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Readings from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures for Tuesday in Holy Week include a passage from Isaiah in which God declares that ‘his’ Word is not for Israel only, but for all of humanity. A letter from Paul to the Corinthians admits it looks like foolishness, but God’s wisdom is not like ours. In John’s gospel, some curious Greeks seek out Jesus’ friends Philip and Andrew, asking them for an introduction to Jesus. The Psalm was written by an old person, vulnerable, in trouble, but trusting in God no matter what.

God made Israel to be a light of God’s presence, self revelation and truth shining out in a world struggling to grasp an idea of the holy. It was never intended to be for them alone. When the time was right, the light they had tended for two thousand years became a blazing beacon of pure love shining into every nook and cranny of the world. Not that the powers of darkness didn’t try to overcome it, but they failed.

Philip and Andrew bringing curious Greeks to meet Jesus symbolized what today is called a tipping point: a point at which the time has come for everything to fall into place as something new is brought into being. The Greeks who came looking for Jesus are place holders representing all of humanity, including you and me. They had heard about Jesus, maybe they’d seen him from afar, they were foreigners, not Israelites, not even Samaritans, and they wanted to meet him. Philip and Andrew brought them to Jesus just as Paul and all the disciples would do for the churches they started.

Perhaps it was coincidental that the Roman Empire was more or less at peace for a very few years surrounding the time of Jesus. Roads connected much it, and fleets of ships connected the rest; travel was relatively safe; one could even send letters back and forth. Major cities and towns in the eastern Mediterranean were likely to have a modest Jewish population and a synagogue or two. It was the right time, maybe the only time, when it was possible for the good news of God in Christ to be spread throughout the empire: and so it happened in the thirty years following his death and resurrection.

God works in mysterious ways. They can look foolish to our human eyes, but God’s wisdom is not our wisdom, ‘his’ ways are not our ways, ‘his’ thoughts are not our thoughts. What looks foolish to us, is the wisdom of God at work. And what is that work? It is the saving grace of God extended to the whole world, all of humanity, all of creation, and for you and me. It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if that blazing beacon of pure love shined again, especially now. It can. Jesus said that in him each of us would become a bearer of the light of the world. My lamp may flicker and sputter, so may yours, but together we can be a blazing beacon of hope. That’s what those Greeks who sought out Jesus wanted to see. Philip and Andrews took them. Who can we bring?

The theme of Holy Week is deliverance. It was last year, it is this year, it will be next year. In the midst of pandemic we might be inclined to ask, as does the psalmist, “Why are you cast down O my soul and why are you disquieted within me?” And then comes the answer, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

The story of deliverance starts in the beginning with God doing a new thing: creating the universe and bringing life into it (Episcopalians have no problem with science, big bangs, and evolution). It continues with God doing new things on nearly every page of scripture. For all of it, God had long promised another new thing to come, something yet more astounding than anything before.

As Jesus rode into Jerusalem, humble, on a donkey, Zechariah’s prophecy was being acted out as an announcement that the new thing had arrived (Zech. 9). The servant of whom God had spoken through Isaiah was Jesus, and the promised new thing was about to be fully revealed (Isa. 42). It would be the sealing of the new covenant God had promised through the voice of Jeremiah so many centuries before (Jer. 31). It was to be a new covenant sealed in blood.

I have written before about the importance of blood as the symbol of a binding covenant. Hebrew scripture affirms that blood flowing through all living creatures is holy, the bringer of life that is God’s own gift. Therefore, something sealed in blood was holy and irrevocable. Other cultures have understood it in other ways. The custom of making blood brothers/sister by exchanging blood was common world wide, not just in old cowboy movies. It confirmed a seal that could not be broken. At God’s command, Moses took sacrificial blood, splattered it on the altar and then on the people as the seal of the covenant between God and God’s people (Exodus 24). It was the first covenant.

