These are good. But it should be noted that many of these contemporary reflections revolve around a constellation of visions. One such vision is Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper’s concept of work, faith, and redeeming culture. Another vision involves pressing personal desires through the Venn diagram described by Christian writer Frederick Buechner: vocation is “where our greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need.” This, coupled with the oft-quoted verse from Jeremiah, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jer. 29:7), envisions vocation as an exilic endeavor building the new Jerusalem here in the various Babylons on earth. Another related vision is that we are created to be image-bearers of God, a notion expressed in Richard Middleton’s The Liberating Image, a commentary on Genesis 1. In it, he describes the garden as a kind of temple where Adam and Eve were placed to exercise dominion over all creatures and bring about worship to God. Vocation is to redeem and make culture. If you follow these visions — or stars — in any of the constellations described above, they will point you to your vocation’s North Star. 

There is nothing to criticize here. But it’s also worth noting that for much of history a cobbler or a farmer or an ironsmith never had to wrench their hearts and minds figuring out if they were somehow going to miss out on God’s best vocation for them because they sewed shoes instead of baking bread. Yet did they lead unfulfilled lives? What if our contemporary understandings of vocation revolve around a too-narrow constellation of church, faith, image-bearing, passion, need, and life? What if we need a thicker constellation of vocation?

Hebrews 1-2 and Genesis 1-2

The letter to the Hebrews is probably not an obvious place to begin such a reflection. However, what is interesting is the way the author uses the Messianic psalms and recasts the Law and the Prophets in Christological light, especially Genesis 1-2. Hebrews 1-2 is part of the epistle’s longer system of thought that explains the myriad ways the Son is greater than any number of created rulers: prophets and priests like Moses and Melchizedek, fathers of righteousness like Abraham, and, ultimately, spirits like angels. Thus, when Hebrews cites the Song of Moses, or Psalms 8, 45 and 102, the author builds the case for the Son’s rule over the angels and false gods (Heb. 1:5-13, 2:9; c.f.: Deut. 32:43, Ps. 8:4-6, 45:6-7, 102:25-27). Thus, Hebrews 2:14-15, recasting Psalm 8, concludes that the Son of Man was made a little lower than the angels, and in this humiliation for the sake of man, he would destroy the Devil who has the power of death over man. 

But Hebrews’ use of Psalm 8 also recasts how one understands Genesis 1:26-28. While the referent in Psalm 8 in Hebrews is Jesus, the psalm doesn’t rule out Adam. “What is man” — that is, Adam — “that you are mindful of him?” Adam is made a little lower than the angels, yet crowned with glory and honor and given dominion over all creatures. 

But aren’t angels creatures? Yes. And so, one concludes that Adam’s dominion in Genesis 1-2 extends over angels as well. And not just Michael and Gabriel — the cherubim and seraphim and all the angels and archangels. But also over that great fallen angel, Lucifer the Devil. Consider this: what if Adam and Eve’s dominion was not merely towards tilling the earth and taming beasts — to create culture — but rather to also exercise dominion over the serpent and the Devil? To defeat their wiles and charms? 

After all, we traditionally read Christ’s defeat of Satan in the wilderness as an undoing of the serpent’s defeat of Adam and Eve in Eden. But this implies that Adam, Eve, and their offspring were to exercise dominion over the serpent and the Devil in Eden — but failed. You could even say that this is part and parcel of all of humanity’s God-given vocation both in the Garden and outside it — not merely to create or redeem cities and culture, but to reign over the beasts of evil within and without.

In fact, many ancient commentators of Genesis assumed exactly this. They believed that Adam and Eve were placed in Paradise with the injunction “don’t eat” as a means to cultivate virtue and receive the prize of eternal life, and to master the enemies of this goal (An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II.30, John of Damascus); that they (and we) were to rule over the savage beasts within (On the Origin of Man, Gregory of Nyssa); that the serpent symbolized the pleasures of the belly, and that Adam and Eve were deceived by him, but that Christ overcame him in the desert (Letters to Bishops 63, Ambrose); and that the Devil was placed in Paradise so that in overcoming him we would attain a fruitful salvation (On Paradise, Ambrose). Notice the words cultivate, beasts within, belly, fruitful, all linked with virtue and salvation. In other words, vocation was linked not merely to redeeming culture or building new cities, but to becoming new persons. Or to put it differently, it matters less what we do; it matters more who we become. And what we do must become a subservient means towards who we become. 

