Letter from the Bishop: COVID-19, So much as changed in the last two weeks...
Dear Friends,
So much has changed in the two weeks since I first wrote to the Diocese about the COVID-19 virus. Most of us are staying home and we watch the news in amazement at the dramatic changes unfolding around us.
Our churches have all moved from gathering in person to worshiping online. Yesterday (Sunday) morning, I logged in on YouTube and Zoom and Facebook Live and worshiped at least briefly with as many of our churches as I could. I so appreciate the creativity and hard work by our clergy and lay leaders to offer these encouraging and hope-filled worship experiences. One of our priests delightfully commented, “One of my surprising discoveries of the last few days is that it takes far more work to cancel worship than it does to prepare for it!”
This crisis is showing us many things about ourselves and our culture. How vulnerable we are. How ultimately unreliable are earthly things that we so easily take for granted, thinking they will always be there. How much we assume about our ability to plan and control our lives. The Letter of James cautions us about our presumption: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” (James 4:13-15)
As we work out the logistics of online worship and small groups and such, I hope that we will now more and more look outward and focus on serving our neighbors in the Name of Jesus. If the orders to close businesses and stay at home continue, we will see more and more people in need in our churches and in our communities. As followers of Christ, we are called to reach out, to check on neighbors who may be at risk, to share what we have with those who are without.
Several of you have shared this quotation from Martin Luther, who wrote to offer advice during the bubonic plague of 1527. Sounding very much like the CDC of his day, he urged pastors and parishioners to avoid disease, to minimize contact so as to protect others, to trust God, and yet to be willing to sacrifice to minister to someone in need. He wrote:
You ought to think this way: “Very well, by God’s decree, the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore, I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, He will surely find me, and I have done what He has expected of me, and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person, but will go freely.” (Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague. Luther’s Works, Vol. 43)
May our gracious God give us wisdom and grace to be faithful ambassadors of Christ’s love to a world filled with uncertainty and fear.
Faithfully yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. John A. M. Guernsey