Rector's Blog: Solitude and Solidarity

Communion is so personal. You may be standing in a line with a bunch of people, then kneeling next to a bunch of people, then sitting back down in your seat surrounded by a bunch of people, but when it comes your time to receive the sacrament, it’s you. Your time. You and Jesus. In that moment, you are the person who is experiencing communion with God, you are the one receiving grace, you are the one being fed spiritual food for your journey, your faith, your life. It is the height of intimacy.

Communion is also so corporate. You stand in line with a bunch of people. You kneel next to a bunch of people, you sit back down surrounded by a bunch of people. Even as you’re preparing for your moment to receive the sacrament, you can’t help but notice how very not alone you are: You’ve waited your turn, after all, after praying the same prayer in unison with everyone else. The same words that will be spoken to you as you reach out your hands are already ringing in your ears: you hear them being spoken to those who kneel all around you. And then it’s just you and Jesus, but you can hear the shuffling of feet, you are aware that someone is in line behind you, waiting for you just as you waited for someone else. You make eye contact with the clergy, you hear the tremor in the soloist’s voice. Others are being fed – a whole body of faith surrounds you. You are not alone.

There are many meaningful mysteries about gathered worship in the church. This is one of them. The commingling of solitude and solidarity. To be alone in a crowd, and to never be truly alone, as you remain utterly aware simultaneously of your uniqueness and your belonging, to be on your own together with a beautiful collection of others on their own. You are present to yourself, yet connected to the lives and movement of others. The corporate and the intimate, sharing space, nourishing instead of nullifying one another. The gorgeous mystery of shared life in the worshiping community.

A few years ago, my brother and I went to a Green Day concert together. About halfway through the show, the band ripped into one of their biggest hits. It’s called “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” The refrain of the song has the singer repeating the phrase, “I walk alone, I walk alone…” As he belted these words, I was overwhelmed by the sound of the crowd surrounding me. We were quite near the front of the amphitheater, and I remember turning around and seeing, hearing, feeling 16,000 people singing along in unison, “I walk alone, I walk alone.” It was absurd. It was ironic. It was also honest, and beautiful, and brilliantly arresting.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot since that day. I pictured Green Day’s singer sitting in his home, isolated and alone and feeling every bit of it. I imagined him by himself, and writing and singing to himself, “I walk alone.” And from the moment he wrote those words, his solitude was transformed. After all, he had to take the song to his bandmates. They had to write the music with him, and play it together. Others joined in to record it, produce it, release it, promote it. By the time I witnessed Green Day’s performance, they had sold over 2 million copies of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. It has won a Grammy for Record of the Year. And there I was watching a guy singing about walking alone, supported by 5 other musicians, surrounded by 16,000 people who sang in unison about how alone they were. I laughed. Then I trembled. Then I cried. Then I joined them. I sang along. I walked alone too.

I keep saying we live in unprecedented times, and I mean it every time I say it. But also, we know how to be together in our aloneness, and alone in our togetherness. We are all sharing in isolation. We are experiencing corporate loneliness. It is profoundly intimate, and yet utterly shared. We are all having unique experiences, uniquely ours – and we are having them at the same time because of the same event. Whether it’s the stay-at-home protocol, or the darkness of a full movie theater, or the line to take communion, or a sing-along at a rock concert, or the funeral of a friend, or the wedding of another, we know this feeling. In some sense, we have been training for this for years.

Throughout Easter, my blogs and our podcast, Interrupting Grace, are exploring The Way of Love – a Jesus centered rule of life composed of a set of practices that help to define the Episcopal approach to faith. The 7 practices meant for daily use are Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest. This week we are focusing on Worship. In the context of The Way of Love, worship is described as gathering in community weekly to thank, praise, and dwell with God. How do we engage this practice right now? How do we worship as Episcopalians if we are not able to gather in community?

I know things are uncertain. I know we often feel alone, even if we’re in a house stuffed with other people. I know it’s hard. I know we’re suffering. And I miss communion. A lot. I know you do too. I know what we’re doing right now isn’t quite the same. I know. And I love you, and I love myself, and I love how we share Jesus when we’re all in the same room. I’m sorry we are all going through this.

But, friends, we know how to belong to each other while being alone. And we know we belong to God. We know how to worship God at all times and in all places. It is essential to your spiritual health that you understand you don’t have to take a break from worship – that your prayers and songs and thanksgiving are authentic and valuable, even when they’re outside of your norm. When you worship with Redeemer online, you are thanking and praising and dwelling with God. And you are with your community. If you are sitting in your bed with your laptop, with earbuds in your ears, seeing, hearing, feeling Redeemer worship online, you are not alone. You are gathered. You are walking The Way of Love, and your church is with you every step of the way.

I want to take this time to say how blown away I am by the work of our Redeemer team in the ways they have provided worship opportunities for our community. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen, heard, felt the care and intention that’s been put into our online worship. If you haven’t, I invite you to check out the sermons, podcasts, daily office, and Children’s Liturgy, Godly Play, and Liturgy of the Word offerings on our website. It’s astounding, and I am in awe of the love that continues to be made manifest in our worshiping community.