In Christian scripture, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews attested that Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant, not in the blood of an animal, but in his own blood, making us, in a sense, his blood brothers and sisters. We renew that covenant every time we participate in the Holy Eucharist (Holy Communion). It is a costly exchange. Not only was Jesus crucified, we are asked to surrender our very souls to him. We like to think we’re self sufficient and can earn our own way, but as the psalmist wrote, “Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life, there is no price one can give to God for it. For the ransom of life is costly, and can never suffice that one should live on forever and never see the grave” (Ps 49). Indeed, in Christ no ransom was paid. The new covenant in Christ’s blood is the fulfillment of God promise, that we are his by grace, not for today only, but for eternity. It is sealed.

It is a covenant of healing, reconciliation, justice, and peace. Our obligation as Christians is to live into it as best we can.

I was interviewed recently about my blog, Country Parson (stevenwoolley.com), by noted Kindle book critic, Sam Woodward. Here’s a partial transcript for those of you who may have missed it on NWPB.

Woodward: I understand you’ve been publishing Country Parson for over a decade.

Me: Yes, I started it shortly after I retired. It was something to do, and writing is passion.

Woodward: Blogs are so dated, no one reads them anymore, don’t you feel a little out of step with the times?

Me: Well, I’m a little dated too. Videos and podcasts are just not my thing. Give me a little credit for hanging in there with the written word.

Woodward: Speaking of which, you write on politics, economics and religion, is that right?

Me: Yes, those are my three subjects, with occasional nonsense thrown in. Maybe I’ll publish this interview, it’s about as nonsensical as they come.

Woodward: That’s a little cruel considering I’m a well known book critic doing you a favor. And by the way, A quick read of a few of your columns reveals grammatical and spelling errors, with commas randomly scattered about.

Me: OK, well, I type very fast, and sometimes miss things, then my eyes aren’t what they used to be, and besides, my editor is an abstract artist and you know. Look, it’s really about content, not commas.

Woodward: Back to the question about content, do you actually know anything about any of this?

Me: A little bit. I spent thirty years in and around politics, much of it in public policy consulting. From time to time I’ve been the source de jour on television and radio. Even done some teaching. Then I went off to seminary and became an Episcopal priest.

Woodward: Does anyone read your stuff?

Me: Not many. I once had nearly 2,000 subscribers, but it turned out they were mostly bots. I’m down to less than 200 I believe to be real people. On a good day there might be 10 or 20 who wander in off the internet. Aren’t a lot of good days.

Woodward: Of your three subjects, which one generates the most readers?

Me: Politics, especially when I write about Trump and his devoted followers from my center-left perspective. Then I get attention from places like Egypt, Pakistan, and China. Russia used to be there, but I think they’re farming out their bots these days.

Woodward: And the least?

Me: Religion, or more particularly Christianity understood in the Anglican traditions of the Episcopal Church. I’m offering some pieces on Holy Week right now, and for the most part they’re flops. Now and then a piece gets more hits when I can work in sex, violence and revenge. It attracts the Netflix crowd.

Woodward: What about economics, you said that didn’t you?

Me: Yes. I write not as an economist, but as an informed observer of the economic scene. It used to make sense, but under Trump all the normal rules were annulled, so I’m less inclined to say much these days.

Woodward: Economics is a big word, can you narrow it down a little for me?

Me: I tend to follow Krugman and Pikkety. I’ve actually read Pikkety’s “Capitalism in the 21st Century.” Can’t say I followed the math very well, but that’s another story. In the old days I was interested mostly in how local economies worked, and how they related to each other.

Woodward: And people find this interesting?

Me: No, they don’t. Except for the libertarian right wingers. I can get them going. They’re still upset with FDR, think Keynes was a commie, and love Friedman. That is to say, they would if they knew who any of them were. When I’m bored I can entice them to create a little excitement.

Woodward: I’d hoped this interview could be shopped around to big media, but frankly, the ramblings of an old man about things he used to know about don’t have much of a market. I’ll see what I can do.

Me: OK, I guess, I’d hoped for more, but enjoyed the conversation just the same. Was a little surprised at all the gin you drank while I sipped on tea, but what can you expect from an ebook critic in a Hemingway beard and tweed jacket. Bet you even have a pipe in there somewhere.

