I trusted the computer to spell it, that's how much I know. I'm hardly an expert. I can't speak as a constitutional scholar, First Amendment lawyer, public health authority, economist or infectious disease doctor because I'm not expert in those things either. Through no fault of our own, we are in the swirling vortex of a world health crisis. It has lots of shifting, slithering tentacles and my humble thoughts on most Covid 19 related topics aren't very precise or well formed. I can repeat a few things I've heard, but after that I'm tapped out. My opinions on Covid 19 issues are only that. I'm not much help during a pandemic.
When I was very young my mother worked nights. That was lucky for me. Fourteen months after I entered the picture my brother was born and fourteen months later along came another brother. That put our night shift mom at home a lot during the waking hours of my first years - more luck - and allowed the three of us to be on the receiving end of her careful and almost complete attention. Boatloads of luck. While Pop was working, an older sister and brother were being drawn, quartered and psychologically flayed all day long by the Sisters of Perpetual Reprehension at our parish school. That left three curious little sponges to absorb, for hours every day, the best our smart young mom had to offer.
With it's animal collection, woods, mushroom patch and big garden, the little green and white frame house at the end of a dirt road was the perfect classroom and Mom was the perfect teacher. She talked to us and read to us - a lot. For me the best thing that happened during that perfect season occurred two years before my own school adventure began. Mom initiated me, her third of what would end up being eight, into the magical world of reading. I could read when I was four - all credit to her patience - and it wasn't good luck this time. Learning to read and learning to love reading was a clear case of divine Providence smiling big on me
A lifetime of challenging reading later, I've become pretty good at one thing: I can read a text.
Reliable voices have guided me to spend lot of time in what people call the Great Books. A careful reading and re-reading of the works of giant minds has been immensely satisfying and personally beneficial. I've treasured every hour spent in the company of big brains I found in old books and they've all etched a place in my spirit. It's the library called the Bible that is the big Hebrew and Greek elephant in the room though, easily and happily commanding and deserving more of my sustained attention than all of them combined. This was so even before I became a Jesus follower. I've spent a lot of quality time with it and it informs my best thinking about everything. With lots of help, I'm learning how to read it - carefully.
There's a reason why I strongly disagree with California church leaders who, in defiance of public health directives, advocate a quick re-opening of churches. It's not because I have insights beyond anyone else. It's simpler than that. A groundswell of California church leaders see immediate re-opening as the best way of navigating the shape shifting and unfamiliar world of global pandemic. They favor running past state, local and the governor's office guidelines that call for more gradual, incremental re-opening of churches. Some are friends, but I'm not traveling with them on this one because I've read the text of scripture - carefully. I think they are walking to the beat of the wrong drummer.
Have our First Amendment rights been infringed upon? Almost certainly. Are we and our houses of worship victims of government overreach? Sure. Overreaching is what powers and principalities do best, even ones with noble beginnings and exemplary founding principles. Is there an argument to be made that maintaining closure is an unfair singling out of churches? No doubt and it's probably a strong one.
If the text of scripture has any force in shaping our behavior, in charting how we lead the churches we serve, in framing our thoughts and attitudes, the only good answer to all those good questions is "So what?"
As Jesus followers, we cannot stray far from a Savior who willingly emptied Himself of every advantage granting privilege, who when publicly stripped of His rights and protections responded, according to hostile witnesses, with an inexplicably simple and simply maddening silence: " He opened not His mouth". Follow too far behind the Savior and you risk not following Him at all, inviting the unwelcome rebuke: "You are not setting your mind on God's interests but man's."
Demanding rights, equal protection and due consideration to the point of defiance seems oddly out of sync for those who follow a misunderstood, falsely accused, crucified God. Without question state leaders have treated churches and church leaders with contempt. In the prayers of confession we reflect on personal sin and often hold ourselves in contempt. That's common. What's uncommon is the Jesus follower who can let others hold them in contempt without reaction. Remember we follow Christ/Messiah and no one ever expected to see a Messiah with spit on His face. "Being reviled, He reviled not."
He told us we could expect some of the mistreatment He got and now we're getting it. Which is easier to picture? Jesus hiring the Pacific Justice Institute or agonizing longer in Gethsemane? Paul played the citizenship card only to avoid severe torture or death - but not every time. Sometimes he took the beating, rejoiced and shook the world.
Back to my trying to be a careful reader: it's caused me to notice a recurring theme in scripture about how God involves Himself in human affairs. In the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Testament it's a consistent theme that God tabernacles in our weakness, not our strengths.
Marva Dawn, scholar, theologian and sometimes co-author with the late Eugene Peterson in her excellent but dense Powers, Weakness and the Tabernacling of God helps us see God's preference for human weakness.
- Imprisonment helps spread the message of good we call the gospel - Philippians 1:12-14
- The believing community is to imitate Christ's emptying - Philippians 2:1-10
- Declaring the mystery of Christ will lead you to prison - Colossians 4:3
- Timothy is encouraged not to be ashamed, but to join Paul in suffering for the gospel - 2 Timothy 1:8-10, 2:3
- Saints are reminded to be subject to the powers - Titus 3:1
- Saints should face trial with joy - James 1:2-4
- God's power is perfected in weakness, not strength - 2 Corinthians 12:9-11
It may be that the shutdown of our normal routine is a dress rehearsal for the church. We must develop different ways of being the church. We may enter a more extended future when we will be unable to do what we've always done and now is the the time to innovate, to get back to Bible basics and most urgently, to model Christ and humility for our people while opposition threatens.
We all want the sanctuary full again, but opening incrementally and slowly may force us to seriously reconsider forgotten ways like house churches and small groups - the early church model that shook an empire and transformed a culture. We have time and the digital tools to remind our people how to stay in touch and show them how to encourage and pray and genuinely disciple one another. Making followers who make followers who make followers is Jesus' Great Commission hope that we've largely ignored. Maybe now is our chance. We can show our folks how they can begin adopting the forgotten scriptural practice of "speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs." All of our prayer lives can be deepened as we learn how to enter sustained prayer through the door of repentance. These may be the things that sustain the church in the future and may help us explore more sustainable models than the ones we've been using for a long time that seem to be offering diminishing returns.
Innovatively preparing for what is coming would make this time well spent. Insisting on a quick return to what never worked all that well would be a waste. We've been handed a severe mercy in a difficult wrapping. American church leaders have been gifted a once in a lifetime opportunity to be true problem solvers, searching the scriptures for a way out that will advance the kingdom and deepen our people in Christ. We can do that or we can adopt the tactics of every other pressure group on the block.
Letting God tabernacle in our weakness can be exciting stuff if we let it be. That's the way I read it.