A New Shift

This shift in focus frees contemporary conversations and reflections on vocation from the spirit of the times. Anecdotally speaking, many contemporary vocational discernment processes are inaccessible to the majority of Christians around the world, let alone Christians throughout the ages. The Enneagram, personality tests, gift assessments, faith and work initiatives, and the like, are tools accessible primarily to Western, college-educated, middle-income and higher cohorts with the luxury of leisurely contemplation. And while it dismisses money as an arbiter of vocation, it only has the freedom to do so because it has an impoverished understanding of the financial insecurity that billions of people live in. It privileges white-collar professions. It has little to say to single mothers working long hours at multiple “dead-end” jobs, so-called blue-collar workers and migrant workers, rural economies and farmers, refugees and immigrants who had to give up white-collar professions in their homelands, and those who have lost their jobs to recessions and pandemics, industrialization and mechanization, and production moving overseas. It has even less to say to those who are disabled, in hospice care, sick or dying, or whose so-called “glory” days are behind them. It grossly over-prizes the young, the strong, the free. 

Obviously, this is unideal. 

But if it matters less what we do, and more who we become; if virtue is the vocation of the Christian through overcoming the Devil, the flesh, and the world — as our baptismal covenant asserts — then vocation is actually (re)placed in its proper context in the life of the Church. In fact, one could call baptismal and confirmation liturgies as initiation rites for vocations of virtue. Vocation becomes all the things that we all do and don’t do to become like Christ; not just the exciting things that exceptional people do. This is because all things by the grace of God’s Spirit become means to become like or unlike God. 

Thus, vocation rejoices in the plain and ordinary: abstain from unchastity, love one another, aspire to live quietly, mind our own affairs, work with our hands (1 Thess. 4:1-12). This is mundane stuff. Yet, as vocation becomes mundane, we become virtuous. For Christians are content to live into the mundane because Christ was content to enter into the mundane with us. And in these mundane vocations, the Church, as Jerusalem, rises up from the dust and ashes of the Babylons of our mortal lives to reach up into the starry skies of heaven and grasp the Morning Star of Christ. And this is exceptional enough. 

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. (BCP, p. 324)

It was rehearsed so many times that my young mind had memorized the words even before I had finished high school. In the 1979 prayer book, the summary is a compromise that replaced the Decalogue. Even then, it is optional in Rite I, and conspicuously missing in Rite II. It took me many years to understand its spiritual power and soul-forming benefit.

Liturgically, once we reach the confession and absolution, the Summary of the Law, if not the Decalogue, takes on a deeper meaning, if we have said it earlier in the liturgy.

The second confession prayer in Rite I, the one that many parishes are most familiar with, says this: “We have not loved thee with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” (BCP, p. 331). This directly corresponds with our having already said:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

There is a deep liturgical cohesiveness at play that connects exactly what we are asking forgiveness for — breaking the law. The Catechism adds:

Q. What is the purpose of the Ten Commandments?

A. The Ten Commandments were given to define our relationship with God and our neighbors.

Q. Since we do not fully obey them, are they useful at all?

A. Since we do not fully obey them, we see more clearly our sin and our need for redemption. (BCP, p. 848)

In other words, the prayer book acknowledges at least the pedagogical use of the law, that it shows us our need for a Redeemer who forgives our sins, so that we can experience everlasting life instead of condemnation and everlasting death. Thus, when we reach the absolution of sins, these themes of the forgiveness of sins, because we have broken God’s law, are connected to God blessing us abundantly and bringing us to “everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (BCP, p. 332).

As we progress through the liturgy, we notice that the prayer book not only retains its inherently Reformed character, but also incorporates its historical Catholic character. In the weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the words everlasting life first arise in the absolution. It should strike us as curious that our entire religion — which is founded upon the triune God desiring to spend eternity with us, who sends his only Son to become incarnate for us sinners, not to condemn but to save — only now acknowledges that we have been graciously given this gift of “everlasting life, through Jesus Christ out Lord.”

Everlasting life will be said many more times in the liturgy, to the faithful who come to the altar, with palms wide open to receive the signs of our everlasting life, the Body and Blood of our Lord. And as they receive this Sacrament, these words are said, over and over and over again.

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.

The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.

or with these words

The Body (Blood) of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everlasting life. (BCP, p. 338).

