Holy Space

Dear Friends,

I'd like to offer words of thanks today. Specifically, I want to thank you all for making this Holy Week and Easter a wonderful remembrance of the days of the Lord's death and resurrection. I say it so often that you probably get sick of it, but Christianity must be practiced together. You can't follow Jesus all by yourself. And to see you all bring your whole selves into our various offerings—both online and in person—last week filled me with a deep joy for your commitment to Jesus and our life together as his disciples.

It wasn't a surprise though. This community—and the rest of the world—has been through much over the last year. And I'm sometimes just amazed at how well we seem to have held together. You've heard my teeth chatter through Eucharistic prayers on cold mornings. We've collectively held our breath, hoping that the rain will hold off long enough for us to finish services. You've figured out the best way to turn your home into a place of worship and faithfully prayed and sang and listened on your sofa. Our life of worship today isn't whole, it isn't what we'd like for it to be (will it ever be, really?), but it has remained strong and committed through the past year.

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This Sunday, we have the gift of being able to return, in limited numbers, to the Nave for worship. From time to time, I've heard colleagues and other leaders in the church decry our desire to return to our churches, arguing that we've bought into the lie that "the church is the building" rather than the people. I think those folks are wrong. Our desire to return to our buildings has instead to do with the fact that Christians believe space is sacramental—that places, especially those in which we've prayed and wept and married and said farewell to our departed and received the Eucharist, can give us a glimpse into, a taste of, the goodness and grace of God.

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That's true of all places, at the end of the day. In this time away from our church building, I bet you've identified other places that have put you into contact with the depths of grace—your garden, your sofa, the park down the street, the back parking lot of the church. And it's our sacred spaces, our places set apart to connect with God, that teach us how to do that, how to commune with God in all sorts of other places.

I've celebrated, prayed, and wept in the Nave of St. Peter's Church. In all of those activities in that space, I've been plunged more deeply into the life and love of God. And realizing that that can happen there, I find myself more open to the idea that it might happen in my garden, on my sofa, at the park down the street, or even in the church parking lot.

So, no, there's nothing wrong with deeply desiring a chance to return to our beautiful church building. It's only wrong when I make the mistake of believing it is the only place I'll meet God. As though our Nave captures the presence of a God who even death and the tomb couldn't hold.

So come this Sunday (if you have registered!) or come in the next few weeks when you have had a chance to register. Smell the flowers at the altar, look up at the stunning suspended cross, watch the light from the windows dance across the pews. Give thanks to the Lord for the holy space that is St. Peter's Church, and let it teach you that all space is, ultimately, God's space. That all creation is holy.

God bless,
Fr. Quinn+