Living as an offering in a time of pandemic

In 1878 a small band of Episcopal nuns, a couple of Episcopal priests, a number of Roman Catholic sisters and priests, and a few prostitutes, were doing what they could to minister to the sick and dying in Memphis, where typhoid fever had broken out and was ravaging the city.

The Mother Superior of the Sisters of Saint Mary, an Episcopal order, had just sent two more sisters from New York, Ruth and Helen.

Sister Ruth wrote, ““The city is desolate, everyone who is not ill says, ‘It is only a matter of time.’ … Money is quite useless … There is plenty of money here, but it buys no head to plan, no hands to wash, nor the common necessaries of life. … We are helpless and do not know what to do nor how help can come … There are nearly fifty children here now [in the orphanage]; we have no clean clothes, and it is utterly impossible to get any washing done. There is no one to send for supplies, and no stores are open.”

In a city of 50,000, 30,000 fled and 5,000 died. Sisters Ruth and Constance were among the dead.

In response to Ruth and Helen being sent to assist, Sister Constance wrote the Mother Superior this:

my sense of duty in the matter is so divided between the feeling that I ought to secure all the help I can for these poor suffering people, and the fear for those who come. I will guard them to the utmost; but they know and you know that they are offering their lives.

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time in conversation, prayer, meeting, not to mention writing and publishing how we should respond to the latest viral disease to come along, this one called “coronavirus” or COVID-19, especially now that we are in this period of extended lock-down.

Right now, the conversation in much of the church is about how we care for ourselves (washing hands, sanitizer, limit contact, common cup, intinction, etc.). Before the lockdown, I sent out two e-mail blasts, and before that had conversations with parish leaders, sacristans, and medical professionals both in and outside the parish, and consulted with other clergy colleagues just to help us form a useful, do-able, and calm response in this congregation.

Interestingly, our conversation has shifted to matters of the spiritual life: our humility in the face of what we don’t fully understand and control; meditation upon death; adoration and love as our response to fear; and, sacrifice for the common good. I have spent much more time that I imagined on the phone, on video chats and conferences, and in texts and e-mails talking with folks about things spiritual, as people seek to make meaning and find grounding in this strange times.

I find myself over and over again returning that part of the Stations of the Cross, when we say at each stop “we adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.”

The media response to the news of the spreading virus has been anxious and high-pitched. As Christians, we will struggle to find our way out of the impulses of denial and catastrophizing. Those driven by anxiety and the crisis junkies will do what they do. The rest of us need to attend to adoration and kindness, devotion and compassion, reflection and sacrifice.

We’ve are doing everything that’s prudent to do. We are holding worship services and meetings on-line, and limiting our contact in person. We are a collection point for face masks and person protective equipment that people can donate to the Lehigh Valley Health Network. We are continuing to serve walk-ups at the Ark Community Meal. The trick is change our habits and figure out how to do what we do as a parish with generating additional anxiety.

Scripture says “True love casts out fear.” (I John 4:18). We cast out fear when we choose not cater to paranoid, frightened, anxious, or conspiracy driven people.

We cast out fear when we accept where we are and don’t deny it. We’ll face the facts, and we’ll make careful prudent choices. But most important of all, we cast out fear as we remain present to each other and continue to do our work as a parish community on behalf of all whom God has given us.

So, after you’ve washed your hands and learned the best information we have, the most important thing you can do is to turn your attention to the spiritual life. As we move through Lent in this time of crisis, let us move towards adoration and awe. Say the daily office (Morning & Evening Prayer, the Noonday office, and/or Compline using resources like Mission St. Clare (https://www.missionstclare.com/), walk the Stations with us by following the link on our website (www.trinityeaston.org). Join us for our on-line live and YouTube Weekday and Sunday worship services. Join with all the Saints, like Constance and her Companions, and offer intercession, adoration, and care for one another.

Give thanks for those on the front line of sacrifice. Medical workers and first responders, and all those who continue to go to work each day to provide transportation, food and supplies, and the working of government.

Pray this Lent and Holy Week to be willing to join in the common work of sacrifice. Accept in humility any needed restrictions upon your person that are for the safety of all. 

Listen and pray through the stories of those who serve the ill and dying, those who care for the dead, those who bear their illness with patience and courage. Tell the stories of perseverance and sacrifice.Participate in the beloved community. Be kind and gentle to all. Do not spread rumors nor give into anxiety. Seek the truth. Live hopefully. Walk in love.

