Below is the sermon from St. Nicholas Church, Adare, on Sunday, 15 March 2020, the Sunday following restrictions being imposed on public gatherings in Ireland because of Covid-19.
My husband, Kirk, and I have a saying, or a joke, about the season of Lent. It is that Lent happens to you whether you plan for it to or not. Even if you had not thought of giving up something, or taking on something for Lent, Lent will still happen to you.
Right now, Lent is happening to us all. The purpose of Lent is to reveal to us what it is that gets between us and God, what in our lives needs to change, especially in our relationships with God and each other. Lent is happening to us because of the Covid-19 virus. Its appearance in Europe pretty much coincided with the beginning of Lent on February 26.
This past week, things here in Ireland seem to have been changing by the hour. As you know, schools were closed and public events of certain sizes were cancelled. So then of course the question arose whether to cancel church services.
And I thought, if we were a social service agency, whose sole or primary concern is for people’s physical health and welfare, then yes, we would cancel services, to avoid the risk of anyone getting sick.
But we are a church, and while we are concerned for people’s physical health and welfare, and we certainly don’t want people to get sick, our primary concern is for people’s spiritual welfare. Our primary focus is on God’s presence in our lives and God’s call to us through Christ Jesus. Our primary focus is on growing faith.
And so I could not cancel all of our worship services. They are cancelled in Croom, Kilpeacon, and Kilmallock, for a variety of reasons, but I felt that we need to have an opportunity to worship, and here we are. And here’s why: To worship and praise God in the face of rampant fear. To have contact with one another in the face of a disease that threatens to cut us off from our fellow human beings. And to continue life as normal as much as possible in the face of uncertainty and a massive upheaval in life, while at the same time changing what we need to change.
First, fear. In the Bible, whenever a messenger of God shows up, the first thing the messenger says is, “Do not be afraid.” Much of the response to Covid-19 is driven by fear: fear of death, and fear of the unknown. The other night as Kirk and I watched the markets spiraling downwards, we heard an economist say, “This is not an economic event. This is a fear event.”
The naked truth is that all of us eventually die. But we constantly try to deny this truth, through all sorts of actions and lifestyles and choices that would make us numb to the reality that we will die one day. Most people do not want to die, and that is actually a healthy thing. But the Christian faith tells us that we do not have to be afraid, because one of the huge promises from Christ is to be with us through any suffering in this life and if we die in faith to welcome us to eternal life after our physical death. What is essential about us remains even as our body dies.
Last weekend Kirk and I had occasion to take a taxi a few times, and we got talking with the taxi drivers about this virus. Kirk and I said that each of us has almost been dead several times in the past few decades, but we’re not. We figure that when the Lord wants to take us out, we’ll die, and until then we will live and do what is right, without fear, God willing and with God’s help. The taxi drivers agreed with us.
Speaking for myself, three times I have almost been dead. In all cases, it would have been sudden — the kind of event where I was perfectly alive and healthy one morning and dead by the evening or a few days later. Thank God I am still here. But God help me, in the face of this virus, I will not be controlled by fear of dying. Better yet, it reminds me that I could die at any time, and so I hope to live each day in the most faithful way I can. It reminds me to live in a way each day that praises God, as in the words from our psalm: “O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in the rock of our salvation” [Psalm 95:1]. In the past I have found these words from the Venite to be helpful during tough times because they made me keep on praising God.
A second lesson is about isolation. We live in a world in which people are increasingly isolated from one another. Too many people do not engage with our fellow human beings. We have self-serve checkout at the supermarket, businesses do not want to have people phone them, people are glued to their electronic devices rather than communicate with the human beings around them. So along comes Covid-19. It almost seems like someone is saying to us, “Okay, you want to be isolated from one another? Here you go. Be isolated.”
And so a faithful response is twofold: to remain sensible and responsible about our social contact, but to have contact with others when we can. Help our neighbors. Help one another.
Of course, families — parents with children — are facing a different kind of challenge. Instead of being dispersed among school and work and sporting events and non-stop activity in the usual way, now in many cases parents and children are together. That brings its own set of challenges! Not only how to keep children engaged, but also how to live with those we love, day in and day out in challenging times. It is an opportunity for families to cultivate new ways of being together.
In this time, we have the opportunity to encounter God. Yes, really. Covid-19 is shaking up our usual way of operating, our usual way of living life, and challenging us to wake up to how God might be in our midst. In our Gospel reading this morning [John 4:5-42], we heard of a Samaritan woman encountering Jesus at a well. They have quite a conversation, and God’s gift to this woman is that she is able to recognize that she is encountering God, that this is the Messiah she is talking to. New life is being offered to her, and she takes the offer. And she spreads the word to her neighbors and villagers, who then say, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
We have the opportunity to do two things: One is to continue with our normal life as much as we can. Keep doing the things that are good and healthy. Go for a walk. If you cannot meet with family or friends, talk to them on the phone. Don’t get fixated on the virus. Know what you need to know, and then get on with life. This will also help keep you healthy.
The second thing we have the opportunity to do is to make the changes in our life that would be good to make. We are in Lent, after all, and it is happening to us whether or not we wanted it to. Get rid of what comes between us and God. Pray more. Pray for one another. Pray for Ireland and for the world. Pray for the doctors and nurses. Pray for the sick and for those who are well.
And so I close with this prayer:
God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
the courage to change the things we can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Amen.