My church council last night voted 6-0 to continue to hold our services online for the foreseeable future, with three members unable to attend because of it being harvest season. The vote total doesn't represent how difficult of a decision it was for them.
With each person present, the despair in their eyes -- because, you know, that is all we see in these strange masked days -- was heartbreaking. And even though I believed it was the right decision -- the safe decision, the love-they-neighbor decision -- as their pastor, I wished in that moment that I could comfort them ... even if it was in the smallest way possible.
But, alas, there really isn't any comforting right now, is there?
As I watched my council protractedly struggle with what I think all of them knew was an inevitable decision because no one wanted to be the one to make the motion, an article a good pastoral friend of mine posted a few days earlier came to mind.
Evidently in the 5th century, a monk and theologian named John Cassian named this feeling that my council was actively feeling last night. ... Well, the feeling that we are all feeling, even if it wasn't as acutely as my council was feeling last night.
Cassian called the ancient Greek emotion "acedia," which he described as an emotion that "seizes" the mind and causes the person to be "horrified at where he is, disgusted with his room ..." And it causes the person to feel "such bodily listlessness and yawning hunger as though he were worn by a long journey or a prolonged fast. ... Next he glances about and sighs that no one is coming to see him. Constantly in and out of his cell, he looks at the sun as if it were too slow in setting."
Ok, Ok ... the circumstances of the life of a monk in the 5th century differ slightly from our daily circumstances here in 21st century United States. But I think we can all relate to the bleakness described in the monk's definition of "acedia."
I saw in the eyes of my council last night. They are weary. ... To the bone weary for being the ones who have to vote month after month to continue to host worship services online, feeling responsible for denying the congregation the opportunity to come together in community.
I saw in their eyes their tiring of hearing me once again preach about making decisions based on loving our neighbor and about the greater good and about what is actually at the heart of our faith.
There are times I honestly believe that they wished -- at least for a moment -- that they had a pastor who was willing to be more aggressive in a return to in-person service. I don't believe it's a malicious desire, just one that would make the responsibility they're contending with easier if they knew that the pastor in the room who was on board for a return to service.
I was prepared at last night's meeting to go even more gospel on them -- a side I rarely show -- if I felt the discussion was leaning toward opening up our church. But ultimately I knew it was unnecessary because within the first couple of minutes of the discussion, I could see it in their eyes that they knew what the right decision was. ... They just needed processing time with each other -- a time to mourn the coming vote -- before they finally decided to continue with online worship services for the time being.
And so eventually, after much rehashing of the same frustrations and the same protestations about people wanting to return to church and the same envy of other churches around us flinging open their doors, my council did indeed take the vote. ... A vote that continues to keep our doors shut on Sunday mornings, but also hopefully continues to keep people safe from the one place I don't believe anyone should contract COVID.
I feel for my council. When they were all elected a year or two or three ago, the biggest issues they thought they might face were the re-carpeting project in the sanctuary. And then, lo and behold, the world dropped the pandemic in their laps. And instead they have had to guide a small, country parish that for the most part is insulated from the health crisis hammering the rest of the world, the financial woes that have left many in precarious positions and the civil unrest that keeps many up at night.
They have stepped up valiantly, and they are to be commended for their leadership. Because when they go home after a council meeting like last night, they are the ones who have to tell their families and their neighbors and their friends that, "No, we are not returning to worship yet. Check back with me next month." ... And I know that having to do that for the past seven months has been excruciatingly difficult for them.
I pray for them. I mourn for them. I am proud of them for making a very difficult decision last night. Because the easy decision would have been to agree to return to in-person service. Few in the congregation would have faulted them. The ones who would have disagreed with that position would have just stayed away from church, and so the council members would have most likely have been greeted with a smile and an "attaboy" on the back at the next service.
That would have been the "feel good" decision, and they avoided it. And for that I am both grateful and awed that the Holy Spirit was at work in that fellowship hall last night. It's no secret that I had approached the meeting with much apprehension, but in the end, it was all for naught.
The council met, expressed their utter disgust with the situation, shared their "acedia" with each other ... and then voted to love their neighbors. ... And I couldn't be prouder of them.
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