In other words, the final words of the absolution, “everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord,” find their denouement in these words said during the ministration of Communion, as the faithful receive the sacrament. In this sweetest of moments, the liturgy transports us from the burden of the law to our forgiveness and absolution from breaking it, to resting in the grace that empowers us to enjoy eternity with our Lord and our God.

That the liturgy doesn’t end here tells us more about its soul-forming power. In the Confession, after humbly repenting our sins (“We have not loved thee with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves”), we say, “For the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in thy will, and walk in thy ways, to the glory of thy Name.” (BCP, p. 331) In the post-Communion prayer, after thanking God or feeding us with the spiritual food of Christ’s Body and Blood, we humbly beseech God to assist us with grace to do all good works that he has “prepared for us to walk in.” (BCP, p. 339).

In other words, borrowing from Ephesians 2:8-9 and 5:2, where the apostle talks simultaneously about not being saved by our works, but nonetheless being saved to walk in love, to do the good works prepared by God before the foundation of the world, the liturgy too connects lawbreaking to then being redeemed so that we can fulfill the law by the grace of God. God’s grace is not limited to only forgiving us lawbreakers and giving us everlasting life. The liturgy shapes us to recognize that God’s grace extends to nourishing us to walk in God’s ways, to walk in love, indeed to go back to the very beginning of the liturgy, where we heed Christ’s words, to love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. This phrasing in the post-Communion prayer is almost like a second denouement — propelling us from being burdened by the law, to standing in grace, to then walking in superabundant grace. This is the gospel!

I’ve spent a lot of time in parachurch ministries where most of my peers and colleagues were not Episcopalians. One of the strongest criticisms leveled against us is that we don’t preach the gospel. I would counter that immersed in our tradition, we preach, through our liturgy, nothing but the gospel. It is a gospel that takes seriously the weight and burdens of the law, and acknowledges weekly that we can’t do it. We are unable to fulfill it, as hard as we have tried. Yet, by the mercy and grace of God, he forgives us our sins, and gives us everlasting life, through his Son, in the sacrament of his Body and Blood. Yet this gospel is not a truncated one that stops at sin and forgiveness. It takes repentance seriously enough that the faithful are propelled toward living out their everlasting life by walking in God’s ways, to the glory of his Name.

The Rev. John Deepak Sundara is Vicar for Worship and Evangelism at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Houston, TX.

By traditional liturgy, I mean a liturgy that is intentionally out of step with current cultural norms. Indeed, anyone familiar with the three parishes Martin mentions knows that, liturgically, they are all quite different from each other. Although All Souls, Oklahoma City, Church of the Incarnation, Dallas, and St. Martin’s, Houston are Rite I parishes, one uses the forms of the 1928 BCP, one is a parish that would have made E.B. Pusey proud, and the other is deeply influenced by the venerable Church of England low-church evangelical, John R.W. Stott.

That being said, it is worth mentioning that, apart from their theological commitments, the rectors of each parish share a particular charism of spiritual leadership, namely a personal discipline of prayer, that lends itself to their congregation’s growth and vibrancy, making them outliers in the Episcopal Church. From personal experience, I want to discuss Church of the Incarnation, where I served under the former rector, the Rt. Rev. Anthony Burton, for five and a half years, and St. Martin’s, where I now serve under the Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson Jr.

First, Bp. Burton. When I served at Church of the Incarnation, the daily rhythm was a morning Mass and Evening Prayer. On the mornings when I made it on time, Bp. Burton was invariably beginning his workday kneeling in prayer. While all of us leafed through the service leaflet, sometimes clumsily, Bp. Burton knew and said it all by heart. It is hard to not remember him kneeling in that chapel.

Likewise, when Bp. Burton prayed or celebrated the Mass, every word uttered was simultaneously both his and the prayer book’s. Nothing felt rote. The prayers felt true and sincere. He believed every word he prayed.

During the early and painful months of COVID, our parish organized a Zoom Bible study. In the first session, Bp. Burton closed our evening with Compline. I cannot explain how it was possible for one man, praying through his computer, to draw a hundred or so parishioners, also watching and praying through their screens, into a deep moment of faith, peace, and comfort, especially when he prayed these words: “Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.” There was something about how he prayed those words, and how they landed on us sitting miles away from him, that I knew this prayer was coming from a priest and bishop whose soul had been deeply shaped, for many decades, by Christ in the school of prayer.