Written on March 22, 2020 for the April newsletter of Trinity Episcopal Church, Easton, PA

It only takes a girl

Health care is mercy in action

This is my latest column for the religion section of the Morning Call of Allentown, PA, and it appeared last Saturday, September 12. I am indebted to the blog conversation started by Steve Hayes at Khanya (which I found in creating this post for The Lead at the Episcopal Cafe) that got me thinking in this direction. From there, it became my homily for the feast of Constance and her Companions which then became this column.

What do The Good Samaritan, Ebenezer Scrooge and characters in Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus have in common? Each of these stories involves compassion or the withholding of compassion.

We all know about the Good Samaritan, the story of the man who was attacked on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest and a Levite passed, but offered him no help -- no health care. It was a Samaritan who cared for him.

Jesus told that story because a lawyer asked, ''Who is my neighbor?'' but Jesus turned the question around: ''to whom should we be a neighbor to?''

We all know who Ebenezer Scrooge is, the nasty old skinflint who turns aside every opportunity for charity. Thanks to the three ghosts sent to him by his late but condemned friend, Jacob Marley, Scrooge changes his ways and not only learns to celebrate Christmas, but, most important, learns how to be a charitable person. The chief sign of his changed heart? The care, the mercy, he makes possible for Tiny Tim Cratchett.

Jesus told another version of the same story 1,800 years before Dickens. He tells of two people, one poor and one rich. The poor man sits outside the rich man's house begging, and suffers from poor health. One day they both die. The poor man sits at Abraham's bosom in heaven, finally seen and comforted, while the rich man is in the place of the dead. The rich man is thirsty and asks Abraham to send the beggar down to give him some water. No dice, says Abraham! Well, the rich man says, at least send the beggar to go and warn my brothers so they don't end up in the same pickle as me. Again, Abraham refuses. ''You had your chance for mercy, and your brothers still have theirs!''

In all three stories, mercy is given or withheld. The Samaritan, unlike the rich man in Jesus' other story, did not walk past the injured man, but went out of his way to care for him. All three of the stories remind us that the way we care for ourselves is to care for others, especially when that care is at once spontaneous and, on some level that really matters, costly.

There has been a lot of fear and loathing on the health-care trail. The debate this summer has been disappointing in so many ways. It has been rancorous, loud and demeaning. People at meetings shout down their representatives. Politicians, lobbyists and interest groups have no trouble telling lies to win a political point. So while we may talk about policy, costs, ethics and theory, what is driving the debate is fear. Too much fear, left unchecked is paralyzing and can bring out the worst in all.

Christians and other people of faith have been quick to line up behind one policy approach or another, but few have taken the time to think about the most basic question: What is health care for?

What does it mean that we spend time, money, energy and talent working to make sick people well? Why do we set up hospitals, do medical research and train so many people to learn medicine except that we want competent people, using the best tools, to make mercy and compassion a visible reality to people who need it the most?

It was a long time coming -- generations -- but we have managed to move health care from a moral obligation borne by the community and turned it into a commodity to be packaged and marketed. We have sliced and diced our capacity for compassion as a commodity to be sold.

We have put a price on our mercy. So, like the priest or the Levite in Jesus' story, we weigh whether it is convenient or too costly to care for those who are ill, injured or dying. The debate this summer has revealed that we are fearful that no one will care for us, or that someone will take away what we are due. We have forgotten the ancient truth that the care we get is directly proportional to the care we give.

This past week, in Episcopal and other churches, we remembered a nun named Constance and her companions who died in 1878 in Memphis, Tenn., when Yellow Fever ripped through that city. Everyone who could leave did, but those who were too ill or too poor or connected to a person who was sick stayed.

Sister Constance, an Episcopal nun, along with her Episcopal and Catholic counterparts, some clergy, doctors and some lay minister from other traditions stayed in the city at the height of the outbreak. Many of them died and they became known as ''the martyrs of Memphis.''

Health care is front-page news. There are many vested interests, and lots of people whose livelihood--from the janitor pushing a broom, to every doctor, nurse and health care professional to the CEO making a decision to the investor wanting a return--depend on what gets decided. People of faith are tempted to jump in an take sides. But before we dive in and take sides, people of faith need to remember what health care means. Health care is mercy in action and we are all called to be merciful and compassionate to anyone in need.