(23) Readjust

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Readjust, originally shared on June 15, 2020. It was the twenty-third video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We are a week away from presenting our 25^th video on our YouTube Channel, not counting the Introduction and Welcome video. And, coincidentally, we hope to move from DSL to high speed internet in time for that 25^th presentation, which should improve the visual quality of these videos.

   I posted a meme yesterday with four panels, all showing the same painting of a scholar pouring over a table full of books, taking notes. The captions to the four identical paintings were, Biblical Scholar, Biblical Scholar in quarantine, Biblical scholar 4 weeks into quarantine, Biblical scholar four weeks after quarantine. There are some people whose lives have not changed all that much in the past 3.5 months.

   But, for most people, the world has dramatically changed.

   When we first went into stay-at-home mode, three months or so ago, I was OK with that for awhile, then I began to get a little bit of cabin fever, and now as things are opening up again, I have to say I’ve gotten used to the isolation, the new pace of things, as well as the diminished array of things we can do. We have adjusted.

   I feel like I entered a sort of stasis field, and now am coming out of it into an unfamiliar environment. Our yard has become my gym, our kitchen has become a restaurant, our cars take up space in the garage, and technology has become our eyes and ears to the larger world.

   Now, when we go back to the old new normal, some readjustment will be necessary.

   But is that today? As things open up, I’m finding that I’m not as excited as I thought I would be to get back to even the new normal. And, I wonder if I should be.

   The world is re-opening, while at the same time the numbers of COVID-19 cases continues to rise. It’s like, as one person we know has observed, we’ve just given up.

   We’ve decided that the terrible economy is doing us more harm than the virus, so we’re willing to sacrifice another 100,000 – 400,000 people or more, and to believe we will not be one of them.

   Or, way worse, we miss our fun and we don’t really care about anybody else. Someone else we know said, we call them Covidiots. (Too harsh? Sorry)

   It’s too soon to go back to the new normal, especially for older people at greater risk with underlying health conditions like us.

   Each of the rest of us will need to weigh our needs and our responsibilities to one another. How do we do that? How do we make that choice?

   We cannot make it from fear. Difficult choices must be made from love, not fear.

   I’m told that the words “don’t be afraid”, or “fear not” or their equivalent appear 365 times in the Bible, or one for every day in the year. If not, it’s probably pretty close.

   However, no fear does not mean no self-control, no love for others, no long-term view, or no common-decency.

   We drive safely not because we’re afraid of traffic accidents, but because we want to help others get to their destinations alive and uninjured. That’s not fear but common decency.

   We take common precautions like wearing face masks, washing or disinfecting our hands frequently, and practicing social distancing not just for ourselves, but for others. It’s in our spiritual DNA to sacrifice some of our own interests for the sake of the common good.

   We want to live, not because we’re afraid to die, but because we want to go on serving others in this world. We live by faith, not fear.

   Remember the Golden Rule? A form of it is found in the wisdom literature of most of the world’s major religions. Jesus said, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”  Matthew 7:12

 

   Here’s an example of how that Golden rule was lived during a very difficult time for the Church, a time when the Church was under active persecution by the Roman Empire. Paul writes:

*Hebrews 13:1-8

   The world has changed, and will change some more. But, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

   How does Jesus call us to build community and to love one another as he has first loved us?

   What values do Christians live out to help people in a time of pandemic or calls for social change?

   Love would be at the top of that list, as it was in the passage we just read from Hebrews, as it is in Paul’s letter to the Galatians at the beginning of Chapter 13: “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” (vss. 22-23)

   How do we reconcile our current divisions? We start by first being reconciled with God, in Jesus Christ.

   We were a polarized country before the coronavirus pandemic and the demonstrations calling for racial justice. Now, it’s as if there are two realities being played out for every issue. Who needs to move first?

   Here’s one of my favorite stories about the brokenness we experience even in the Body of Christ, the Church.

   Two little boys were having breakfast one morning. Their mother left the room and when she came back she found that they were fighting over the last pancake.

   “Boys! Boys! What would Jesus do?”, she asked.

   “She’s right, Billy,” said the older boy. “You be Jesus.”

   One person, or group, cannot do all the giving. Each must sacrifice for the other.

   This cannot be done by human beings. It can only be done by opening ourselves up the movement of the Holy Spirit revealing God’s will, God’s justice to us,

   It can only be done in God’s gift of the transformed life, of a living relationship with the living God, and in the streams of living water, God within us, that nourishes and sustains us day to day.

   This is how we live in a pandemic and advocate for racial justice: by the grace of God, in faith and in action, filled with streams of living water.