No matter where you look, or who you talk to these days, it’s all about the coronavirus.
It certainly has impacted our lives; my daughter has been sent home from college for at least the next 30 days, all college classes now taken online. A doctor on TV recommends that people over age 75 give serious thought to not attending any public events; even to going to an exercise class. Should people visit my 96-year old mother at her nursing home? The doctor on TV says to “err on the side of caution” — that facilities should curtail all visits beyond necessary medical or other functional visits. The NBA has cancelled its season after a player tested positive. Another aspect of life that we’ve seen impacted is economic and financial. Beyond the stock market losing at least 20% of its value to date, and its impact on retirement funds, employment in any areas involving public events, travel, etc., I’ll use a couple of mundane (self-focused) examples: What about the significant money I’ve paid for college room and board, the facilities my daughter normally uses at the school, now unused? Will the coronavirus impact our family’s planned travel to see family? Is it too dangerous to fly? It’s more than money isn’t it? It’s time, and plans, and all the ways we organize our lives, or expect our lives to work transactionally — when I pay, something specific is supposed to happen, when I do this or that, I can expect this or that result. And then there’s the impact on our personal freedom: the quarantining of hundreds of people on ships; the fact that whole towns, cities, even most of Italy now, for example, is on lock down. Everything closed except grocery stores and pharmacies. What will happen next? What will happen to my life? It’s the lack of certainty. We all want this in our lives, and the coronavirus pandemic is affecting that sense of certainty. It’s the unknown. One of the results of uncertainty, of the unknown, is fear. And when we are afraid, well, things start to get away from us, like caring, like loving our neighbor. Almost 500 years ago in 1527, Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, wrote a tract called “Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague.” It was written as the plague washed across Europe yet another time — a pandemic that 200 years beforehand, had killed up to 40% of Europe’s population. One can easily imagine that people were on edge. Luther’s response 500 years ago is surprisingly modern: he wrote that doctors, those holding public office, and pastors, had particular responsibilities to care for the people. He spoke about having adequate hospital facilities to care for plague patients. He spoke about common sense, and he also spoke about not forgetting that we’re in this together: “God has created medicines and has provided us with intelligence to guard and take care of the body… Use medicine; take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and street; shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does not need your presence.” The last line is key: “wherever your neighbor does not need your presence.” Some members of the congregation I serve went to Costco this week. Costco is the place to buy 36 roll packs of toilet paper, or five-pound boxes of cereal! The members were shocked to find the toilet paper entirely cleaned out, and also noted there were signs limiting the amount of 36 roll packs of toilet paper one could buy — meaning that people were trying to leave with multiple monster bundles of toilet paper. Putting the best construction on everything, as Jesus asks me to do, I guess someone might be buying for their friends or neighbors, but there’s still a fair question to be asked of our fear: why in situations of fear is there the temptation to hoard for ourselves, and not to think of the common good? Or, to allow fear to excuse poor behavior, like the story of an Asian-American woman assaulted by another woman in New York, apparently the scapegoat over fear of the coronavirus? Fifty-eight times in the Bible, God’s people are reminded, “Do not fear.” At least 40 additional times is the phrase, “Do not be afraid.” These words are spoken in times of real peril, real risk, real disease, real danger. God does not say that we will be free of risk, or danger, or disease, but God promises his presence in danger and suffering and sickness. Followers of Jesus Christ live by faith. We live knowing that, as Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America concluded her recent letter about the coronavirus: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). Augusta Health has put out some great information on the coronavirus. Currently we live in one of the lower risk areas for Covid-19. It should be noted that for all the concern for the coronavirus, we regularly live through flu seasons that claim tens of thousands of lives in the U.S. alone each year. Augusta Health actually tells us that flu risk is really of greater concern in our area right now. To live by faith does not mean to be foolhardy. Wash your hands regularly. Be careful in public events. Follow your doctor’s advice. At Grace Lutheran, as I know in many Waynesboro-area congregations, we are taking many pre-cautions in public worship, and providing live-streaming opportunities for those who are concerned. But we do not forget who we are; people called not to fear, but to know God’s promise of love and mercy, and to love our neighbor in need, and care for others, even when we ourselves are careful.
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Maybe you saw the ad during the Super Bowl, or in the days afterward, from New York Life Insurance, of all places.
