Dear Church,

Earlier this year, our synod experienced a horrifying spike of coronavirus infections two weeks after Memorial Day gatherings, which continued to grow before finally peaking in mid-July.

Now we are living in the two-week spike after Thanksgiving. Throughout Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, new cases are higher and staying high. The new spike is growing. As I write this, each weekday regularly reports another 2,000 coronavirus deaths across the United States. Covid-19 is now the third leading cause of death in our synod and nation.

As one epidemiologist put it, our holiday gatherings are creating “surges on top of surges.”

As followers of Jesus, we are called to love God and love our neighbor. We are called to honor God’s creation and the gift of life. This season, we can do that by limiting our gatherings, which are the most direct cause of coronavirus transmission.

We do have the good news that people are far less likely to die of Covid than those infected earlier this year. Improved knowledge and treatments have dropped the mortality rate.

But those infected are a drain on the medical system, and with hospitals nearing capacity in our synod, it is an act of love to keep Covid cases low. We need to do all we can to keep hospital beds open and bring relief to medical staff, who are far beyond their breaking point.

In this Advent season, many of us have been waiting to decide how to gather as families, as friends, as congregations. This decision takes a deep emotional toll. The need for gathering has never been more real or needed. Yet how do we justify an action that may exacerbate our grief and suffering?

We must do what we can to minimize gatherings, even when that seems to be a sacrifice. A few months ago, the Office of the Bishop staff committed to no in-person gatherings, either at our office or at congregations, through the rest of 2020. We will re-evaluate this decision in January. Our synod council just committed to an online assembly in June, 2021. We find ways to continue and be creative with public health in mind.

This year of pandemic is causing tears in our social fabric. In many ways, it has already been torn. I hear, more and more frequently, heartbreaking stories of suffering and stress from the pastors and leaders of our synod.

Just this morning, at our daily Zoom staff check-in, we hit one of those breaking points. Many of the synod staff reported specific and general feelings of sorrow, grief, loss, and pain.

One member shared the crisis point their family household has reached, as the pressure of months of at-home work and schooling continues to build.

Another synod staffer reported the fifth death in their extended family since the pandemic, both Covid and non-Covid. Once again, the family faces the many agonizing decisions of how to grieve when there was no agreement on how to gather safely.

A third member of our team said they may need to leave the call early, as they were caregiving for a family member, and a pastor was about to visit. This team member described the elaborate preparations to receive communion safely—the family’s first communion since March—and what very well could be a final communion for the beloved person receiving care at home in palliative care. The visiting pastor will deliver communion through a window.

As we shared these stories, it was clear we could not continue with business as usual. We stopped for a time of silence.

We cried. We breathed. We prayed.

We prayed for the arms of a loving God to surround us. We gave thanks for a God who loves us so much as to become flesh to live among us. We named those in need of God’s love. Scattered geographically, we were one in the body of Christ.

May Jesus find you as you wait at the window this Advent season.

May you find Christ when you are there for people in new and unknown ways.

May we use this year to consider the ways we romanticize Christmas, year after year setting ourselves up for disappointment, when our vision of perfection is ruined by a family squabble or failed meal or inconsiderate present.

May we dwell in the story of Jesus’s birth in new ways, remembering the small intimacy of that night and the gathering of a family of three. May we be as surprised and astonished as the shepherds in the fields.

If you need someone to listen, call or email me or one of the Office of the Bishop team.

As you sacrifice for the love of neighbor, may you know you do so for the sake of Jesus, who comes to us as surely as the world turns to a new dawn.

Waiting with you,

The Rev. Deborah K. Hutterer
Bishop
Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA