Being the Church in the Middle of a Pandemic

AM Psalm 55 • PM Psalm 74
Jer. 17:5-10, 14-17 • Phil. 4:1-13 • John 12:27-36

In times of pandemic, people around the world have always asked, “Why?” Even now, some say that people must have offended one god or another and are being punished for it. Or they say, with the stoics: “that’s just the way it is. Get used to it.” And that’s just the beginning of the superficial answers to “why?”

N. T. Wright, the New Testament scholar and former Anglican bishop, has written that “Lament is what happens when people ask, ‘Why?’ and don’t get an answer. It’s where we get to when we move beyond our self-centered worry about our sins and failings and look more broadly at the suffering of the world.”

Wright says that instead of “why?” the church should be asking “what?”—as in “What should we be doing?” His answer is two-fold: first, lament, and then, act on behalf of those who need help.

I’ve been reading Wright’s little book, God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath (2020), and I’ve found it to be very helpful and thought provoking. So, for the first time, I’m basing a morning reflection mainly on someone else’s published work.

Both of the psalms appointed for today are psalms of lament. Wright suggests that in times like these, Christians should first give expression to our fear and anger: “we are to lament, we are to complain, we are to state the case, and leave it with God….That is our vocation: to be in prayer, perhaps wordless prayer, at the point where the world is in pain.” Then we are to act, and our lamenting, our “groaning”, even the Holy Spirit’s groaning (as Paul has it in Romans 8) may give us eyes to see how to act on behalf of those in need.

The earliest years of the Christian church were years of plague in parts of what we now call the Middle East, and so Paul asks the church in Antioch to “do good to all people, especially those of the household of faith.” And they do. This is perhaps the first example of a recurring pattern of giving among the early churches which amazed their neighbors and even brought grudging admiration from Emperor Claudius. Coming to the aid of others in need, be they Christian or not, regardless of the risks to themselves, was virtually unheard of in those days, but it became a hallmark of Christian communities and, by some accounts, helped explain the spread of the faith.

In our own time of pandemic, Christians may not have words to speak their lament, but “Nevertheless, we have work to do, in healing, teaching, poor relief, campaigning, and comforting. These actions grow out of our lament. As with the church in Antioch, we may not be able to say, ‘Why’, but we may glimpse ‘What:’ Who is at risk? What can be done? Who shall we send?”

Now you may be asking, as I have, “but how can we do these things if we are not able to gather?” The question of closing churches is not Wright’s main concern here, but he understands and is sympathetic to both the losses incurred by closing and the risks associated with staying open. Wright quotes Martin Luther in a letter written to church and civic leaders amidst a plague in Wittenberg in 1527, which quickly made the rounds on the internet when the current pandemic hit. It was an amazing pre-germ theory epistle: “…and so I will pray to God that he may be gracious and preserve us. Then I will fumigate to purify the air, give and take medicine, and avoid places and persons where I am not needed….”But if my neighbor needs me, I shall feel free to visit and help him.”

Finally, Wright insists that “all our lamenting and acting are not simply our own invention. They come to us as a model and guide from Jesus, who lamented for his people and for himself, and who fed the hungry, healed the sick, taught the multitudes, and died on their behalf.” To help make his point, Wright gives us this wonderful poem by the British songwriter and poet, Malcolm Guite:

Easter 2020
And where is Jesus, this strange Easter day?
Not lost in our locked churches any more
Than he was sealed in that dark sepulchre.
The locks are loosed; the stone is rolled away
And he is up and risen, long before.
Alive, at large, and making his strong way
Into the world he gave life to save,
No need to seek him in his empty grave.
He might have been a wafer in the hands
Of priest this day, or music from the lips
Of red-robed choristers. Instead, he slips
Away from church, shakes off our linen bands
To don his apron with a nurse: he grips
And lifts a stretcher, soothes with gentle hands
The frail flesh of the dying, gives them hope,
Breathes with the breathless, lends them strength to cope.
On Thursday we applauded, for he came
And served us in a thousand names and faces
Mopping our sickroom floors and catching traces
of that corona which was death to him:
Good Friday happened in a thousand places
Where Jesus held the helpless, died with them
That they might share his Easter in their need,
Now they are risen with him, risen indeed.

Written by Bob McMath

Bob McMath is a grateful member of St. Paul’s. May we all take comfort from the truth of what N.T. Wright says in this frightening moment: “Where is God in the pandemic? Out there on the front line, suffering and dying to bring healing and hope.”