There is no question that Holy Week can feel like a downer. It seems to go deeper and deeper into darkness so that the glory of Easter might shine the brighter. The intentions are good. Sometimes we need to be shaken out of our complacency, but it has its limitations, especially in a season like the one we’re in now.

Let’s try for another way to approach it starting with this from Friday’s Morning Prayer: “Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace…” The way of the cross is the way of life and peace. It’s the way of deliverance from death to life. Walking in the way of the cross is to have a rich foretaste of the life and peace that lies yet ahead. Holy Week is not about walking into darkness; it is about walking out of darkness toward the light; it is about deliverance; God’s promises fulfilled, not for a few but for the whole world.

Walking in the way of the cross seems counterintuitive, but it works. At my dad’s funeral, a local minister said that he was the rare man who had always walked on the sunny side of the street. It wasn’t true. He’d survived the Depression, survived the South Pacific in WWII, had emotionally wrenching disappointments on the way to business success, had to retire early, and died from complications related to debilitating disease. But, his life was spent walking in the way of the cross, and in it he found and radiated life and peace to those around him.

Holy Week often raises questions about atonement. What does it mean to say Jesus died for our sins? In a recent note to my congregations, I cited Karie Hines Shah who wrote in Christian Century that “Jesus suffers not because it is horribly rare but because it is horribly common.” Popular among many Christians is the “doctrine of substitutionary atonement” that says we are such miserable sinners, undeserving of God’s love, that we need to be punished for it. But God, in his mercy, heaped all of that punishment on Jesus in our place. Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie, “The Passion of the Christ” was a hit sensationalization of the doctrine, but really gross and really bad theology.

Jesus suffered as thousands of others had, and would for centuries to come. He joined with the suffering of both the guilty and unjustly convicted right through the very end, but it wasn’t God’s punishment for our sins, and it wasn’t unique. It was the final and most profound instance of the fullness to which our Lord would share in the reality of our lives, and a sign that we would share in the fullness of his. Can an omnipotent God really, truly know what you and I go through as mere human beings? Yes, God does because God has.

Substitutionary atonement is but one of many doctrines of atonement that have come into and gone out of favor over the centuries. The Anglican tradition, as expressed in the Episcopal Church, doesn’t dogmatically teach any of them. All of them have something worthwhile to say, and provide endless opportunities for academic theologians to write books. But for us it is enough to say that in Christ and through Christ our sins are forgiven. “In him, you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you. In him, you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.” We accept this in faith as a holy mystery to be lived into, not explained.

I’m among those dismayed by Trump’s approval ratings. The latest average of ten presidential rating polls show approval at 47%, with wide variation. The trend line over the course of his administration has been bouncing around from a low of 35% to a high of 49%, and a few individual polls rate him well above 50%. The overall trend has been slightly upward in recent months. Some commentators tout the high numbers as they laud his performance. Others note how he’s not getting the bump other presidents have received during times of national emergency, and dismiss the polls as inaccurate. I both distrust them and think they need to be taken seriously.

If Trump is to be defeated this fall, it cannot be ignored that close to a half of those queried approve of him no matter what. It can’t be analyzed away. There it is. A little less than half the adult population approves of a man who lies deliberately about things he knows to be untrue; lies ignorantly about things he knows nothing about; peppers his conversation with crude, belittling insults about anyone who challenges him; and cannot stay focussed on anything long enough to understand it. His history of business failure and corruption are public record – his personal immorality equally so. Receiving an economy in good health and growing, he slowed down its growth, got a tax bill passed that enriched the few and did not do one thing he promised it would, then claimed he’d produced the best economy ever. He single handedly destroyed our standing among the community of nations. He bungled our immigration problems, creating Dickensian conditions for would be immigrants, and unleashed Gestapo like roundups of the undocumented. Mountains of clear evidence proved his malfeasance in office, and a feckless Senate majority didn’t have the moral courage to do anything about it. Now he’s stumbled and bumbled management of the COVID-19 response, yet gives himself high marks for the great job he’s doing.

