower.

And then there is the challenge with this illness, that like few others, it is possible that the carrier of the virus may have no idea they have it.

They are not sick, but they are unwittingly sharing the virus at every contact, and potentially making others sick.

So, what do we do?

We, instead of meeting inside, have an outdoor service! Lots of fresh moving air in a place where there is no ceiling, and where we can still practice social distancing while also checking up on and checking in with all our brothers and sisters in the faith.

And gathering in this way we can what we always do best, we can rejoice!

Not that we can’t at home, because we could and we have! I for one have heard all the singing and shouting right through Facebook Live and Youtube Live and now the church app and the church webpage.

But today, we rejoice because we are able to see the joy in each other’s eyes (our masks cover the smiles) and it is really good news for our weary hearts and souls!

We have felt disconnected, and increasingly so as the time has gone on. We need each other’s energy. Some of it can come through the online worship experience and the emails and phone calls. But the reality is, we don’t really feel it until we are in each other’s presence.

I’ve told the story before about the Presbyterian minister who went to see the old Scotsman who hadn’t been to the church in a while. The man invited the pastor in and they both sat warming themselves before the fire and basically saying nothing.

Eventually, the pastor got up and taking the tongs, pulled a red-hot coal from the fire and set it on the hearth and sat down. Slowly the coal turned cold, ashen, and gray. After a moment the pastor got up and set the coal back in the fire where it returned to its previous red-hot state.

The pastor then got ready to leave, at which point the old man said, “I be in worship this Sunday!”

The gathering of God’s people for worship is certainly not impossible online. It works, sometimes very well, because you can mute the pastor, go and get a cup of coffee during the long prayer, and even wear your jammies to church.

But gathering together, even six feet apart, even outside, even with our really cool masks, has the great potential of rekindling some of that fire in us that we love to warm up to. We need to be shoved back into the red-hot coals, because we need to keep going and growing!

And we rejoice!

Paul’s letter to the Philippians contains a great deal of joy. And here is chapter 4 he makes it plain as day when he tells his readers, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

He is not making a suggestion! He is telling the Philippians and through them us, to rejoice. It is an imperative, a command, it is clear marching orders. We are to be jubilant!

We are not to miss the blessing that comes to God’s people when we choose, no matter the circumstances, to rejoice.

Because we are not defeated, we are not oppressed, we are not without a clear mission and a clear blessing. We are the Lord’s own people and as such, remembering who we are and what we are called to do and be starts our hearts to bubble with the joy of the Lord!

Now the challenge is to make this kind of experience available to all our church people safely. It won’t be easy. Some of our folks won’t come out until there is a vaccine that works, and even then, they will be nervous.

Others will come out to a service like this, if they see that it is safe, that the people running it are doing all they can to make it safe, and that the folks participating are doing everything safely too!

Soon the weather will make outdoor services unlikely. I’ve scheduled them through October 25, but, the reality is, it’s going to get cold and dark. Very soon, 7:00pm will be too late, then 6:00pm will be too.

At that point we will have to decide how to do services safely inside if we can, possibly several services. And that only if COVID doesn’t go crazy again.

But in spite of all this, we have a choice to make that can make a difference. We can fret, and worry and be upset. Or we can rejoice, because the truth is, the Holy Spirit is at work in all of this. We just need to look and see what it is the Spirit is doing, and what the Spirit wants us to learn and to do.

God’s word never comes back empty handed, so as we share God’s word with folks in these strange times, we can be sure that God is in this too!

So, rejoice, as Paul reminds us, and then rejoice somemore!

And all God’s people said, Amen!