Pandemic Parables 2. Within 2 Metres

Among the best known of all Jesus' parables is that of the Good Samaritan (Luke chapter 10):

“And who is my neighbour?”

 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Robbers attacked him. They stripped off his clothes and beat him. Then they went away, leaving him almost dead. A priest happened to be going down that same road. When he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  A Levite also came by. When he saw the man, he passed by on the other side too.  But a Samaritan came to the place where the man was. When he saw the man, he felt sorry for him.  He went to him, poured olive oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey. He brought him to an inn and took care of him.

Very early in the lockdown it occured to me that this parable now illustrates a fundamental Christian problem derived from the pandemic.  This has been reinforced as, with leaders everywhere, I share the agonies of trying to get some sort of meaningful restart to church life.

In this parable social distancing is seen to be the safe course, and the respectable passers by stick, I would imagine, to a good 2 metres.

But the only way to be in the will of God is to get close.  

Now to be clear, this is hardly directly relevant to the church choir standing close, or the greeting hug at the door, or serving communion in a common cup.  It is, however, illustrative of the difficulty of  doing God's will in a pandemic.  

At a stroke it has separated our church - and almost every church - from developing contacts with the lost, the poor and those we meet on the road of life.  We can keep them and ourselves apart and go to our Zoom meeting - but the result is that we are not able to be the neighbours we were told to be.

The pandemic is making it very hard to do God's work.

Pandemic Parables 1. It isn't going to happen . . .

Life has changed a lot in 2020.  I've been thinking about how it changes the way I look at some Parables of Jesus.

Like this one:

Matthew 25:1-13

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.  The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

“‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

This parable speaks into the pandemic's most amazing and controversial issue - preparedness.  Put simply, we (that is the whole world) didn't see it coming.  Look up any example of 'Looking ahead to 2020' on the internet and you will not find a trace of the coronavirus - but plenty about the Olympics and Brexit.  This absence of foresight even applies to this report about China (where the virus was already known to exist late in 2019).

We won't get a practice run for Jesus' Return.  But I think that Covid-19 is a reasonable echo which has quickly (but not in the blink of an eye, 1 Corinthians 15) re-ordered the world without an army or an assembly being able to stop it.

Surely this generation will never live quite so complacently ever again?  But then again, the parable suggests that even those who should be attuned to watching, become drowsy.  Great shocks can speak to unpreparedness, but cannot cure it.

May the Holy Spirit of God reach the drowsy souls before midnight.

How can I keep from singing?

It has been a surreal experience to return to the church building for Sunday morning worship these past two weeks.  Certainly things were feeling pandemically safe, but then again so is the local cemetery (for its residents).  We have some imaginative ideas for worship in the weeks ahead: but singing with our voices seems a distance away.

It is easy to OVERestimate the importance of singing.
The viral rise of the Contemporary Christian Music industry (CCM) has left most of us wondering how we ever found God without five of this year's new songs being sung.  Yet astonishingly we did.  You don't have to be a Quaker to object that God is at work when songs are silent.  Countless believers have spent years or lifetimes imprisoned or isolated in such ways as to render congregational singing a distant dream.  The Bible enjoins and reports praying far more often than singing (especially in the New Testament!).

But it is easy to UNDERestimate the importance of singing.
Most religions have some kind of music and song, but Christianity is full of it.  Whole service forms are based around singing, and whole church traditions defined by its forms (Anglican Evensong, Hillsongs, Gaelic Psalms).  One look at our church building gives the clue that singing is part of it . . .

. . . the organ, the choir stalls, the piano, the drums, the screen (mainly for projecting song words).
Singing, in Christianity, is an expression of the fundamental joy of a saving faith.  It is not a necessary rite; it is more than that.  Christianity is a new song.