Dear ELCA congregations,
This is an exciting moment for you. If you are vaccinated, you get to take off these fabric face-hiders we have been behind for a year! You will be able to hear people better! You might be able to remember (new?) people’s names! It feels like turning a new leaf. Maybe our hospitality and fellowship can flourish once again! Maybe our pews will be bursting with those we have missed for so many months!
We feel you. We both have only experienced our current communities behind masks. We want to celebrate with you.
But we are struggling. Because alongside the call of Pastor, God has also called us to be Mother to four children between the two of us. Since they are not yet 12, and one is still measuring time in weeks, they cannot be vaccinated. And while our partners and we have been vaccinated for a while now, and can go unmasked, if we are going out in public indoors with our children, we won’t. We are family, we are in this together, and they need to know we are in this challenging time with them. That even though they have had to miss special events and have lost out on playdates and building new friendships, we as their parents, are here, in this pandemic, experiencing it as they do. They also look to us as an example to follow. And since they are not yet vaccinated, masks are important. They are a public safety measure that have been proven to work in this global pandemic that is not yet over.
As we’ve struggled this past year with: our desire to see the faces of the people with whom we’ve been worshipping and our need to do what’s best for our children, a story comes to mind. It’s the story of another church’s experience figuring out how to best live together as a community of faith.
The church was in an area where a lot of people around them actively worshipped idols and would host fancy meals to honor those idols. Some people in the church confidently knew they were free in Christ above all, so they didn’t hesitate to participate in these meals with their neighbors. They weren’t afraid. Plus, who knows, maybe they could even share the good news of Jesus around those tables.
But there was a problem: the newer Christians were getting confused. To them, as they learned about their new faith, participating in these fancy meals seemed inconsistent with Jesus' message. In fact, if they did join in, it might be downright harmful to them. When they saw the elders of the church do something they couldn’t, or weren’t ready, to do it was fracturing the community.
Fortunately, these folks had a wise pastor: Pastor Paul. Pastor Paul advised the elders to stop attending the fancy meals. Is it worth it? He asked them. You are marked by Christ now and the good news of his resurrection! Would you risk letting new Christians fall away? To be left alone and isolated, to not know if they are worthy of belonging in your community? And he urged them to prioritize the well-being of the weakest in the community so that they would not be lost.
This story is of the Corinthian church, their Pastor is St. Paul, the Apostle. They had a lot to learn. Just like us. We too can hear Pastor Paul’s words echoing in our ears, “Is it worth it?” Is exercising personal freedom worth leaving behind families with young children who are not yet willing to risk large, indoor, mask-optional spaces?
Paul’s call to put the well-being of the community ahead of one’s personal liberties still stands for us today as well. Will we risk letting our newest Christians, our youngest in this case, feel confused that they can’t do what they see all their elders doing and therefore feel unwelcome and uncared for because we are unmasking in our worship services and have no way to know if everyone who comes in is actually vaccinated? Do we want to let parents and kids continue to be further isolated and alienated from the church now? Have we thought about what that might do to the future of our church? What message are we sending families when we are asking them to bear the burden of public safety measures on their own? Have we thought about what it might do to their participation in our community? How about their faith?
Surely not all families with small children feel as we do, but there certainly are some in all our communities who will not want to re-enter the church for fear of adding another quarantine risk to their lives, or an illness, or are just not ready for any number of reasons after the collective trauma of this past year. Those families need a community that cares, respects, remembers and includes them.
As a church, we often talk about how we long for young families to be present in our congregations. Now is our chance to show how much we care by masking in solidarity with our littlest siblings in Christ.
At the waters of baptism we proclaim that God has entrusted these children into our hands, and we will teach them, worship with them and love them. To us, that looks like wearing a mask a little longer.
Let’s do this, Church.
In Christ’s Love, your Pastor-Mother-Priests,
The Rev. Kirsten Nelson Roenfeldt. The Rev. Maggie Berndt-Dreyer
