Dixwell Churches Preach #FaithOverCorona

The growing toll of Covid-19 was at the forefront of the minds, and prayers, of Dixwell Avenue congregants this Easter Sunday.

Trinity Temple congregants listed the names of the sick — mothers, grandmothers, children who had caught Covid-19 — in the comments of Bishop Charles H. Brewer III’s virtual service.

The spread of Covid-19 in New Haven and government efforts to prevent more deaths meant that the Dixwell Avenue church had to gather to celebrate and pray on Easter Sunday over Facebook Live, just as congregations of all faiths have moved their services online during the pandemic.

“God, I ask now that you would bring peace to every troubled mind,” Brewer said. ​“Feed us. Clothe us. Go to Yale New Haven Hospital and touch every sick body.”

The public health emergency caused by Covid-19 has hit Dixwell particularly hard. New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker released preliminary data on Wednesday that showed that the virus has disproportionately affected the city’s African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods. Dixwell was one of the hot spots for Covid-positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Dixwell’s congregations know the faces behind these facts. Brewer said that several members of Trinity Temple of God in Christ have tested positive and one, Mary Walters, has passed away. Brewer plans to read the eulogy at Walters’ funeral on Friday.

One block south of Trinity Temple is the historic Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ. Senior Pastor Frederick Streets said that no congregant has come down with the illness to his knowledge. He does know members of the broader community who are suffering with Covid-19.

The pandemic was at the forefront of both pastors’ sermons. Each prayed for New Haven’s sick, and each found comfort in the Christian story of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection on Easter.

“He Had To Die”

Brewer leads Trinity Temple as well as another church his grandfather founded in Stamford, the Wilson Memorial Church of God in Christ.

Brewer’s theme on Sunday was that Jesus had to die to save people from their sins. Sinning began with Adam and Eve. To be a just God, God had to punish them when they disobeyed his rules, Brewer said.

“Even in his anger, he didn’t leave them without the hope of heaven,” Brewer said. ​“Even in your mess, when he should have washed his hands of you, he looked beyond your sins.”

Brewer said that God sent Jesus, his perfect son, to provide that hope of heaven by sacrificing himself.

“Our sins died on the cross. When they nailed him, our shortcomings died on the cross. When they nailed him, Covid-19 died on the cross,” Brewer told his congregation.

Brewer asked those watching the Facebook Live to write #FaithOverCorona in the comments.

Then he caught his breath and waited for the comments to roll in.

“Thou shall live and not die. I don’t claim to be an extraterrestrial preacher. I’m a Hood Negro that God saved and gave another chance,” Brewer said as he waited.

Brewer explained that he speaks with a rasp because he was shot in the chest and throat in 1996. He said that he could only whisper at first. He got his voice back when driving by his father’s church one day. Today, speaking is like a workout, he said.

Brewer finished his sermon with ways for viewers to give to the church electronically, a prayer for all those listed in the comment section and a request to like and share the sermon to get his message out.

After The Pandemic

The online sermon for 200-year-old church Dixwell UCC began its Easter Sunday service with singing.

Quinnipiac professor Aleta Staton drew out each word, ​“Calvary. Surely, he died on Calvary.” Then she turned to the Gospel of Matthew and the story mentioned in the song.

The passage she read focused on Mary Magdalene and another Mary going to the place where Jesus was buried. They found the stone to the tomb rolled back, the tomb empty and an angel sitting on the stone, she read. The angel told the women that Jesus had arisen. When they hurried away, they ran into Jesus himself, Staton said.

Staton then turned the sermon over to the church’s senior pastor.

Streets, who teaches at Yale’s Divinity School, said the message in the story is especially relevant now with the fear, uncertainty and grief New Haveners are experiencing during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Streets said that those close to Jesus felt the same way after his death.

“Their constant companions had now become futility, fatalism and a shattered faith. They wondered, as we do now, how they would get through the darkness that was in them and surrounded them like a fog,” he said.

Were Mary Magdalene and the other women who went to grieve Jesus afraid? Yes, but they still decided to go, Streets said. That faithfulness led to the vision of the angel and the revelation that would eventually found Christianity.

“We get to this other side by facing our fears and like the women who went to tomb of Jesus, grieve the way we know how,” Streets said.

The other side in the Easter story was Peter running to the tomb to confirm Mary Magdalene’s story and founding a religion. There will be a better future out of this pandemic too, Streets said afterwards.

“We get there by being very attentive to the moment and trusting that we will learn from and grow out of this experience. The other side is a better life for all of humanity.”