Remember

As I type these words we are less than an hour away from our first Facebook Live (modified) Worship service. I'm looking forward to connecting the people in the congregation (and any others who may choose to join us), although it will not be the kind of worship experience I most enjoy. I love to be in a worship space with other living humans, breathing the same air, hearing the same sounds, being moved by the same Spirit. There's something captivating and transforming about a worship experience when God's Spirit is on the move.

Facebook Live will be different because it will be a monologue of sorts. By its very design Facebook Live focuses on one camera with whatever or whoever is in its view, with others who join observing, perhaps typing a comment or more into the public space, relatively passive participants. While I rejoice that we will be able to connect, I anticipate some disappointment only because the connection may seem a bit artificial and, well, socially distanced.

As I think about today's worship offering, I also pause to remember that in my years in pastoral ministry there have been many changes. I'm old enough to remember the mimeograph as the means by which church bulletins and newsletters were produced. I remember the day my home church got its first photocopier (this was about 1982). I was bedazzled with its sophistication (which at the time simply meant no more messy, inky, drippy sheets from the mimeo process).

I remember the days when an exceptional church media ministry meant recording and distributing cassette tapes to those who wished to listen to them following a worship service. Like many of you, I predate the phone phenomenon. I remember rotary dials on corded landline telephones. I remember using my first clunky, non-mouse IBM desktop computer for a job I had in the business world in the late 1980s.

As I consider how much technological change has come upon us in just the past three decades, I am reminded that through it all God has been faithful and present. God is alive today as in the days of Abraham and Sara, Moses and Miriam, Jesus and Mary. And while technological innovation continues to change, God's goodness remains steadfast. This is a God who has known us from our months in the womb, and a God who will journey with us beyond the grave.

This week I was reading the reflection of a United Methodist pastor in Minnesota who shared these thoughts from Henri J. M. Nouwen. Written from the perspective of God speaking to us, he asks us to "Remember Who You Are":

You are my child.

You are written in the palms of my hand.

You are hidden in the shadow of my hand.

I have molded you in the secret of the earth.

I have knitted you together in your mother’s womb.

You belong to me.

I am yours. You are mine.

I have called you from eternity and you are the one who is held safe and 

embraced in love from eternity to eternity.

You belong to me. 

And I am holding you safe and I want you to know that whatever happens to you, I am always there. 

I was always there; I am always there; I always will be there and hold you in my embrace.

You are mine. You are my child. 

You belong to my home. 

You belong to my intimate life and I will never let you go. 

I will be faithful to you.     

In these days of profound dislocation, I invite your to remember who you, God's beloved child.