In the past week disruption due to the potential impact of COVID-19 has become part of our daily lives. This is a situation that very few of us has ever seen anything like before. For some of us the disruption is highly inconvenient. For others the disruption is a threat to income. For some it may become a threat to health and life.
It would be quite understandable if you are feeling a whole host of emotions right now. Maybe you are angry that this is happening. Weddings are being cancelled. Folks are losing time at work. Graduations are cancelled or postponed. Children are out of school. People are buying up all the toilet paper and other items. I have a friend with health and income issues who travels about 100 miles to take his daughter to the doctor and do his shopping, only this past time to find that the stories are largely emptied of the basic items they normally buy.
Other folks are in denial. We've seen the news reports of people continuing to party. I've read the articles and blogs of folks who are claiming it is all "hype" and there is no real threat. I've heard Pastors who say there is no need to follow guidance involving public worship because God will protect people. I heard old myths bordering on superstition that the common cup for distribution of Holy Communion has the power to ward off disease (or at least prevent transmission of the virus from one communicant to another ) and conspiracy theories that this is just the government trying to gain more dictatorial power over the populace. I've heard folks claiming it is no worse than a cold or the flu and there are far more deaths to the flu, without realizing the spread has not hit the US yet and hopefully won't if we follow social distancing guidelines.
Because it boils down to this. We are in this together. We always have been. God created us that way. We don't live in isolation. God looked upon Adam and said it was not good for him to be alone. When Adam and Eve fell into sin it effected not just them but all their children and that is us. The world is broken. That is why there is disease in the world in the first place.
We are in this together. When God gave His commandments they were all predicated on the fact that we are not alone in this life. We exist in relationship to God. We exist in relationship to one another. We need each other. That is part of being human. And the decisions we make often impact others.
I am a Lutheran pastor. Now Martin Luther was not an infallible prophet of the church. He taught us to rely upon Scripture alone as the source for our understanding of God. (Lutherans will say that scripture alone is the source and norm for faith and life.) But Luther did hear Scripture and he had a knack for explaining what it says. In his Small Catechism (a small teaching book) he said of the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" in answering "what does this mean":
"We should fear and love God that we may not hurt nor harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need [in every need and danger of life and body]."
The life we save might be our own. The life we save might be someone we love. The life we save might be someone we might not even know. God has always asked us to love our neighbor, to make sacrifices for our neighbor, not just to think about ourselves. This is a time for us to do so. The fruit may not be evident. You might avoid that contact, that event, you might stay home and never get sick, never know if you would have gotten sick, never know if you would ever have transmitted the virus to someone else who got sick. You might indeed be a person who can contract the disease and recover from it easily or have mild symptoms. But we should all ask ourselves, if we are careless and thoughtless and become a carrier, whose life are we willing to put at risk because we want this or that.
In my state my Governor has required us to do some things and recommended and asked us to do some other things. As a Senior Pastor of a moderately large congregation of pretty great folks who I care about dearly, these decisions have not come easily. Only once in 25 years of ministry have I cancelled worship and that was because of a major blizzard/ice storm which made it quite unsafe for people to travel. For Lutherans we understand worship as a place where we gather around the Word of God and the Sacraments (Lutherans believe God works through Baptism and Holy Communion) because God really does want to take care of His people. The same Christ who loved us so much that He came into the world as a human being to die for our sin loves us so much that He has promised that where two or three gather He will be present, that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation, that His body and blood are present in communion "for the forgiveness of sins". Christ comes to care for us and as Lutherans it is hard for us to consider forgoing such treasures even for a short time.
But we know we are loved by God. God baptized us into His very name (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Scripture says if we have been buried with Christ through Baptism so that we may also walk in newness of life. (Romans 6) We yet have the Gospel which is the power of God for salvation. (Romans 1)
And we know we are called to love our neighbor. Ironically in this time it may be that the best way we can love our neighbor is physical distance from our neighbor.
So our congregation is forgoing in person public worship for the time being. It is not an easy sacrifice but an important one. We are fortunate enough to be able to live stream our services (http://mtcsa.org/worship/opportunities/ at 11am CST Sunday and 7pm CST Wed) for the time period. And we are taking steps to continue pastoral care with responsible practices to help keep folks safe.
This is new for all of us. The virus is new. It's not the black plague but it is not the common cold or the flu virus either. Yes, the known number of deaths in our country is higher from the flu, but that is part of the point. At least with the flu strains our immune system has some sort of previous experience to contain it. This virus is different enough from the coronovirus strains we have been exposed to that our immune systems have to attack it from scratch. Studies that came out this week seem to indicate that for some people young and old our immune response goes into high gear creating a sort of autoimmune disorder that causes lung damage. There are a lot of good sites out there (see the CDC) with information that convey a consistent message: the virus is a threat to many people and social distancing can help save the lives of people.
If churches take steps to implement ministry models based on social distancing (limiting or ceasing in person worship, limiting communion distribution, moving to individual cups vs. common cup and so forth) is that a lack of faith? Lutherans understand Scripture is the sole rule and norm for all doctrine. We understand that what Scripture says is solid, not to take away from it but also not to add to it. No where in Scripture is there a promise to prevent the transmission of disease during worship, during communion, or during any other holy rite if such is carried out in a way that does not responsibly address how a disease is transmitted. For instance there is the old belief that a silver chalice of wine somehow sanitizes contaminates. There is the "scientific" view that the silver and the alcohol somehow are effective. A public health officer shared with me that silver does kill viruses if the virus ingests it, but there would almost certainly not be enough time for it to do so between one communicant and another. Alcohol does kill viruses in enough concentration (60-70%) but wine doesn't come 140 or greater proof. His assessment was that if someone had the virus and partook of the common cup there was a significant risk of passing it to people who commune after him/her. There is also the belief that God wont' allow the common cup (or any other instrument of ministry) to transmit the disease. This pastor can't find a single Word of Scripture to substantiate that belief. So rather than being a lack of faith, perhaps churches are taking serious Christ's command to love the neighbor and being careful not to practice our faith based on beliefs that Scripture does not substantiate.
So out of love of neighbor we make sacrifices. We forgo in person worship for a time. When we come back together we may still forgo hugging and shaking one another's hands even though it will be so good to see one another again. We may forgo the common cup though there is great symbolism in the unity of one cup. But we are united in love and care and concern. We are in this together. We can make some personal sacrifices for the well-being of others. The life you safe in the coming weeks -- you may never know. It might be your own. It might be someone in your family. It might be someone you don't even know. As for me, I'd rather not know than engage in risky behavior to others and know and find out about the life I didn't safeguard.
This will pass. Soon we shall be able to gather together again. Soon we shall lift our voices together in God's house together and praise Him. Soon we shall pray together and commune together. Now we are asked to socially distance. But God is not distant. God is right here. He is with you in your baptism. He is with you in His Word. And even if we are physically distant from one another for a time we are close in heart, in prayer, in love.