How is it possible nearly half the adult population can approve of performance like that?

The answer, I fear, is both obvious and disheartening, because I’m not convinced there is much to be done about it. It isn’t simply a steady diet of Fox News running constantly in homes across the nation. Its most popular shows are nothing more than propaganda for the Trump political operation. If Fox is the only television news source one watches, it may be impossible for one’s preexisting right wing persuasions not to be welded in place. That we know, but if we think pouring more truthful or progressive programing out to the public will change their minds, we’re badly mistaken. They’re not watching and don’t trust the mainstream or lamestream news, and they don’t read reliable newspapers.

Fox is the most obvious culprit, but probably not the most dangerous. Local a.m. talk radio stations dominate the radio landscape. Calling themselves conservative, they feature right wing provocateurs, disinterested in truth, and intent on fomenting as much right wing angst as possible. The local station in our community, for example, begins the day well enough with an interview show featuring local news, goofy humor, and interviews with community leaders. It’s worth listening to, but it’s the lead in to a day of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and the like. Their crude vitriol is the background noise of homes and shops all over town. Maybe they listen, maybe they don’t, but droning all day, every day does its damage. And some do listen: an acquaintance once told me I should listen because they say some good things. Another said he can’t understand why people don’t like Trump, an honest president who tells the truth.

Television and radio are the front and back doors to an internet community of right wingers and the gullible curious. I don’t mean traditional conservatives; I mean anti government, tax avoiding, racially prejudiced, conspiracy touting extremists who revel in scapegoating targeted ethnic groups and anything liberal as intent on destroying all that right thinking people believe in. Without saying it out loud, they shout Danger! Arm Yourselves! They’re Coming to Get You! Some call it the dark web, but it’s not so dark. It’s right there in the open, anyone can look, maybe not enter the inner sanctum, but at least look.

My Twitter, FB and news feeds favor mainstream media and commentators on the progressive side, and they can give you the impression that everyone knows and understands what’s going on from that perspective, but everyone doesn’t. The right wing internet sites are numerous and have tens of thousands of subscribers. The point is, cable t.v. news, a.m. talk radio, and extremist right wing websites form a substantial collective force that willingly gives Trump their uncritical support with unshakable belief that he’s doing a terrific job and saving their way of life in the process. What is objectively real is either disbelieved or irrelevant.

I wish I knew how to let the light of verifiable evidence and data driven fact to enter into that world, but I don’t. Maybe you do. A good many residents of that world claim to be Christian. I wish I knew how to let the light of Christ enter into their hearts and minds, but I don’t. Maybe you do. And before someone says it, yes, there’s a far left wing version of the same thing, but it’s minuscule in comparison, and has little influence over the voting public. And no, Bernie is not their flag bearer. He’s way too centrist for them.

It surprises no one that a.m. talk radio hosts ridicule the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic, blame liberal socialists for insisting that it is, and laud Trump for his decisive leadership of the federal government’s response.  Sadly, it no longer surprises me that so many believe them, preferring their propagandistic screeds to verifiable facts and informed commentary.

What troubles me more are the number of so called Christian figures doing the same, claiming the name of Christ along the way.  They call the pandemic a fraud, assert it’s punishment from God, blame homosexuals and socialists, and deny there is a need to go on with the foolishness of social distancing.  Falwell may be the most well known.  Mormonish Beck is a fellow traveler with a large radioland following.  Paula White,Trump’s spiritual advisor, peddles pseudo Christianity promising miracles and money – for a fee.  Some, such as Jimmy Baker, sell fake cures.  Lesser known are a  smattering of mega church pastors refusing to cancel large Sunday gatherings for a disease conjured up by liberals, or is it a Chinese plot, take your pick.

It troubles me more because they do not faithfully represent or follow where Jesus has led, or what the Church has struggled to truthfully proclaim for two thousand years.  They and their specious theologies are not Christian no matter how often they use his name.  They’ve deceived thousands who have become devoted believers and beguiled funders. 

