Missing the holy kiss

I asked one of my children what she was most missing about not being able to gather as a church and she said: ‘Sheila’s hugs’. I laughed. And then I thought, maybe that’s what I’m missing most as well.

We are able to hear preaching online; are (kind-of) able to sing in live streams; are praying together via Zoom; and having Bible studies more often than before. Chatting is going on over the airwaves, though it is a bit awkward. Now we’re branching out into socially-distanced walks and picnics. But we still can’t hug our church family, or kiss them, or even shake hands – somehow our meetings don’t feel quite real.

The truth is that Christians are mystically connected to each other through Christ, made brothers and sisters in one family, and in Scripture we are commanded to connect as family – to love and forgive and bear each other’s burdens – but also to greet one another with a holy kiss. To be together and yet not touch means a dimension of our communion is missing.

In the first century a lip kiss was a standard greeting. Family members kissed each other on the lips, grown-up men kissed their friends on the street. Grateful students kissed their teachers, impressed teachers kissed their students. And so it is no wonder that Paul five times commanded the church to greet each other with a holy kiss (1 Thess. 5.26; Rom.16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Peter 5:14). Now constituted a family, these persecuted collections of palace dwellers and slaves, ex-prostitutes and merchants, should kiss each other, demonstrating their forgiveness and kinship.

This symbol of love and acceptance quickly became part of the church’s liturgy. Kissing might not have quite the same currency today, but other forms of physical contact take its place.

Anglicans still share ‘a sign of peace’ in their services while Nonconformists might have to make do with ‘welcomers’ on the door who shake hands with worshippers. For all of us there is a kind of informal ritual in the before or after meeting hugs or handshakes we might give to particular friends. And these happen amidst the multitude of touches in our gathering. Teenage girls with their arms round each other. A young mum squeezing the hand of a widow who lives alone. An older man who touches an arm when a new visitor tells him of his bereavement. The pastor taking the hand of a toddler about to fall. A deacon placing a hand on the shoulder of a woman as she prays for her. With our bodies we enact and display our family union. But fears of touch were growing before Covid-19 arrived. An increased awareness of sexual exploitation and abuse have meant that we’ve rightly become much more cautious. We know that, wickedly, churches have sometimes turned a blind eye to abusers and neglected victims. More subtly, churches have often been, and maybe still are, places where the boundary between the holy and the unholy kiss has been blurred. You may have experienced it yourself: a hug that feels a bit uncomfortable – you’re not sure why; or the person you don’t know ever-so-well singling you out for a squeeze – is that creepy, you wonder, or are they just not very self-aware? Perhaps it isn’t surprising that these were issues identified long ago.

Clement of Alexandria in the second century saw that people were exploiting the ritual embraces in the church and needed to urge people to ‘express the affection of the soul with a chaste and closed mouth, by which chiefly gentle manners are expressed’. So, it isn’t just viruses that make physical contact in church risky, our contaminated human nature is perhaps just as much a threat.

What are we to do then, when restrictions are finally lifted? Should still we be ‘staying safe’ and keeping our distance once a vaccine has been found? Do we even shun a handshake for fear of offence or upset?

Surely the answer has to be no. Paul urges us to greet one another with a kiss and just as compelling is Jesus’ example. Again and again He reached out a hand to heal or comfort; holiness touching the physically and morally contaminated. At the Transfiguration, when the disciples drew back trembling, he touched them, saying: ‘Do not be afraid’ (Matt. 17:6). And those are perhaps the words we need now. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to show concern, to show love.

We all know that we hang back from the people we fear will reject us, or those we want to keep at a distance. Maybe instead we need to reach out, not in niceties which fail to express our union in Christ, but in honest words with physical expressions of love. And we mustn’t be afraid to act when kisses or embraces aren’t holy. Keeping touch in the public eye, as something we do and have conversations about, should mean, can mean, protection for the vulnerable and demonstration of God’s grace visible to all.