The Gains and Losses of Worshiping at Home

On Sunday morning, we watched an episode of church. My husband wore pajama pants, and I had wet hair. We sat on our couch, drinking coffee and eating halves of sugared grapefruit. The sound wasn’t working for the first of the praise band’s songs — something about the microphone balance — but by the second hymn they had worked it out. We didn’t sing along; it felt strange without other voices. The pastor spoke from a stool, preaching on fear and resilience in “the time of coronavirus.” It’s the natural sermon hook these days. A woman stood up and prayed for the healers and food suppliers, for the sick, the impoverished, and the lonely.

The church we used to attend in New York was live-streaming its service afterward. Two churches in one day! Well, it was a time to be especially blessed. I kept the service on while making a Dutch pancake, melting butter in a Pyrex. My husband did a puzzle called “Gamefish of the United States.” The pastor who married us preached from his home, projecting Bible verses onto the screen. He started and ended with coronavirus prayers. The comments feed was all congregants, former and current. 'Hello from Manhattan!' 'Hello from Texas!' 'Hello from London!' Then the feed clicked over to a woman with a guitar, playing and singing hymns from her family home in Denver. She had driven across the country in a rented car to get there, taking pictures of dewy landscapes. I sang along with her. Somehow it felt easier to sing while I worked: whisking milk and eggs, frying bacon. My husband, in a feat of multitasking, praised the Lord while finding the tail piece of a large-mouthed bass. It was really, well, nice to do church this way. I hadn’t put on lipstick or rushed to be on time, hoping the traffic lights were green. I actually felt contemplative.

I’m surprised at myself. Worship, tactile and embodied, is always tied to particular places, and I relish that. Church on YouTube means no shifting light through stained glass in the eaves of Riverside Church; no communion wafers; no after-church biscotti. No incense and echo at St. John the Divine in New York, now converted into a field hospital. At our house church in Connecticut, I miss the thrum of the music in the soles of my feet, the program to crease and recycle. There are no children to chuckle at, coloring or rolling Hot Wheels. Out our sanctuary’s enormous windows, I watch hawks, sparrows, cloud movements, wildflowers. All around the world, people are missing the materiality of sacraments: water for baptisms, cups with the blood of Christ inside. One week, we take communion as a congregation with whatever we have on hand. Grape juice? Cranberry juice? Our pastor suggests. We don’t have juice. We have the real deal (red wine) but don’t feel like opening a new bottle just yet. We need to save that! (Quarantine has made us stingy with our provisions.) We use giant hunks of sourdough bread and cups of ice water. It feels ... fine.

But what remains on Internet Church are many expressions I’ve always loved: metaphors in hymns, arguments in sermons, verses to be analyzed. What remains, for all people of all faiths now worshiping remotely, are the prayers that everyone knows (you can trust the others are saying them too, in low voices from living rooms), and the desire for consolation and sanctity. What remains, in some instances, are moments that feel like miracles; for instance, the broadcast (watched by 11 million people) of Pope Francis standing in a rain-enchanted St. Peter’s Square, alone and asking God for mercy. He climbs the stairs to the platform without an umbrella, as the English-language commentator emphasizes. When he starts to pray, he’s out of breath. Behold our sorrowful condition. These weeks, when we’re always sad, sometimes guilty or angry or despairing — well, any church, any communal expression of petition and repentance and improbable joy, is better than none.

Why else was remote church nice? The oven dinged, the pancake came out. We sat down to eat as the second service wrapped. I got syrup on my laptop keys. It was nice for more insidious reasons. Remote church asked nothing of me. There were no deliberations (handshake or hug?); no always-awkward passings of the peace. No conversations with people different than you (richer; poorer; politically at odds; personally at odds) that you had because somehow you shared the same beliefs. I didn’t have to sit still and listen, but instead swept the floor, got more coffee, made comments. There was no work to this kind of church, no showing up and communing although I’d rather not; no advance preparations, no follow-up. On regular Sundays, I often leave church feeling both filled up and depleted, having taken something in but also given out so much: patience, compassion, time. That’s what makes it real.

On Thursday, we host a digital prayer meeting. Usually, it’s held in our home, and I’m just getting home from work, tired and dumping popcorn into a bowl, scrubbing the toilet, pulling out extra chairs. Now, we click on the feed and faces pop up. It’s so easy! We share prayers (many: someone has a test and is waiting for results; someone’s business has slowed; someone’s sister-in-law had a baby) and read a passage from the gospel of John. This week’s reading is Chapter 11, the story of Lazarus, who was raised from the dead by Jesus. Hearing that story again — how Christ delayed before attending to his friend; how skeptical Lazurus’s sister Martha was that Jesus could handle the stinking tomb; Lazarus, unwrapped from his bandages, blinking into consciousness — is uncanny. The story is perfect “in the time of coronavirus” and also feels more magical, more unreal, than ever.

Usually our goodbyes after Bible study are languorous. It’s late, and all of us always need to start getting ready for work the next day. But I appreciate the delay: Folks want to rinse their tea mugs, package up the popcorn, take their time putting on their coats. They want to be polite, rather than rushing out. I’d do the same in their home. Now, the goodbyes are sudden, and a click closes out the window.

This Holy Week, we’ll surf the web from broadcast to broadcast: Easter services at my in-law’s Baptist church in El Paso, Good Friday liturgy from our church in Connecticut, foot-washing and prayers and praises with former congregations we used to be members of. It will be a reacquainting with those spaces and liturgies and styles of sermon, but not those people. There will be no random chances, no messy and unexpected grace when church exists streamlined and smooth on a monitor. Nevertheless, we’ll still have, on Easter, a reminder of the triumph that’s already occurred. We’ll have hope for so many reunions to come.