Another story. Across the highway from Incarnation is a neighborhood with a community housing project. Over the years, Incarnation has sought to partner with existing ministries and churches in the area, many of which are historical African American congregations and outreach ministries from a variety of traditions. One tragic evening, a drive-by shooting claimed the lives of many innocents, including a child. Residents rallied to support each other through prayer and worship. Their pastors invited Bp. Burton to participate and pray. In a space full of non-White Christians, one would have imagined that Bp. Burton stood out like a sore thumb — a tall, slim, Anglo-Catholic bishop and rector of a predominantly well-to-do, white church. But the pastors invited him for a reason. And Bp. Burton’s prayers and words, steeped by decades of prayer book spirituality and piety, were met with resounding amens over and over and over again.

There was something about his spiritual leadership that was deeply influenced by his spiritual discipline of daily prayer.

But this trait isn’t only evident in Bp. Burton. In one of my first interviews with Russ, I met him at his home, early in the morning. At one of his side tables in his living room was his cup of coffee, his well-worn Bible, and his prayer book. He told me about the gems he had mined in his time with the Lord that morning. During his morning quiet times, he would also sense the Lord prodding him in certain directions about decisions for the life of the parish. Later, I discovered that Russ designates certain topics for each day of the week. For example, on Mondays he prays for all 200 employees of St. Martin’s by name.

Russ has a reputation for compelling preaching. I believe this is the secret: while the hymn before the Gospel is still being sung, and before Russ climbs the stairs to the pulpit, he kneels in prayer at his preacher’s seat. It feels a tad bit out of step with everything else going around liturgically. And then, after he’s done preaching, while we’re all reciting the Nicene Creed, Russ is again kneeling in prayer, at his seat. Or sometimes he’s off to the vesting room. The lay servers sometimes ask, “Where’s Russ off to?” To pray!

It should be utterly unsurprising — but it still surprises me — that people give their life to Christ after he has preached.

Of course, God is going to honor the prayers of a priest who hopes his words bear gospel fruit for the sake of Christ’s kingdom through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why people love Russ’s preaching. Not least because he is a compelling preacher; but rather that he prays the Holy Spirit compels them — and he does!

Not too long ago, St. Martin’s beloved choir conductor died quite suddenly. More than being a conductor, he was a chaplain and pastor to dozens of choir members. The church was mired in a sense of shock and grief. One evening, when all the choir had gathered to mourn, Russ pulled out the prayer book and prayed for us and with us. Once again, every word uttered was simultaneously both his and the prayer book’s. Nothing felt rote. The prayers felt true and sincere. He believed every word he prayed. And then we sang a hymn.

I hope you see a picture.

The prayer lives and personal disciplines of Bp. Burton and Russ look quite different. Yet, both have deep lives of prayer shaped by the prayer book. And I can’t help but conclude that their disciplines, habits, and lives of prayer have much to do with the growth and vibrancy of their congregations.

The Rev. John D. Sundara is the vicar for worship and evangelism at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church (Houston, TX), and was the assistant rector for Christian formation and Church of the Incarnation (Dallas, TX).

From the dawn of the digital age, evangelicals have been at the forefront of using digital media to preach the gospel. So many tools we take for granted, such as evangelistic videos and curated sermon clips, were pioneered by evangelicals, and now are almost ubiquitous in diverse traditions. Nadia Bolz-Weber, Bishop Robert Barron, and everyone in between, owe  some gratitude to evangelicals. These days, it is a given that even a small rural community church will have a basic website with at least their service information on it, if not a few photos or sermons online.

These missiological practices suited contemporary evangelicalism’s mission just fine. But what was that mission? For the most part, the mission was inherent in the name, to evangelize. And to evangelize meant disseminating kerygmatic information for the purposes of conversion. Successful dissemination was measured through the number of “converts.” This did not necessarily mean how many people sought baptism, but rather how many people visited a given church building on a Sunday. Churches became tourist destinations, preachers became rock stars, worship spaces became concert venues, congregations became statistics. Over time, more criteria were added that emphasized membership, community involvement, leadership development, attendance at non-Sunday worship services and other events, or financial contributions.

In such settings, pastors were not just expected to preach and teach, but to preach and teach exceptionally at all times. They were expected to have that exhortative moment that could be extracted from the entire service, punched up with graphics, and widely disseminated the way popular music videos ran their course.