The immediate response, of course, is: “How dare you!  Who do you think you are?  What gives you the right to challenge my faith?  How arrogant!  What makes you think you know better?”  Unlike Ms. White, I can’t claim God has spoken directly to me, nor can I claim to be an authoritative and respected theologian.  At best I’m a second rate theologian, and an enthusiastic if mediocre student of most everything else.

I dare and claim the right by the words and deeds of Jesus as recorded in the gospels; by the epistles reporting how early congregations of the eastern Mediterranean struggled to understand them; and by the writings of the ethical prophets in the Hebrew scriptures.  I dare and claim the right by the writings of the pre and post Nicene ‘fathers’ of the Church, by the great reformers, and by the inspired writings of today’s deep thinkers.

Centering them are the Sermon on the Mount; the two greatest commandments on which hang all the law and prophets, and the new commandment to love one another as Jesus loves us.  From this center has emerged an abundance of room to express genuine Christian faith in an abundance of ways: genuine even in contention with each other.  

If what is said and done cannot connect directly with the center, they are not of Christ.  I’m reminded of something Jesus said: “Woe to you…hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.  So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt 23).  

They’re tough words from a loving Christ, not to be taken lightly.  If you want to follow Jesus, say and do as you are able for the loving good of yourself and your neighbor.  At least do no harm, but I think we can each do more than that.  Ignore those who would have you do otherwise, no matter how often they use the name of Jesus.  They are not of Christ.

Here are a few observations on the lessons for this coming Sunday.  You may find them helpful in preparing for online or at home worship.

The lessons for Sunday, March 29 are from Ezekiel, the valley of dry bones, and John, the raising of Lazarus, both very familiar.  In between is a short passage from chapter 8 of Paul’s letter to the Romans about how new life is ours through the Spirit that dwells in us.

Because we know the stories well it’s easy to skim them with a sense they have nothing new to say.  God’s Spirit speaking to us through scripture disagrees.  There is always something new being said to those who listen.  But what could it be?  Let’s see.

About 600 years before Jesus the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, and many people were sent into exile in Babylon.  With no temple and the priesthood scattered, what did it mean to be an Israelite?  For that matter, they wondered who exactly is God and what would become of them? How could they hope when the future looked so bleak?  They’re serious questions not unlike a few of our own.  Into that mess came Ezekiel, living in exile with the others, and, according to his own book, more than a little looney.  He acted out prophecies in some very odd ways.  You can read about them for yourself.  But in this passage he offered God’s word of hope in a fairly clear way.  No matter how dead and defeated they were, God intended to give them new life, and had the power to do it.  

It’s likely they understood it to mean new life for the nation of Israel that their decedents would enjoy.  Although God spoke through Ezekiel about his power to restore life to the dead who were no more than dry bones lying scattered about the desert floor, the people of the time couldn’t easily comprehend that it might refer to them personally.  Jewish understanding of personal resurrection and a heavenly afterlife in God’s presence developed in the centuries after their return to Jerusalem from Babylon.  By the time of Jesus, the Pharisees understood it well, but the Sadducees didn’t.  

We’re much the same.  It’s hard to comprehend the new things God is saying when they don’t fit easily with what we think we already know and believe.  The voices of prophecy include many spouting religious sounding words God has nothing to do with.  It takes time to discern what is genuine, and it certainly helps to have prophets less nutty than Ezekiel.   

And so we come to John’s gospel where a new thing so utterly unbelievable was incomprehensible to those who were eye witnesses.

In the form we have it, John’s gospel came late, maybe twenty or thirty years after the others.  There was plenty of time to reflect on Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection, and to consider what was needed to fill in what the others had excluded, or didn’t know about.  The raising of Lazarus, for instance, was not recorded in the other gospels: we don’t know why.  In this passage from John, God made a bold statement: there is no condition of death beyond God’s power to give life to whomever God chooses, whenever and however God chooses to do it. 

