Dear Family in Faith,

This Sunday’s gospel reading begins with this:

“Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.”  (Luke 4: 14)

Luke doesn’t share the contents of that report; but it will become clearer that at least part of that report could have included healings, helpings, and feedings for people in Capernaum—which he will not do for the people of Nazareth.  But only three chapters later, there are plenty of these “reports,” and Luke summarizes Jesus’ ministry for John the Baptist:

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”  (Luke 7:22)

Everywhere that Jesus is, these things are true.  This is our faith—what we believe about God’s work in the world. 

Last week, I became distressed hearing the president of ACHI (the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement) report the ACHI’s board was recommending, “persons 65 and older, families with unvaccinated children, and anyone with cancer, diabetes, lung disease, or heart disease should ‘shelter in place;’ and that (at the time) 175 Arkansass had died of COVID infections in the first ten days of the this new year. 

I let the recommendations sink in for a moment.  …I’m pretty certain with one or two exceptions, those categories cover nearly everyone coming to worship in-person these days, including staff, including myself.  With all the news reports of the Omicron variant circulating so easily among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, it’s been easier to lose sight of the fact that people are still dying!  And I’ve found myself struggling again with the idea that someone among our fellowship might die, having been exposed to COVID at Church. 

It bothers me even more, that our sense of what needs to “go on” or “continue” or “be normal again” continues to put our heartfelt desires at the expense of those who are dying as a result.  When Governor Hutchinson meant to dismiss ACHI’s recommendations by responding that Arkansans, “…can’t stop living,” I couldn’t help but think that since the pandemic began, nearly a million Americans, including nearly ten-thousand Arkansans have done just that—stopped living—as a result of COVID-19 

The pandemic has surely cast a pall over nearly everything in our lives.  It’s not enough that the disease is literally killing us—so many of us; the havoc that’s been wreaked in our day-to-day lives adds up, too.  It’s easy to blame COVID for what we see as “problems” in our way of life now—including attending Church or having familiar in-person Church activities.  The recent spike in cases-counts, positivity rates, and deaths, forced a new round of cancellations of activities and events—including some churches in town choosing not to have in-person worship, and our Presbytery and Synod transitioning planned, in-person meetings we had been anticipating for months, because both daily life and travel are precariously and unpredictably affected. 

This “death” is seemingly all around us.  Yet WE believe, everywhere Jesus is: The blind see.  The lame walk.  The lepers are healed.  The dead are raised. 

Over and over, the stories of our faith remind us—demand of us to have faith—that God somehow intervenes, that death isn’t the last word, that we need not be afraid.  Yes, we all die; we do not simply live forever—untransformed.  Neither we as human beings, nor the collective “we” of our fellowships and institutions.  As long as we’re living, we’re also dying.  But we believe Jesus is among us, transforming us …but that’s not a “get out of death, free” card.  It’s an invitation to be transformed.  This isn’t to suggest in any way that COVID is God’s agent to get us to be more faithful, or die.  No.  This is to say we believe in a God of resurrections.  That even though we die, we will live again.  Our chief end isn’t simply to survive, or exist; but to become what God would have us become.  …Like Jesus, who is baptized, tempted, then starts ministering.  Like fishers dropping their nets to follow Jesus.  Like Jesus, who touches the sick and the dead because he knows death isn’t binding  Like a congregation, continuing to do ministry, like Jesus, come what may, to infinity and beyond.  Death comes for us all; but so does resurrection. 

Maybe it’s easier to think that everything is dying, that we have lost, that the good news has escaped us.  …But we believe God transform s us; indeed, the dead are raised.  None of us knows what tomorrow brings.  Rather, we believe in the midst of everything going on around us, though: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised.  Blessed be!  Blessed be!