What ensued was the rise of the celebrity pastor. The celebrity pastor was expected to maintain their following — and gain more followers — through a heavily curated public persona. Their presence could not be limited only to Sunday morning; they had to be everywhere. As the market churned out more screens and social media apps, the celebrity pastor was expected to be present in all of them.  As the market produced more trends and fashions, the celebrity pastor was expected to not just be familiar with but to partake of and master them. Many churches, probably unconsciously, preferred personalities who had the potential to become celebrities, with pastoral qualification as a nice bonus. These desires were masked by words like “authentic” or “relevant.”

The market dictated that personalities that thrived on liking to be liked gained larger platforms than those who did not. Thankfully, many had the theological substance to back up their celebrity status.

Now, it is commonplace to find pastors with multiple staff to run multiple social media profiles, like celebrities with an advertising team. Their opinions are no longer just expected to be religious. Sometimes their opinions are expected to be trendsetting, about everyday topics like sports drafts, craft coffee, music, especially if any of these things is remotely connected to the faith of a Christian musician or athlete or entrepreneur or film. And they are expected to be positive. To be liked.

The problem with marketing strategies, though, is that anyone can replicate them. Celebrity pastors and their teams use marketing strategies the same way businesses use ads to get people to buy the product. But what happens when instead of celebrity pastors, Christian celebrities use the same strategies? What happens when Justin Bieber or Chris Pratt or Kendall Jenner use #pray or #Jesus or #happyeaster on social media? Now you find celebrity pastors and professional entertainers communicating on the same platform with apparently the same depth of faith. Or at least that’s the perception.

But let’s take this one step further: imagine a generation that grew up seeing these social media posts, from celebrity pastors and Christian celebrities, side-by-side. While this generation’s religious upbringing would have much in common with the previous generation’s — church attendance, Sunday School and vacation bible school — there would be at least one crucial difference. These are true digital natives. They have never known a time that the faith was not mediated through a social media app on a smartphone.

Evangelism has taken the form of marketing and advertisements. The ads have become elaborately produced. But now there is no other product behind the ad. The ads are not promoting the works of pastors, authors, theologians, musicians, preachers. They aren’t promoting a church or a book or a conference or a sermon series. The only product is the post and the person generating the post. And a sentimental, emotional, vaguely spiritual pick-me-up disguised as evangelism and discipleship.

In such circumstances, how do you gauge evangelistic success? How do you gauge “converts”? Answer: the number of social media interactions — likes, reactions, retweets, comments, views, shares. And now there’s an immediate psychological feedback loop. As a consumer, with the tap of my fingertip, I’ve interacted with a spiritual social media post. This creates an addictive feedback mechanism: I as consumer receive a feel-good moment by interacting with the uplifting post, and my “like” provides the producer with his or her own feel-good rush. We enter into a codependent dance of “liking” each other and needing the other, under the guise of evangelism and discipleship.

But if this is the faith, if this is discipleship, does one still need the celebrity pastor? Does one need Christian books and sermon series and Christian conferences? Does one need the theologian, the artist, the musician? And thus, we see the decline of the celebrity pastor, and the rise of the Christian social media influencer. The social media influencer is just as successful as the pastor, and only has to work half as much. There is no congregation to shepherd, no team to manage, no sermon to prep. In fact, they can post about any number of things that has nothing to do with the faith because they are fluent in all manner of social media languages with the stroke of a finger. But they gain just as much a following because they use the same hashtags. And without even knowing it, we see a slow erosion within contemporary evangelicalism of ecclesial commitments, sacramental participation, excitement about the Bible, articulation of the gospel, prayer retreats, ministry to the poor and the unevangelized. The faith stops short of running through our muscles and our limbs, and resides primarily as brief emotional moments.

And in fact, the theological superficiality of this approach is only further unmasked during this pandemic. Families are stressed; virtual engagement fatigue is real; people are being laid off; anxiety about disease spread and restrictions and the ever-changing landscape of information has even coined a new term: coronacoaster. The last thing Christians need right now is to be constantly bombarded by saccharine images of verses in fun fonts. Or worse, to engage in a one-sided spiritual relationship through more screens.

If this sounds dire, contemporary evangelicalism does have a solution. It’s for celebrity pastors to do the work of ministry beyond the Sunday morning stage. It’s to put leadership and team management to the back burner, even if it is for a just a season, and instead to begin getting to know their congregations in a way that their congregations imagine they know their pastor. To pastor is to shepherd. To shepherd is not primarily to preach and teach, but to care for sheep. To even call or text or email their sheep instead of waiting for the sheep to initiate contact with the shepherd, to see how each sheep in their flock is doing. Did they lose their jobs in this pandemic? Were they furloughed? Has parenting been stressful? Did anyone get sick? How can they pray for them? Celebrity social media influencers don’t have a flock or a congregation, per se, just the illusion of one. But celebrity pastors do.