I have no doubt Jesus wept because it was a rotten trick to play on Lazarus.  Ripping him from new life in God’s loving embrace to return to ordinary life as an object lesson for the disciples?  It meant he had to live, suffer, and die all over again.  Could we not be satisfied with the reality of Jesus’ resurrection?  I guess not.  The disciples had to witness resurrection in an ordinary human being like themselves.  I think there are good reasons why it came before Christ’s own death and resurrection, and wonder what you think.  Give it some prayerful reflection.

We’re getting close to Holy Week and Easter.  We’ve been following Jesus on his way to Jerusalem for almost forty days.  We’ve seen the power of God at work through what he’s said and done.  If we were among his disciples, we couldn’t possibly understand it wasn’t God’s power working in him.  Jesus is the power of God.  God had been walking and talking with them all this time, but how could they have known.  Lazarus was a clue, but the fullness of the revelation would not come until Easter. 

That same power is as intimately present in our lives today, as it was in their’s so long ago.  We already know about Easter, but the fullness of its meaning may have escaped us, just as the greater meaning of Ezekiel’s dry bones escaped the exiled Israelites, and the meaning of Lazarus’s resurrection escaped the disciples.

Holy Week and Easter are going to be a little weird this year.  In a sense, we’ve been exiled, our churches are off limits, our clergy scattered, sickness and death surround us, our movements are restricted, ordinary life has been put on hold.  It’s dry bones and tombs.  But thanks be to God, we are already living into our eternal life through Christ Jesus.  We can say with Paul: “…Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Jesus doesn’t have the power of life, he is the power of life, and his Spirit dwells in us giving us new and eternal life.

These are challenging times.  It’s often said that God won’t give us more than we can bear, which suggests God has brought the challenging times upon us, and we have the strength to endure them.  It’s meant well, but it’s wrong.  

The scripture not correctly cited is from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth where he wrote, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”  It’s encouragement to follow Jesus even when it seems no one else does, especially in matters of worship amongst the dominant pagan religions of the day.

In these challenging times, what does following Jesus mean?  It has to mean more than “I accept Jesus as my personal lord and savior.”  That’s just bumper sticker faith with no more substance than the paper it’s printed on. Paul gave it a lot of thought as he tried to guide new congregations in the eastern Mediterranean.  His own experiences of beatings, imprisonment, and hard living on the road provided deep insights worth sharing.  Following Jesus, he had learned, meant dropping one’s ego defenses to allow God’s presence to enter, bringing with it new ways of thinking and acting.  They were gifts.  Gifts from God that one does not have to reach for, but can only accept.  How hard that is for us to do, including Paul himself.  It means surrendering more of our ego than is comfortable.

What sort of gifts?  Very strange ones indeed because they seem incompatible with common sense and reasonable self interest.  To the extent we are willing to accept them, they change our lives.  It’s not something we do, it’s something they do. 

What are they?  They’re elements of godly love expressed through humans for the benefit of humanity.  Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans (Rom. 12) that they include a type of humility that doesn’t place one’s self above others, yet never surrenders the self confidence of being a child of God.  They encourage us to do what is noble in the sight of all, boldly hating what is evil, yet overcoming it with good.  This is not the sort of stuff we’re inclined to do on our own.  It’s God working through us, but only if we allow it.  A gift is not a gift until it’s accepted.

Writing to the Ephesians, he counseled them to “let no evil talk come out of your mouths.”  Well that’s a bummer because I have a lot of not very nice things to say, and sometime do.  But what is evil talk?  It’s talk that oppresses, sows contempt for the vulnerable, verbally assaults and batters, spreads rumors, destroys reputations, incites needless fear, and manipulates for selfish purposes the lives and goods of others.  We’re not likely to be up to it on our own.  It’s only by letting down our defenses that we’re able to accept the gift of God’s presence working through us that we can discover ourselves beginning to live into a new way of being.  Beginning, not attaining.  Be kind to yourself.  It’s a start, not a finish.

So where does it all lead?  I mean in this life, not some other life yet to come.  By Paul’s own experience, it leads to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.  It dispenses with pointless competitiveness and envy, and discovers contentment, even in hard times.  That according to the letter to the Galatians.  