Identifying the types of love that were described by the ancient Greeks: philios, love between friends that is loyal and deep. Storgé, the love between a grandfather and a grandson, for example, that is unique to family bonds. Eros, love that is physical, abiding, draws two people together in a unique bond. And agapé, a love that is self-giving, self-emptying, given freely for the sake of another. Valentine’s Day is often associated with eros, the word “erotic” comes from the same word root. Red hearts, and cupid’s shooting arrows of love, are how we often think of this time of year: budding romance, the jewelry companies showing us the kneeling man in front of a woman who has a joyful look of love and surprise on her face, and the cologne purveyors showing us images of desire and longing. It is also, in the days prior, the look in the eyes of guys in work clothes, suits, or jogging clothes, huddled in front of a pink display of Valentine’s cards, or eyeing flowers and heart shaped boxes of candy in the grocery store, looking slightly confused, desperate, or resigned. “You all have started EARLY!” said a woman with an amused look as she passed the group in front of the cards and candy in the store on the 13th. The word Love does deserve more of our attention, and on more than one day, or in an insurance ad. It’s an incredibly important word. And I wonder at times, whether our one English word does the fullness of the word justice. It does involve so much more than the ways we often narrow the word down. Love of family is important, erotic and physical love is important to our being human. And yet to limit love to even these two things hides the far larger meaning of love. I wonder at times, if we don’t need the three more words for love somehow, like we find in the ancient Greek. Such as the importance of friendship, philios, for example. Think of the birth of our nation, much of it in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, and the ways in which it was the “friendship” of states and commonwealths, which grew enough to make a nation. The relationships between the colonies — or their leaders — deepened and loyal enough to recognize that united we stand, divided we fall. We don’t often talk about love helping to begin this nation, but in a very real sense, it’s true. And then of course there’s agapé, the “love word” used most often in the New Testament of the Bible. God is love, the first letter of John says, and of course it’s agapé that the writer describes God by; a self giving, self emptying God so loving the world to give his son Jesus for the sake of the life of everyone, even of the world itself. It’s a love that does not limit itself, but offers itself, causes us to offer ourselves. We can think of love in ways that has limits: “only” for family, only for my friends, only for my own pleasure, but the full expression of love helps us to look beyond ourselves. It is also true that while agape is by far the most common expression of love in God’s Word, all the other expressions of love can be found there as well. The whole expression of love is found, and in truth all the expressions of love complements each other. How much more rich the love of family, the love of friends, and the love of committed relationships are when self-giving, self-emptying love is equally a part. When we love for the sake of others, we find, in doing so, that love and blessing comes back to us. It’s what God intends for us as God’s creation. The one who is love. What are you grateful for, as you begin the New Year?
It occurs to me that this may be as important a question for our community, our commonwealth and our nation as any as the year 2020 unfolds. Because gratitude and thankfulness gives us a different perspective. Often when things are “right,” we’re grateful. When someone “does right by you,” you tend to be grateful. When one is surprised by a kindness offered, or something unexpected given, it is easy to be grateful. When things are “wrong,” often gratitude and thankfulness go away. If my perception is that you’ve “done me wrong,” or that “you’re wrong” in what you think or believe, it’s about impossible to be grateful. It seems over the last few years, we’ve come to a place where it’s become very important to determine “right” and “wrong.” A look at the editorial and letters section of this very paper over the last year — and as this year begins — is filled with people determined to be right, and at the same time to declare others as wrong. Labels are given. Lines have been drawn, and quickly. There was a phrase I grew up with that one doesn’t hear nearly as often anymore in our current public discourse — “let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.” It was space allowed for disagreement, and at the same time allowed for space for something to happen, because there was some level of trust that the common good was on everyone’s mind. A well-worn story is told of House Speaker Tip O’Neill, who was Democratic speaker of the house for 10 years, and Republican President Ronald Reagan. As you would expect there were some significant disagreements between the two, some of them sharp. And yet, they were also friends; after a day of political battle, they would go out for dinner. When President Reagan was shot, Speaker O’Neill prayed at his bedside. These political “enemies,” on some level, were grateful for one another. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus preaches on a level place and says this: But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. (Luke 6:35). Curious isn’t it, that the word “enemy” and the world “ungrateful” are connected. And yet God’s kindness to the ungrateful is clear, as is our call to be kind — a sort of gratitude — for those who we even fundamentally disagree with; our “enemy.” This election year 2020 is a year where there will be much to disagree about. There will be a lot of claims of being right, and that others are wrong. It will go further than mere “right” and “wrong;” there will be attempts to hurt “the other side” with words and phrases and descriptions designed for just that purpose, to inflame, to put someone in one’s place, to stick the knife in, to put a cloud of suspicion and untruth on the words and actions of the “enemy.” In the midst of this is our task to be grateful, even thankful, maybe even offering the “benefit of the doubt.” Some friends of mine went on a bike trip in 2019, traveling the backroads of Southwest Virginia, in the New River Valley. One of the riders had a puncture in the inner tube of his front tire. Soon the group of eight or so riders had stopped as he was fixing his tire by the side of the road. Suddenly one of the riders whispered to the group gathered to look at a sign in the yard of the house of which they had stopped in front. The sign had a target on it, with a bullet hole near the bulls eye, and a large arrow pointing to it. The arrow curved down the sign copy, where there was a picture of an AR-15 assault rife with the words, “You are here,” and a statement to the effect of the gun being loaded and pointed in the direction of those reading the sign. Then came a voice from the yard of the house in the direction of these bicycle short-ed and helmeted collection of guys with their loaded touring bikes... “Hey!... Are y’all alright? Do you need to use a phone? Would you like some cold water?” Gratitude was the response of the group, beyond “I’m glad they didn’t shoot me,” to gratitude for “someone doing right by them,” which is another way of saying “love offered to the neighbor.” Which if you think of the stories Jesus tells of “the neighbor,” is always someone who looks or believes differently than you or I do. The “enemy.” In this year there may be many ways that neighbors, or church members or people writing in this newspaper will disagree about what is right and what is wrong. It is easy in those times to be ungrateful. On guard. When that happens, remember this verse (Colossians 3:15): Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were indeed called in the one body. And be thankful. It opens you and me to a very different way of moving forward on the road we’re on. |
AuthorPastor Paul came to Grace to serve as our Pastor in October 2012. After a first career in product and graphic design, he was ordained in 1993, and has served as a parish pastor in Virginia and South Carolina. He is married to Jill and they have two daughters, one at Roanoke College and one at James Madison University. Archives
December 2021
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