A church I know, because of the lack of ministry happening at the church, rallied its staff team, pastoral and support, to make calls to the 5000+ names and households on its rolls. They started first with those who were most vulnerable in this pandemic —seniors, and those living in long term facilities or in hospice care. Each call probably took around 5 minutes. But people didn’t feel abandoned. They felt cared for. Once this was done, the church now knew who was in dire need, and set up a system to keep in touch with those vulnerable folks. But it also opened the lines for communication and connection amongst those who were vulnerable but not in urgent need to reach back to the church in case things should change. So, for example, if those who were in hospice care took a turn for the worse, they and their families knew to call the church right away for prayers and presence, and this many did.

Then the church decided to slowly work down its list — to call young families, empty nesters, young adults and couples. It did not matter if these folks had been coming to the church sporadically or frequently, if they had only visited once in the past five years or were regular tithers and leaders, everyone got a call. Staff called, sometimes texted, sometimes bouncing their own children on their knees, while putting together sandwiches and managing Zoom calls. Sometimes, the callers received voicemail, sometimes a brief conversation, but the pastoral connection that folks experienced, especially during these times, was decidedly Christian. It reflected the work of the Church, of Christ, reaching down to minister through his hands and feet, his voice and ears. If this does not reflect the mystery of the Incarnation, I don’t know what does.

We do not know to what extent or how permanently this pandemic will change the Church, although this agnosticism has not stopped many gurus from prophesying bigger and better digital ministry. But we do know this: the future of pastoral leadership, evangelical or not, cannot be primarily unidirectional and virtual because that empties Christ’s Incarnation of its power. It cannot be primarily stage driven and celebrity driven. If this were so, we would have little to no stories of Jesus touching the vulnerable. And perhaps this kind of decline of the celebrity pastor is a good thing. Because it ought to lead to the rise of the pastoring pastor. If anything, the virtual experience ought to supplement what we were always supposed to do — to be present, even if over the phone and socially distanced, with those in need. Indeed, evangelicals know this because some of the most widely circulated articles on prominent evangelical websites are of Christians ministering to the sick throughout various pandemics and plagues in the history of the Church. But those stories can’t remain as feel-good artifacts of the past.  And so, if evangelical churches and pastors would risk the same, it would go down in history as the time that contemporary evangelicalism got back to its roots of evangelism: not the bland evangelism of only proclaiming Christ, but the dynamic evangelism of proclaiming and being Christ in and for the World.

The Rev. John D. Sundara is a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas.

And I get it. In some ways, we are prisoners, hostages of this virus. It has hijacked our lives, our schedules and calendars and plans, even our friendships. In a certain way, it has robbed us of a profound use of our bodies, to touch each other, to hold hands, see each other sans screens and apps, smell each other’s unique scent, feel the warmth and breath of another. At the very least, it has made human interactions a source of anxiety and stress. We want to escape our hostage-taker, and so we make lists of escapes.

This is why I appreciated Ephraim Radner’s recent article “Should We Live-stream Worship? Maybe Not.” Anyone familiar with Radner’s work would immediately identify one of his central ecclesiological claims: the Church’s life in Christ, figured in the cross and the history of Israel, is a life under judgment. This judgment takes various shapes and forms, including our inability and incapacity to see and taste Christ. Thus, we hunger and thirst for him. If one can get comfortable with this starting claim, Radner’s ecclesiology is more comprehensible, even if it is disagreeable, like strong, bitter medicine.

Central to Radner’s theological anthropology is the conviction that we are creatures. This is perhaps simultaneously a vague and a precise claim. Vague: we are creatures, but so what? So are pelicans and giraffes and the coronavirus. Precise: we are creatures and Christian maturity is to embrace the finitude and suffering into which God has caused us humans to be. Both his anthropology and his ecclesiology are Christocentric and crucicentric.

His article on live streaming worship recasts these central theses in our context —does virtual worship somehow escape this judgement? Does it represent an attempt to avoid living into our creaturehood? I appreciated his sociological analysis and description of an unholy trinity, namely maternalization, infantilization, and siliconization, and his greater conclusion is that we ought to grow up, to mature, to learn to live into our judgment. He suggests that this might involve learning to pray alone, to use our Prayer Books, and ultimately, to hunger and thirst for Christ.