I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise, but not everyone wants these gifts.  They’re counterintuitive.  They weaken arguments for the self sufficiency of rugged individualism.  They undermine the logic of Machiavellian tactics to grab power and position.  All that can be said in their defense is they are God’s ways that God would have be human ways for the good of humanity.  Following Jesus means giving up the parts of one’s self that are suspicious of these godly gifts to make room for them.  In making room, even a small room, they will begin to grow and guide toward new ways of living in community with one another. 

One final note.  It’s commonly believed that to accept these gifts, and begin living into them, makes one into a milquetoast doormat easily trampled on.  It doesn’t work that way.  It leads, oddly enough, to greater courage to stand firmly and forcefully against all the powers of oppression, degradation, and injustice that infect the societies in which we live. 

For thousands of years, wars, epidemics, and economic and natural disasters have reshaped cultures and changed the directions of societies.  Recorded history goes back only a half dozen millennia or so, but the same forces were molding the world’s history long before that.  In its own way, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 is taking its place among them.  The question is whether there are historical precedents that might shed light on where we could be headed after it passes.

Looking at the lessons of war and natural disaster will probably not help.  Wars, for all their slaughter, tend to generate high levels of employment and technological advancements.  True, they bankrupt nations, but in their wake is opportunity for entrepreneurs to employ wartime technologies for beneficial peacetime use.  Natural disasters are usually localized events that can destroy everything in their paths, but the rest of the world continues on with barely a notice.  Pandemics and epidemics have global impacts, but don’t destroy property as they destroy lives.

Previous examples are the places to look for potential guidance.  For instance, the so called Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 proved isolation and social distancing helped stem its spread.  Failure to do so helped accelerate the contagion, making it more deadly.  Truth be told, it probably should have been called the “Kansas Flu” since the first major outbreak occurred among returning soldiers bivouacked in Kansas.  Beyond that, 1918 may not be terribly instructive.  It came on the heels of WWI, which for all its terrible cost, set the stage for the economic and technological swagger of the “Roaring Twenties,” which, in their turn, set the stage for the global depression of the 30s leading to WWII. 

What we know about our own pandemic is this.  We had been cruising along on the crest of history’s longest sustained wave of economic growth.  Although  political and economic warning bells were ringing, few took them seriously.  It didn’t matter; the warning bells could not anticipate a viral pandemic, so even their ringers were taken be surprise.  The majority of American business and industry was shut down in an instant, not for economic reasons, but to enforce infection containment measures.  Normal daily life for most people has come to an abrupt halt.  The economic impact on their lives has been immediate and brutal.  Goods and services are unavailable at any price, not because they’re scarce, but because businesses are closed, and some may not survive.  

The social impact is tolerable for the time being, but social distancing deflates joy from life, and makes optimistic planning for the near future difficult.  It leads to a shared sense of dark, unpredictable times that’s not good for our collective mental health.

Is this another time of plague, another Black Death (1347-1352) sweeping away enormous portions of the population?  No, it isn’t.  The social distancing measures governments have imposed on their populations will prevent it from becoming anything like that.  They can’t stop or cure the outbreak, but they will slow it down, save lives, and limit its duration.  Nevertheless, the 14th century plague that decimated Europe and portions of Asia may offer some instruction.  The severe disruption caused by the deaths of more than a third of the population cleared the way for significant changes leading to renaissance in learning, art, technology, international trade, land use, new forms of government and greater freedom for peasants.  It was a high cost to pay.  Those who benefitted most from the old ways didn’t give them up easily.  Still, the seeds of modernity were sown.  Therein lies the lesson.  Massive wide spread dislocation of social and economic life caused by pandemic opens opportunities for new and better ways to emerge.

