Grace and Peace to you, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Hope.
As I sat, or paced, or laid, trying to still myself enough to hear the quiet whisper of God this week. As I tried to listen for the spirit of God to tell me what to proclaim today, what God wants you to hear, and what I need to hear this week. I kept coming back to that quiet, word. Hope.
We are living in an odd time. We have become a people, a culture of busyness. We are used to having so many things to do, that even in our moments of leisure, we have so many options of what we can do that we can’t just to one thing, but we have to multi-task our leisure time. We are connected to an abundance of information constantly. We are flooded with status updates, silly quizzes, an endless stream of videos and audio to fill our time and our lives. At a time in which the internet has made us ever more connected to one another, given us not only windows into each other’s lives, but occasionally, even constant live streaming into each other’s lives, we find ourselves less connected than ever, we have followers and we follow others. The connections we form, don’t really fulfill our human desire for relationship, but they are more like well curated gossip magazines of self-posted snippets of information.
For many of us, COVID-19 is forcing us out of this culture of busyness.
If I am going to be truly honest this cult and culture of busyness has been a serious addiction in my life. Running from one thing to the next thing, always moving, always doing, always connecting, reconnecting. Never just doing one thing, but even when I am relaxing, I am listening to an audiobook, watching a movie, tv show or online video, texting, snapchatting, scrolling through the news, facebook, twitter.
Then a few weeks ago, things changed. It is really weird to see both how slowly and how suddenly everything has changed. Where there was tons of things to do, now things are slowing down. For those of us who still have work, the nature of work has changed, what we used to be able to expect, well is not really what we see in our day to day. Many are now finding that in this time of physical distancing, they do not need to work, or their job just plain disappeared, a long unexpected furlough and vacation. Same with the students, classes are going quiet. Maybe there is some online work, or your parents have found ways to encourage continued learning, but the routine and rigor of school has been replaced. The run to complete homework on time between all the different activities, sports, the arts, and just socializing, instead of a sprint, has become a leisurely walk, if not just a crawl or the slow becoming one with the couch.
For many of us, we have found our identity from what we do. Until a few weeks ago, I was a caregiver, a service coordinator for men and women with disabilities, a pastor/pulpit supply, and a student. Then I left Hope Haven and my identity shifted to being a pastor/vicar and a student. Now I am a pastor to a congregation that cannot meet physically together, I am a pastor who cannot go out to the nursing homes, hospital, or folks’ homes to visit and bring communion. I am still a student, but it even feels like that has changed in the last couple weeks.
So, I am left with the question, that I think many of you might be facing today, Who am I?
I know that in times like these there is a dramatic increase in depression and anxiety. We as a community, as a nation, and globally are experiencing a significant trauma. Unlike a storm or war, or terrorist attack, or other natural disaster, none of which have stopped during this pandemic, this event is happening all over the world at the same time. During this time, we have become exiles from each of our community. It is for some of us not at all safe to be with other people during this time, for the rest of us, we need to become exiles in order that we can contribute to the health and safety of our neighbors, our family, and the community.
I know from my own experience this week, and through listening to my fellow seminary students and professors, that this is a time in which hope seems hard to grasp. Hope is replaced with a profound feeling of loneliness, of helplessness, and some doubt. We want to be able to do something, really anything to fight this disease, to speed the recovery of those who are sick, to stop the spread, to help the economy grow, to be with those who mourn. We want to be doing something to bring about an end to all this, but, we find that we are at our limit of our abilities. We cannot really do anything personally to change what is happening in the world around us. We don’t have any control over what is happening.
We are not alone in this. In our reading today from the Hebrew Bible we hear this prophecy and vision of a field covered in dry bones. Dry bones do not contain life, they don’t even contain much of a memory of life. The dry bones of this story are the people of Israel. They had been conquered and sent into exile, in a land far from home. They lost all control over their lives. They are not only far from home, unable to return to their normal existence, because they are far from the temple, unable to make sacrifices or to worship God. They are questioning if God can even hear them anymore.
But, Ezekiel is shown a vision. God is hearing his people cry out. God knows the longing of the people and promises to return life, to reknit muscles and ligaments and tendons. God will breathe new life into the people of Israel. They will return home, the connections that had been destroyed will be recreated, life after the exile will be different, it will leave a permanent scar on the people of Israel, a scar that our siblings of the Jewish faith continue to feel and see today, but even though life would be different, life will continue even after the exile.
That does give me hope. We are already seeing that in some parts of the world, the virus is starting to abate. In Wuhan, they have gone nearly 10 days with no new cases of COVID-19. And there is talk that after 85 days of quarantine, that Wuhan will lift the lockdown on April 8th. Doctors in Canada and the US are working on promising vaccines and courses of treatments. While we still haven’t seen the peak of cases here in Iowa, let alone the USA, we know that it will come, the virus will be contained, will be treated, will be weakened, and life will return to a normal. We will pay a price for our slow reaction time. People are and will suffer because we are not self-isolating faster and stricter. The isolation itself exposes flaws in our system and our culture. Children and spouses of abusers are trapped with the possibility of violence. Children who depend on free or reduced meals for their daily bread are forcing schools to continue to provide meals. The homeless and the incarcerated are at greater risk of infection and complications. Holes in coverage of medical availability are being exposed, the lack of affordable childcare, so many things that we have allowed to occur are becoming more visible.
We have hope that this will pass. But the suffering will leave a scar. I hope that we as a people, as a community, and as humanity can learn from this experience. Not only that we need to do a better job at providing for the vulnerable, but that we also have to take seriously and make a real effort to build connections, authentic connections with our loved ones, with our communities.
We also hear Mary and Martha’s pointed statements to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” What isn’t said here, is what I think I would have been feeling, there is a sense of blame, Jesus, because you were not here my brother has died, and also an unspoken question, Jesus, why weren’t you here?
I know that we are tempted to ask those things today, or at times of grief, sorrow, or fear. We are tempted to call our faith into question when things are difficult. If God were here, how is God allowing this or that thing to happen. We want to place blame on God when things go wrong, or we beg and barter with God to change the course of things. Maybe we just question, Where are you, Jesus?
But we also hear that when Jesus saw Mary and the other mourners weeping, Jesus was “deeply moved” and wept with them. Christ wept with his friends as they mourned, he wept for the fact that this is part of what we as humans must continue to face until the Kingdom of God is realized. Jesus mourns with us, but time still must march on, we remain human and sin is still a real and present thing. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit watch and weep with us, waiting for the time when God’s glory will be revealed.
While we also watch, weep and mourn, we trust that God is with us, giving us grace and supporting us through the trials of life. Through our suffering it is also revealed ways that we can work in the world to bring about God’s kingdom and Christ’s peace. In this, we manifest God’s hope for creation, by becoming like Christ, co-creators of the kingdom of God. Today we see more clearly the suffering of our neighbors, and we are finding ways to alleviate their suffering in this time. It is my hope that we can continue to work after COVID to alleviate the suffering in the world in more ways. To find our voice and our work in the world more unified in Christ’s proclamation to bring sight to the blind, release the prisoners, and free the oppressed.
In this time of difficult decisions, of loneliness, of helplessness, remember Hope, Hope for the future, hope that things will change, and the hope that comes from Christ alone, freedom from sin, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
O God, where hearts are fearful and constricted, grant courage and hope. Where anxiety is infectious and widening, grant peace and reassurance. Where impossibilities close every door and window, grant imagination and resistance. Where distrust twists our thinking, grant healing and illumination. Where spirits are daunted and weakened, grant soaring wings and strengthened dreams. All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.