Still your minds, breathe deeply and prepare to worship God.
Call to Worship:

Romans 12: 1 - 8

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect.
³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Matthew 16: 13 - 20

¹³ Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' ¹⁴ And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' ¹⁵ He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.' ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.' ²⁰ Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

REFLECTION

Today's readings are all about the Church. Church with a 'big C' as well as church with a 'small c'.
Our thinking over these many months has naturally been about the lockdown that the pandemic imposed on us all, and then the tentative opening up of society, then the possibility of opening our buildings for worship, then the reality of what opening up, for what seems like our normal routine, is very far from normal and requires rigorous assessments of what is required to make that as safe as possible.

There is genuine concern too, that all this work may come to nothing if a second wave of virus comes and places of worship may have to close again. All of this makes us ask a fundamental question - what is church?

Our readings of course come from the context of community of faith. Romans is a letter by Paul to a Christian 'Theophilus', or 'lover of God', but includes passages like this we read, which is about the community of faith. So some think that Theophilus is the community whereas others still suggest it is an individual - but very much in the context of his/her community. Matthew's gospel was written to the fearful community struggling to exist in the 'Holy Land' after the unsuccessful uprising against Rome in AD 70. They may be fearing for their lives but they have each other for support and the gospel is meant to be read whenever they meet together.

We are 'scattered in community'. Some may have seen others from the worshipping community, but many have not - or if they have met it is not in the context of worship which is perhaps the first reason that we have traditionally had to gather together.

'We gather to worship', can be the opening lines at the start of a service. We have missed this - or have we not? Have we missed the worship, or, if we are honest, have we missed the gathering in friendship and fellowship with each other?
We have found other means of worshipping; the very fact that you are reading this shows that! It is also not wrong that we admit to missing the fellowship of like-minded people, we were created to be social beings. There is a question though, as to how we have communicated with each other in lockdown and how active have we been in reaching out to others or just expecting to be reached out to.
You may even have discovered a Christian community across the other side of the world that you feel somehow 'part of' by experiencing their online offerings. That may be saying something about the global nature of faith. Indeed, may there be a prompting here by the Spirit - breaking us out of the parochial into the wide, wide fellowship of Christians throughout the world - united in the Spirit in worship and praise to God. After all, Peter was not just made the rock on which the 11 disciples built a little spiritual huddle but the rock on which the whole universal church is built - a cracked and flawed rock perhaps - but sound enough to withstand 2000 years of turbulent history, which a pandemic will not end either.

So what is church in and through lockdown and emergence into the 'new normal'. The answer is not clear yet, so we need our prophets, and we need ears to hear them. We need those who minister and teach and encourage us to keep faith through the varying experiences we are having. We need the people who give their time and expertise to bring us the 'good news' in various ways and to make the copious preparations for those who will return physically, without leaving behind those who cannot attend. We need our leaders and we also need our 'compassionate friends' - those who keep us cheerful yes- but those willing to weep with us when we are weeping, stay by us when we are wobbling, and keep the lamp of faith burning.

It is right that the church - big C or little c - will never be the same again. What has not changed however, is that we are still members of the one body and we have our part to play in it.