What Do We Have To Lose?
Things look different. Things will continue to look different for some time even when businesses begin to open back up. There will still be a feeling of distance in the air as people reconnect with their favorite places, work, and being around strangers. As a church minister, I feel the weight of what is happening in our congregations. The weight of wanting to serve people well.
Many leaders have decided to bring their communities together even after federal and state stay at home orders have been enacted continuing in worship as an alarming number of these church leaders and their congregants are contracting and some dying of the Covid-19.
Standing up against fear has been said to be one of the main reasons many of these leaders have been pushing against the government orders. But I think we are deceiving ourselves if we think it is the resistance of the fear from the pandemic but the push back of fear with belief is actually the very reaction to fear.
I have heard 2 Timothy 1:7 being quoted more than any verse in the current season we are in.
7 For God will never give you the spirit of fear,[a] but the Holy Spirit who gives you mighty power, love, and self-control.[b] (TPT)
This passage has been misread by overlooking the position Paul is writing from. When reading the entire chapter you see that Paul is speaking to Timothy about a call to the ministry of the gospel and the life it brings with it. Paul does not warn Timothy that because of his faith nothing can touch him, this is important to remember as Paul himself has written this letter from a prison cell, but to live freely in the gifts given to Timothy by the Spirit to proclaim the Gospel. Paul does not tell Timothy to forsake the wisdom of others but to boldly preach Christ even if it goes against the state.
What Do We Have To Lose?
The behavior of so many church community leaders seems to be a reaction of fear more than a defensive reaction to it. Is it because we feel like we have much to lose? Are we so worried about our church attendance, lack of donations, loss of momentum, the material life we have become comfortable with that might have to change. Would it be fair to say that we have become so wealthy as a people that we think something like this is an attack from the enemy on our economy, buildings, gatherings, and finances missing that it is a true attack on people's lives? We grieve our wallets while sisters and brothers are stolen from around us. The impact financially and influentially drives many of us to fear which causes us to react with conspiracy and by making decisions to open our church doors.
Instead of looking at this as a time to love our neighbors by staying inside, creating paths for people to practice the ways of Jesus at home with their families, we fill people's time with content just to keep them plugged into our programs that offer little direction and are overwhelming in amount. It has never been easier for people to stay connected but we are fraying those connections by being indecisive in our message and scattered in our gospel.
As a part of full-time church ministry, I know how much I myself have worried about what will happen to me if this continues, more worried about a job then the reality that if I had nothing I would still be a minister of the gospel even if I owned far less. In the book of John, Jesus takes three chapters, 14, 15, 16 to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in the community's life through the mission of the church. Esau McCaulley it like this:
“The Gospel of John recounts Jesus’ words to his disciples in the upper room before his death. During this final discourse, he tells them that it is better that he goes away so that the comforter (the Holy Spirit) would come. The point is that the loss of his physical presence through his death, resurrection, and ascension would lead to an even deeper communion with God. It is possible that, strangely enough, the absence of the church will be a great testimony to the presence of God in our care for our neighbors.” (1)
So as the American Church finds herself feeling physically absent in this time we realize through the Spirit that we are connected. As our materialism and comfort cause us to react in fear forgetting the spiritual awakening that could give way if we recalibrate from the reaction of that fear to centering on the Spirit's true work. When we remember what unites us as a people is practicing the ways of Jesus no matter the circumstances or the cost. The cost in this case it could be the financial loss, cancelled events, selling of things we own, letting go, and then letting go some more.
Is this revealing that we don’t know how to be relational with one another or rather, in my opinion, is it revealing something much greater: that we don’t believe that the stripped down Jesus of the gospels is enough and fear the stripping of our own lives will force us to lay everything down to follow him?
1. Mccaulley, Esau. “The Christian Response to the Coronavirus: Stay Home.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 14, 2020.