Our time of “plague” will last perhaps months, not years.  It will not be as deadly, because we are taking the precautions others didn’t, and have better ways of caring for the sick.  The essentials of economic recovery remain in place.  War hasn’t destroyed vast swaths of the nation; it’s all there to resume operating when it is safe to do so.  Once social distancing is no longer needed, life will return speedily, but not without change.  The demise of some businesses and ways of doing business will open pathways for new forms to emerge.  A sense of national unity and shared responsibility will linger for a time.  The illusion of America First, and America alone will have been shattered.  Massive governmental intervention needed to contain the effects of equally massive economic dislocations will have political ramifications not unlike those of FDR’s New Deal.  It won’t be dreaded socialism, but it will embed more progressive ways of governing – hopefully under a different president.  

Nativists, isolationists, libertarians, white supremacists, and tea partiers will scream, rail and whine, but what they most fear will have been shown to be a chimera.  With luck, their howling will no longer be politically influential.  Right wing scare mongering on talk radio, internet sites and cable t.v. will not go away, but maybe more people will stop listening and believing.  We can hope so.

The tiny rural congregation I serve a few times a month is closed for the duration, so I’m offering a weekly meditation to give them something to consider as they prepare for video streamed worship made available to every congregation. Here it is for your consideration also.

In these days of uncertainty and unknowing, bombarded as we are with conflicting news, it’s hard to understand what we see going on in the world about us.  Making sense out of it is difficult.  It’s timely that this week’s gospel lesson from John 9 tells the story of a man born blind to whom Jesus gives new sight.  It may help us deal with our own sense of inward blindness.  We shall see.

A person born blind has no way to understand what visual images mean. Their usual ways of sensing the world about them are thrown into chaos.  Everything is frighteningly confusing.  The process of learning how to use sight takes time, lots of it.  We may not be physically blind, but what we see going on around us these days has upended our usual ways of understanding things.  It’s going to take time to make sense of it. 

The miracle in the story of Jesus and the man born blind is not that he could suddenly see, but that he could see with understanding.  In an instant he had clarity of vision; there was no confusion about how to make sense out of the never before seen visual images surrounding him.  He knew without doubt that the healing power of God had entered, and remained, in his body, mind and soul.  That was some miracle.  But wait, there’s more. 

He knew the man named Jesus had done it, but who was Jesus?  It took time for him to begin comprehending that whoever Jesus was, he was of God in a way that no one else could be.  The story leads us to believe that days passed before the religious leadership interrogated him, then sought out his parents, then interrogated him again.  In those passing days he discovered that with his vision he also received a gift of holy insight into godly truth.  He, an unlearned beggar, knew what the religious leaders didn’t.  Even though he told them, they would not listen: listen to an ignorant beggar, certainly not.  “Here’s an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.  We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.  Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

Even so he had no idea what Jesus looked like.  When Jesus found him, he had to ask.  In that moment his sight and insight filled him with new understanding: this is the Messiah.  He knew he was in the presence of God, and he worshiped.  We hear no more about him, but my guess is he became one of the disciples. 

We do hear more about the religious leaders.  Huffing and puffing that they, being learned in scripture and faithful in worship to the last detail, were not spiritually blind like the beggar.  Jesus was brutally honest with them.  Because you think you see everything clearly, your sin remains, he said.  Was he talking to me?  I think he might have been.

When John Newton wrote the words, “Amazing grace…Twas blind but now I see,” he meant new sight with understanding had enveloped him, new sight blessing him with fuller understanding of what Jesus meant when he gave the new commandment to love one another as he loves us.  For Newton it was a command to love in word and deed as a person who would bring a greater measure of God’s healing justice into the world.

He had to make room for new sight by giving up old ways of seeing things, old ways of assuming class, privilege, power and self righteousness.  Those are costly things to give up.  It wasn’t easy.  It took time.

Jesus knows well what my inward blindness is, and yours too.  But new sight is ours to have because he’s already given it.  We only have to accept it, and to live into it with intentionality.  The fruit of new vision is found in all that is good, right and true, and what is good, right and true is found in all that Jesus said and did.  

I work at it.  It ebbs and flows in my life, better some days, not so good on others. The process of learning how to use new sight takes time, lots of it.