Therefore I, a
prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling,
for you have been called by God. Always be humble and
gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because
of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united
in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For
there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious
hope for the future. There is one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all,
in all, and living through all.
Now these are the
gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists,
and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to
equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of
Christ. This will continue until we all come to such
unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the
Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like
children. We won’t be tossed and blown
about by every wind of new teaching. We
will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they
sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in
love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his
body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together
perfectly. As each part does its own
special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy
and growing and full of love.
I read a textbook for a sociology class many years ago which was
entitled The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. The idea is that when we humans encounter
each other publicly we adopt a persona, or affect, that we think others need to
see so they will accept us…because we know, or suspect they are watching us
closely to see our flaws. To rephrase
that in English, we tend to wear emotional masks in public so we can hide stuff
from others, because we have trouble trusting people.
Today
we wear physical masks, not necessarily to protect our fragile self-images, but
rather for the sake of protecting others.
We wear a mask to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Isn’t
it a pity that it takes a pandemic to bring out the Jesus-follower in us?
In
the last three months I’ve heard a lot of talk about what people think is going
to happen to the church, considering the virus, and our new normal
of thinking about social interaction.
One such thinker said it flat-out – the church is history. Now, those are (what we’d call in my family) fightin’
words!
But,
what if it’s true?
·
What if some people just don’t think the church helped
enough during this pandemic? And so the
church is irrelevant, and they’re not going back.
·
What if some people think all the mask-wearing,
sanitizing, and distancing is just too much bother, so they’re not going back?
·
What if some have been so easily distracted by the
monuments being torn down, and the anger-filled rioting, marching, and name-calling,
that they’re sure it’s the end, and so they’re going to sit back like some of
the first century Christians and just wait on a hill for Jesus to come back?
·
What if some people decide with all that’s going on,
and no answers in sight, that God either doesn’t care, or doesn’t exist?
·
Well, what if, what if,
what if…?
Well,
what does history have to say about all this?
There
have been 7 major plagues in modern history
1.
Smallpox killed an estimated 300 million worldwide, including
60 million in the 18th century
2.
Spanish flu took 50-100 million in 1918-19
3.
Malaria still accounts for over 2 million deaths per year.
4.
AIDS has taken nearly 25 million since first recognized in
1981
5.
Cholera has had 8 pandemic outbreaks from 1817 accounting for
hundreds of thousands dead
6.
Typhus,
first recognized in 430 BC took nearly all of Napoleon’s army, and has
accounted for millions of deaths, 3 million alone in 1918-22 in Russia.
7.
Black Death - in the middle of the 14th century the
pandemic of the Black Plague death spread across Europe like wildfire. It is a bacterial blood infection that leads
to septecemia, and a very painful death.
In the four years of that plague, the Black Death killed nearly half of
the population of Europe, and nearly ¼ of the world’s population. (Estimates are 75 – 200 million).
What
is one thing that can be said about the result of every one of the pandemics? The church survived
IF
you go ALL the way back in history, the first pandemic was
at the forbidden tree. Adam and Eve
rebelled against God and were removed from the garden, where life had been
perfect and peaceful. For the first
parents the first pandemic of sin made their lives much more difficult and more
toilsome than when they had it easy in God’s garden, but it did not stop them
from worshipping, anymore than it will stop believers from worshipping
now.
In
just my lifetime I think of the rebellion of the 1960’s with the God is Dead
movement, and a strong social sweep that took millions of young people away
from churches.
The church survived
And
there is still a remnant of the music and worship wars
where the fuss between contemporary vs. traditional worship, city vs. country,
racial tensions, economic arrogance, geographical posturing, old and young,
theologically rigid or flimsy…there have been challenges to church unity,
doctrine, ministry, and yet…
(say
it with me)
The church survived
Unbelievers
will always be in rebellion against God; believers will always seek Him.
And…
The church WILL survive
So,
what do we do about what we know?
There
are two dimensions that need to be said:
Physical Battle Masks
We need to keep our masks
on and wash our hands often, not complaining like immature children. Now that’s not a Ten Commandments kind of
list. It is a flag over our attitudes
about protecting the physical health of anyone with whom we come in
contact. It’s our way of loving our
neighbor as we love our own lives.
Armed with that knowledge,
that the risks of this virus are real, we need to stay alert to physically do
the loving thing – be healing to our community.
Spiritual Battle Masks
We need to make decisions
to take off our spiritual and emotional masks of pride and selfishness. This means being vulnerable and available to
each other. As Paul wrote in our text
for today, we need to speak truth, so the whole body heals.
That goes for more than
just the people around you here today, but even those who are without faith,
and do not care. If the church doesn’t
care during a time like we are experiencing now, it will make no difference
after the crisis is over.
Remember, most of the
times Israel was in trouble in Scripture, it was because they failed to honor
God who wanted them to be His voice to a lost world. God took his kids to the woodshed time and
again for that. If we fail at this
point, what makes us think it will be any different for us?
So, church…engage, care…BE the church…especially
now
because God has given us this special opportunity to cast aside our cares and
go to the lost, the hurting, and the least of these our brethren!
We close with a few
paraphrases from Scripture:
Be of good courage…Be
strong in the Lord…Do not fear that, or they, which can kill the body…reverence
and serve HE who has power over death, life, and eternity.
Our Prayer
Father
God, we have gathered here to worship You, and we have looked into Your holy
Word for truth. And we have had the
Truth examine us. Where we have been
found wanting, Lord help us to commit our lives and liberty to the health that
the truth brings. Where we have been
found worthy, let us grow into fully mature believers who lead the way for
those who need to see what being the church is about in this time of crisis.
For the glory, honor, and praise to which You alone are worthy, o Lord,
we pray in the Name of the Son, cooperating with the Spirit, to honor and lift
up the Majesty of the Father.
Let
it be so in each of our lives…Amen!
