During the Covid19 pandemic and quarantine you have a lot of time to look back at your life and consider all of the choices you have made. You might feel like you have made some good choices, and perhaps some poor choices along the way. You might feel proud of what you have accomplished or disappointed with yourself and how your life has ended up.
Who is responsible for your life? Did you earn everything that you have, both good and bad? Or are you just lucky or unlucky? Is life random?
Once upon a time I lived in Mexico. It was my junior year of college, and I had signed up to study Spanish. I lived with a family, and studied intensively. While I was there I attempted to practice my faith and attend church. (as throughout my entire life I went to church and even in college was a big part of our campus ministry group) It was very difficult. There were two options. The first of course was the Roman Catholic church. I did not feel comfortable with the fact that priests could not marry, it made me feel uncomfortable and hard to relate to them. The other option was a conservative Baptist church located next door to where I lived. This church tried to make me feel welcome, but they preached so strongly and regularly about strict moral living, that I felt I couldn’t just be myself there (maybe make a drinking joke of some kind). So I stopped going to church. I missed it a lot.
One day I was having lunch in a restaurant with another student, we had finished class for the day. We were talking about God. For the first time in my life, I openly questioned the existence of God. “What if there is no God?” I said.
What shocked me most of all was the way that the world just kept on going. Nobody dropped their fork in horror. No lightning came out of the sky and fried me in my chair. What did change, however, was how the world felt. It felt flat. It felt as if a great unseeable force that had been hovering just beyond the horizon and my field of vision simply went away. Now all there was; was what I could see. It felt kind of sad, a little lonely, and as if without any great design, purpose, or guidance the world and everything in it, was kind of random.
Saint Paul wrote: “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Romans 7:18-20
Paul shared the same anxiety I felt that afternoon in Mexico. Our actions are not guided by God, but by random forces beyond our control. We are like dust in the wind.
It wasn’t long after that, that I got sick. It wasn’t from that restaurant where I had been eating which was very good, by the way. I’m pretty sure I got sick from drinking hose-water on a soccer field. I was laid out in bed for a day or so.
The Baptist church had a youth group, and I heard them gather. They were either coming or going from an event. It began with a few voices and then grew to several. They got loud. Played games, sang songs, prayed. There was laughter and joy. There was a little argument that broke out, and the leader had to solve it. Then one by one the voices left as each person went home. Finally the street was quiet again. The sound of their voices, and the fact that I was sick made me experience the most intense feelings of homesickness I had ever felt. I didn’t just miss my home, I missed practicing my faith, and going to church. I felt guilty and wondered if I was being punished by God for not going to church.
While I was feeling so homesick the Señora Josefina Flores in whose house I lived, took care of me. She baked an apple with cinnamon that really helped my stomach feel better. She would insist that I rest rather than stay up reading, writing, and studying Spanish. She showed me the love of God, and practiced her faith by example.
Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
You might find yourself during this pandemic in a season in life in which you feel very lonely, homesick for something that feels lost, and that the world all around you is just random and without purpose. But I am sharing these words with you today to let you know that perhaps even in our darkest days we get to know God deeper and in more meaningful ways. (maybe expand here a bit, this leaves me wanting more)
In Mexico I learned about the love of God expressed through the care of one person, the Señora Josefina Flores, to me when I was weary and heavy laden feeling homesick and weak in faith. Jesus loves and cares for us while we are still sinners and weak in faith. So look upon yourself with grace and forgiveness. The single most important way you can practice your faith is to care for yourself.
Part of what makes the pandemic so maddening is how the rituals that normally give us meaning are disrupted. The single most important spiritual or religious practice you can do right now is to take care of yourself. Survive the pandemic. Express defiance toward death by preserving life in yourself first, so that you can care for others too. Amen.
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