Dear Calvary-St. George’s,

Wow! What a difference a week makes. I first want to inform you that the Episcopal Bishop of New York, The Right Reverend Andrew Dietsche, is directing us not to hold public worship services at this time until May 17th. That being said, we will continue to gather and stay in touch in new and interesting ways.

First: We will livestream our Thursday 12:10 p.m. service and our Sunday 11 a.m. services on Facebook Live at facebook.com/calstgnyc. I am keeping the 11 a.m. service as Morning Prayer until we can all participate in the Eucharist together again. As always, our website frontpage www.calvarystgeorges.org will contain links to all of our streaming services.

Second: Our Sunday School continues with a StoryMakers lesson led by Chelsy Haynes available on Facebook and our website Sundays at 10am. This is a great way for families to connect with their children and assure them of the hope of the Gospel in these uncertain times. Ben is also offering a session of The Forum on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. and I will lead a Devotion Group on the Psalms. All of this can be found at facebook.com/calstgnyc and www.calvarystgeorges.org.

Third: I have been scouring the internet looking for best practices of maintaining community at this time. I found several churches are gathering their congregations on Zoom meetings for prayer and we will do the same. Zoom is a digital meeting conferencing service that allows users to “meet” in groups remotely from their computers or mobile devices. Every weekday at 6 p.m., we will hold “Prayer at 6” in a Zoom conference room that you can join via your computer or mobile device. It will begin today Thursday, March 19th at 6 p.m. You are invited to send your prayer requests to info@calstg.org beforehand. This will be a place for us to share our experiences and pray for one another briefly. I see these lasting roughly thirty minutes or so. Please use these details to join our meeting:

ZOOM MEETING DETAILS | PRAYER AT 6

Time: Every weekday at 6 p.m. (Eastern Time)

Click this link to join our Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/913598944

This is our Meeting ID: 913 598 944

Finally, I would like to suggest, if you don’t have one, ordering a 1979 Book of Common Prayer (BCP). The BCP offers Daily Devotions for individuals and families, which can be found here. I also have been praying The Great Litany and The Supplication found here. Prayer has brought me tremendous comfort at this time. Rest assured of my continuing prayers for all of you. I also ask for your patience as we move our lives more online. I am hopeful that we will emerge from all of this as a stronger church whose understanding and confidence in the Gospel have been strengthened. If you have any pastoral concerns or needs, please do not hesitate to call the church office 646-723-4178 or email us at info@calstg.org. 

Pax,

The Reverend Jacob Smith

Dear Calvary-St. George’s Family,

This is just another update to keep you informed about Sunday worship and our gatherings at Calvary-St. George’s. For now all of our programing has been canceled through the season of Lent.

HOW TO STAY CONNECTED

• Rev. Ben will livestream a Devotion Group on Tuesdays at 7:00 PM

• Rev. Jacob will livestream a teaching on the Psalms on Thursdays at 9:00 AM

• Chelsy will make our Lenten Sunday School series accessible for families on our website.

MORE WAYS TO WORSHIP

We will livestream the Thursday 12:10 p.m. Healing Service. Our current worship plan is to offer Morning Prayer at all of our regularly scheduled services: St. George’s: 8:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. and Calvary 11:00 a.m.

As you know we have plenty of space for "social distancing," and recommend doing so in this time. We highly encourage everyone to worship from home where you can livestream the ll:00 AM service. You can click HERE to view all livestream programming.  

If you need pastoral care or counsel do not hesitate to call the office at 646-723-4178 or email us at info@calstg.org 

I want to encourage you all to stay connected however you're able. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will see each other through this strange and trying time.

Love,

The Reverend Jacob A. Smith

Dear Calvary-St. George’s,

In times like these, we need as much clarity as possible, therefore I have waited to send something out in order to avoid rumors and having to back-track, which only leads to more confusion. In this e-mail, I want to share with you how we, as Christians, have handled pandemics in the past and, in light of that, how we as a congregation will handle our current COVID-19 pandemic for the time being.

In an age of accessible antibiotics, Urgent Care, people just “passing,” and pandemics being things that happen on the other side of the globe, a situation like this can bring us face-to face-with the finiteness of life in an anxiety-producing way. The notion that you are going to die can all of sudden become very, very real. The church historically has faced pandemics, such as leprosy and other plagues, with tremendous faith and courage. As a matter of fact, it was the churches’ willingness to wisely and faithfully care for the sick and not panic in the shadow of death that became a powerful witness to the pagan world. 

The Book of Common Prayer articulates the reason behind the church’s courage:

Credit: @rjimageryphoto

“For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens.”

We believe the Gospel! The Gospel tells us that our deaths are already behind us as a result of being baptized in Jesus Christ. Never forget, you are already buried with Jesus in his death and will be raised with him in the resurrection from the dead (Romans 6 and Colossians 2). Anyone can trust God with their lives; as Christians we trust God with our deaths.

Hence, with the reality of COVID-19 in our city, we can receive each day as a gift from God and—with and despite our anxieties—offer ourselves up to serve Jesus in the face of our neighbors.

Therefore, we at Calvary-St. George’s will face the challenge of COVID-19 with both wisdom and courage. We are canceling all non-worship activities in the parish, including Sunday School, Devotion Groups and the Muhlenberg Lenten Reflections. However, our Common Table will continue to operate in limited capacity so that we don’t ignore those most vulnerable and we will be in contact with our A. A. communities and assess our capacity to host on a week-by-week basis.

