Pop-up in a Pandemic

This week I’m looking at the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40. It’s kind of a weird title but it’s a story that is very appropriate for this time. It’s about the right ingredients to make lemonade out of lemons.

The Ethiopian eunuch would no doubt have been treated as an outcast despite his impressive role of being the head of the treasury for the Queen of Ethiopia. He’s rich - the chariot he’s riding in coming back from worship in Jerusalem tells us that. But the fact that he’s a eunuch tells us that, unless he kept his ‘condition’ secret, he would not have been welcomed fully into the Jewish world. He’s an outsider, ‘unclean’, treated as less because of his physical condition, and a foreigner. And yet despite his wealth and being left outside, he is still hungry to understand God’s Word.

Philip, a newly appointed leader in the early church, has just come off a successful preaching tour to Samaritans, another ‘outsider’ group left out of the Jewish mainstream. He is asked to pivot and go to the eunuch and ends up explaining prophetic scripture about Jesus from the book of Isaiah to him. He’s so good at it that the eunuch converts and wants to be baptized immediately, to be washed and given entry to God’s family with no strings attached. Lemonade is made out of these lemons. God is amazing at doing this.

The pandemic has had devastating consequences. Loss of jobs, loss of life, loss of family time, loss of security, loss of certainty. I don’t want to minimize the pain so many have experienced. And then, on top of it, so many other issues have cropped up - the ugliness of racism, our bowing to capitalism and the economy at times taking precedence over safety. So much has been lost and caused real fear and anxiety and suffering.

But as I said, God is amazing at taking the lemons and offering the chance to make lemonade. We are challenged to see possibility where the world would only see devastation, creative solutions when unjust systems seem untouchable. No more public worship? Let’s leverage that and offer online worship that is available at any time and seen by far more people. Shut-ins cut off? Let’s create a phone list and have them record themselves reading scripture on a laptop and edit it into the service. Fragmented community? Let’s find out the best ways to connect with people virtually and otherwise. Unsafe to offer the full summer day camp? Go virtual with it, allowing an unlimited number of participants. In this breathing space, we can grasp the opportunity to look at how we can streamline care and match people in need with those who can help.

This past Sunday night I got to make some lemonade with some amazing people. A family had been struggling in this time for a number of reasons and really missing worshiping with their church family. Waiting until September was not welcome news and given the issues of this family I knew we needed to do something else. So we had a pop-up parade, meeting in a large parking lot, having a pair of marshals and a lead car. I waited to see who would turn up after the invitation last week.

We didn’t end up with just a small pitcher of lemonade but one of those big coolers with the little tap you used to get at McDonald’s. 28 vehicles and 52 people and 2 dogs paraded past this family who sat out on their lawn. Horns honked, signs were held up, hands waved, greetings were yelled - all at a safe distance. It was all over in less than 10 minutes but it changed so many things. People waiting to be part of the parade saw folks they hadn’t seen in months, a family felt cherished, and we overcame the malaise that we can’t do much of anything as a church in this time because of all the restrictions.

We can make lemonade from lemons with something as simple as a 10 minute parade of 5 blocks. With something as simple as hearing people quietly or loudly suggest an idea or a gift they would consider sharing. With photos of how people are doing so they see each other in the service. We haven’t been perfect but we’ve been able to incorporate a variety of things to still proclaim the gospel. We may even have helped people understand God’s Word a bit better and encouraged them to make a deeper plunge into their faith in God. In a pandemic. Who knew?

As this time that seemed a sprint continues as a marathon, now is when we need to keep re-defining what best shows God’s love, to seize whatever opportunities this has presented to us, to keep making lemonade when many can only see lemons. May it be sweet and refreshing and inviting, and may the thirst of those outside be quenched.