But there is a fork in the road. Radner’s essay begins,

Should we live-stream worship at this time? Maybe not. At least we should think about why, to what end, and with what consequences.

It’s easy to forget that this “maybe not,” this fork on the road, is a companion of “maybe.” As Radner walks one way, I want to traverse the other.

Radner’s essay providentially preceded Laetare Sunday. As I vested and prepared for our livestream service, all I felt in that moment was loss and grief. But maybe also joy. Loss and grief: at the deafening silence after each acclamation waiting for a response that happened beyond the camera; at the lack of children’s laughter, or clumsiness as they approach the altar; at the many foreheads I wouldn’t bless; at the hundreds of open palms into which I wouldn’t place crumbs of Christ.

Imagine this loss, further magnified, when the introit for Laetare Sunday says, “I rejoiced when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord.” Anyone who has heard Hubert Parry’s “I Was Glad” can feel a tinge of David’s joy in Psalm 122. It’s an anthem that strengthened my own calling to the priesthood. Yet the words felt hollow of joy, instead filled with the grief of another psalm, Psalm 137: “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Anyone who has now stood in the strange land of an empty worship space, speaking into the apparent void, will surely feel that loss and grief. There is no “us” going unto the house of the Lord.

But I also felt joy, or at least contentment at a joy deferred. Isn’t joy deferred after all what Laetare Sunday is all about? It’s a joy deferred that lifts our eyes to beautiful Jerusalem, the Jerusalem above who is free, for she is our mother. It’s a joy deferred that traverses like a pilgrim through a strange land, to the beautiful city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. It’s the joy deferred that hungers and thirsts for Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest. I know not, oh, I know not, what joys await us there; what radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.

Radner is right. There is a way in which live-streamed worship is our flimsy tactic to escape our own judgment and creaturehood through our technological prowess. It is, if you will, a form of works-based salvation. I am concerned that people tune into live stream worship in the same way that they tune into Netflix and Hulu — it is another digital offering on an otherwise lengthy menu of virtual escapes. I am concerned that our hunger and thirst for connection with each other pales in comparison for our hunger and thirst for Christ, most of all in the sacrament. I am concerned that this season, instead of maturing us may stunt us, because ultimately what we keep striving for is escape when really what we should yearn for is beauty.

So, perhaps what may initially seem like a fork in the road, may indeed be one road that requires two kinds of fellow-pilgrims, two kinds of fellow-traversers — one that learns to pray alone, to use the prayer book; another who aspires for beauty. Together, they teach each other to hunger and thirst for Christ. To cross a vast and endless ocean needs two kinds of seafarers — one that knows how to build and sail a boat, and another that yearns for the distant shore beyond that vast and endless ocean.

In this season of Coronatide, Christians need to learn to pray alone, to mine the depths of their Bibles, to thumb and wear out the covers and pages of the prayer book. But they also need to be reminded of beauty. The beauty of liturgy, the beauty of hymnody, of hearing anthems and motets, of the grandeur of pipes and strings. Christians need to see gilded wooden altars and ornately carved stone pulpits, wax candles and stained-glass windows, marble and brass. They need to hear the rhythms and cadences of collects recited in familiar tones, and hear the gospel spoken in a voice more confident than theirs. They need to see bread and wine lifted up. Not so that we can be lifted out of our misery, indulging escapism. But so that we can yearn for that Jerusalem that is above, longing for beauty.

And perhaps that is one reason to live-stream — not that it would lessen our absence from each other, but that it would heighten absence, and thus teach us to yearn, to hunger and ache, to cross that vast and endless ocean so that we may find ourselves at the shores of that new Jerusalem, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven. If live streaming is done right — and granted, that is a big “if” — perhaps it can inculcate in us not the fleeting, pedestrian emotions of escape or a reprieve from our times. But rather give us a deepening hunger and thirst for Jerusalem, for Christ, for our maturity. Beautiful Jerusalem, that sweet and blessed country, the home of God’s elect. Oh, sweet and blessed country that eager hearts expect. May Jesus, in his mercy bring us to that dear land of rest, who art, with God the Father, and the Spirit, ever blest.

The Rev. John D. Sundara is assistant rector for Christian formation at Church of the Incarnation, Dallas. He’s a pretty uninteresting guy who likes a laugh. He loves his wife and his kids. He enjoys cooking good food.