Ben will live-stream a Devotion Group talk and Chelsy will live-stream our Sunday School lessons, which will also be available on our Facebook page and Youtube channel. Our Sunday services will also be streamed on the same platforms.

It is important for us to gather on Sunday and worship God, whether it is at church or at home. This is when the rubber hits the road. So we will still have Sunday services, however, we will be offering Morning Prayer, instead of Holy Communion. Morning Prayer was the principle service in most Episcopal Churches, including both Calvary and St. George’s until 1979. We encourage everyone to share the peace with a nod or a wave, and before you come to church, remember James 4:8,  “… wash your hands, you sinners.” As a staff, we will reevaluate everything after Lent V and keep you posted as we move forward.

In regards to prayer, please join us in praying for the following:

• The Lord’ intervention in this outbreak

• The total healing of those infected with coronavirus

• The Lord’s protection for those most vulnerable

• Wisdom, guidance, and protection for healthcare workers and government officials

Finally, it is becoming more difficult for the clergy to get into hospitals—nevertheless, we will do all that we can. In the meantime, if you need prayer for healing and/or would like to schedule an appointment for prayer and counsel, please do not hesitate to call the church office. Ben and I would be happy to schedule an appointment.

Pax,

The Reverend Jacob A. Smith

Dear Friends,

As have many of you, I have been following closely and have been concerned about the spread of the COVID-19 virus. I think, if anything, this virus reminds us that none of us are in control. However, we know who is in control and God is at work in the midst of this entire situation. Nevertheless, we are taking precautions for the sake of our community. Mindful of the concerns about the spread of the COVID-19 virus, at Calvary-St. George’s, we will be following these guidelines and suggestions.

Thorough hand-washing has been shown to kill COVID-19. All liturgical ministers (and other worshippers) should thoroughly wash with soap and water before services. Hand sanitizer with an alcohol content of 60% has also been shown to be effective against COVID-19, and all those serving Holy Communion will use it before the distribution.

At the Peace:

We encourage worshippers not to embrace or clasp hands but to greet one another and acknowledge one another, for example, with a bow. Health care professionals suggest that COVID-19 is most effectively transmitted from people’s hands to their faces, so avoiding hand-to-hand contact is a likely strategy for inhibiting infection.

At the time of the Holy Communion:

Studies by the CDC and other medical authorities have  concluded that “the risk for infectious disease transmission by a common communion cup is very low, and appropriate safeguard—that is, wiping the interior and exterior rim between communicants, use of care to rotate the cloth during use, and use of a clean cloth for each service—would further diminish this risk.” At Calvary-St. George’s, we will incorporate those safeguards.

• Those who nonetheless chose not to receive from the  common cup can trust that Jesus’ offering of himself is complete in the Bread.

• The practice of intinction, that is, dipping the consecrated Bread into the Wine, runs the risk of inserting fingers into the Wine. We will not allow intinction during the current health crisis.

• Similarly, ministers will not distribute Communion on the tongue because of the risk of contaminating the fingers of the minister.

In light of all of this, we will also no longer serve cookies after the service and lunch at The Forum. This is obviously the most difficult part for me and everyone under the age of eleven. Nonetheless, it is a very important precaution at this time.

When the threat of a pandemic passes, we will return to our standard practices and bring back the cookies. In the meantime, we use this unfortunate period to place our trust in God and consider the health of our neighbor.

Pax,

Jacob

There is one particular verse in the Bible upon which I lean a lot of weight. In his letter to the Christians living in Ephesus, St. Paul writes:

“Christ… has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

- Ephesians 2:14

On Monday, February 24th, I conducted a little experiment. I looked at the front page of today’s New York Times and made a list of all the dividing walls, all of the divisions, that are sources of news at this moment. Here’s my list, above and below the fold:

• a division between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden

• a division between first-grade children and opioid overdosers

• a division between Roger Stone and Justice Department prosecutors

• a division between billions of investor dollars and failing tech start-ups

• a division between open borders in Europe and coronavirus fears

And that’s just the front page. The examples multiplied as I read through the rest of the first section: Israelis vs. Palestinians; Socialist vs. Capitalists in Venezuela; Jean Vanier’s powerful ministry vs. his sexual misconduct.

And then… there is a friend of mine who says, “I am a walking Civil War.”

The divisions inside us, the dividing walls in our spirits, put the ones in the Times to shame.

Another fellow puts it this way: “I don’t do what I want to do. I do the very thing I don’t want to do.” Then he says, “It’s hopeless. The divisions inside me are killing me.” What do you think this same fellow says next?

It’s found in Romans 7:25. If you don’t have a Bible, Google it, because it’s the good news that will be the focus for our worship this coming Sunday.

This Sunday, the first Sunday in the season of Lent, is all about divisions. All three of the lessons describe huge dividing walls, outside us and in us, with a much longer and heavier list than in the Times.

(If you want to prep, here they are: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11.)

This Sunday, we’re going to deal with these divisions by leaning our weight on that verse from Ephesians with which I started this article. Here it is again, in fuller form:

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups intone and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might creation himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to Godin one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

- Ephesians 2:13-16

So here’s a little homework for Sunday:

• As a warmup, read Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall”.

• Read the verse I referenced above - Romans 7:25 - and then keep reading, all the way through the next chapter. If I were stuck on a desert island and only had one little section of the Bible to read, I would pick chapters 7 and 8 of Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

• Bring your dividing walls with you on Sunday. The Good News will make the coming down of the Berlin Wall look like small potatoes, compared to the love and amazing grace of Jesus.

See you Sunday, walls and all,

Jim