Social Distance Goes to Church
Swarthmore United Methodist Church Pastor Lydia Munoz.
“People are looking for solace and hope,” says Lydia Munoz, pastor of the Swarthmore United Methodist Church. She is finding new ways to bring those things to her congregation during the current coronavirus epidemic. Like many houses of worship, SUMC held a recent service on YouTube.
“I’m up to almost 300 views,” Munoz says. On a usual Sunday, about 100 people come to church.
Munoz’s first YouTube sermon centered on the Book of John, chapter 4, which recounts the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. “We talked about how Jesus was crossing boundaries and borders,” Munoz says. “Doing some things that were new and transformative.”
She also spoke about how the Samaritan woman is often seen in a negative light. “What would it be like if we actually saw her as a human being who had a story that we don’t really know the details of?” Munoz wondered. “What would it be like if we changed the narrative we have been given to a positive one?”
Munoz hopes her parishioners might find a way to transform their fear and anxiety, at least a bit, by trying to change their narrative of the present moment. “I’m not going to live as though the glass is half empty,” she offers, “but live as though the glass is not only half full but overflowing.”
Expanding the central metaphor of the gospel story still further, she hopes to encourage people to ask themselves what they can give to others. “What can I do to give people a drink of water?”
SUMC is working with other local churches to find ways of supporting not only their own parishioners but also the wider community’s most vulnerable members. Most weeks, church volunteers make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for CityTeam in Chester. But that is off the table now because of concerns about contamination. Instead, parishioners are collecting non-perishable, wrapped food items to donate.
For Munoz’ next sermon, the Methodist lectionary — the suggested scripture readings for each Sunday in the calendar — lists the 23rd Psalm, beginning, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
“It’s a Psalm about provision, about goodness and mercy,” Munoz says. “It ends, ‘And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,’ which is a promise. Even in this time of social distancing, when we can’t be in the house of the Lord...maybe what the psalm is inviting us to consider is that, wherever we are, God’s presence is there.”
The Swarthmore United Methodist Church is accepting donations of non-perishable items for distribution to CityTeam, Family Promise, and other organizations. You can leave bags outside the church door.
