SERMON - Where is God in the Coronavirus?
John  1:1-24 / Acts 17:16ff

On Thursday a week and a half ago on William Crawley’s lunch time Talk Back show on Radio Ulster, he interviewed a number of the church leaders from some of the bigger denominations in Northern Ireland; Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Church of Ireland the Catholic Church as well as the head of the Ireland Council of Churches.  As might have been anticipated, there were a few difficult questions put to them by callers. I don't remember the exact questions but they were along the following lines: “Where is God in this time of coronavirus?” And related to that question, “Is the Coronavirus a judgement from God?”

I don't think any on the panel had quite anticipated or prepared themselves for some of these questions as they found themselves having to think on their feet. I said to Wendy that if I am ever ask to appear on a Radio show at a time of crisis, she should please remind me to prepare myself to answer some difficult questions. 

On the question of God’s judgement, one of the participants said that he would not rule out that the coronavirus is a judgement from God but that he said it is too early to decide and would require some kind of confirmation. Most of the other participants distanced themselves from that answer, with some denying completely that it was a judgement from God. 

Having had the luxury of a bit of time to consider the question, I share a few thoughts on these two questions in the hope that they might be helpful. 

Firstly, in answering the question “Is the Coronavirus a judgement from God?” it needs to be remembered that viruses occur naturally in the world and in fact play a vitally important function in the natural world. I am not a biologist, but reading online it is clear that viruses are probably the most numerous of all biological entities  on the planet and occur in every ecosystem there is on earth.  In a tablespoon of sea water, one is likely to find thousands of different kinds of viruses. 

Scientiests will tell you that from an evolutionary perspective, viruses are an important means of horizontal gene transfer, which increases genetic diversity and thus a vital driver of evolution from the earliest phases to the present. Without viruses we wouldn't live in this amazing, beautiful and diverse world in which we live.  

Scientists estimate that out of the roughly 100 million types of viruses that exist in the world, and play a vital role in keeping eco-systems diverse and balanced, only 21 of these viruses are harmful to human beings. 

To suggest that the coronavirus is a judgement from God is to suggest that God has deliberately engineered one of these viruses to do great harm upon humanity because of our sinfulness.  But surely, if this is one’s conception of God, God could have designed a far more efficient way of judging and removing the bad of this world... because it is clear that good people are also contracting this virus. If it was meant to be a judgement against sinners then it is a very inefficient one, with a lot of collateral damage as people in the military might say.

For me, it is enough to say that viruses are naturally occuring and play a vital role in the biological diversity and harmony of the natural world, and that sometimes, under certain causes and conditions, certain viruses can have a major impact on human life, as they do on all life-forms, animals, reptiles and birds throughout the world, throughout the ages.  This is the way that it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. One of the reasons that this virus is affecting the world so badly at the moment is because of the massive levels of globalisation and massive rise in human population.  In past centuries and millennia, a virus outbreak would have severely affected a small group of people and not spread further because lines of contact between different groups across the world would have been far more limited. 

Is the coronavirus a judgement from God? My answer would be no. It is part of the naturally occurring rhythms of nature. As virus’s have played an important role in the evolution of the world and humanity, perhaps this one in its own way, will change us for the better? 

Then secondly, in answering the question: “Where is God in the coronavirus?” a lot depends on what picture or understanding one has of God. 

Now for most of Christian and Jewish history, the image that has probably been most influential in shaping our understanding of God is the story of the calling of Isaiah in Isaiah 6:1-8, where Isaiah says that in a kind of a vision or dream, he saw God high an lifted up on a throne and the train of his robe filled the temple. It is from this passage of scripture that most Christian’s around the world have come to conceive of God as an elderly male human being with a long white flowing robe and white hair.  Our patriarchal cultural filters have latched onto this image and from it, we have come to imagine God as a supreme, big, powerful male human being projected onto the screen of universe, a little bit like the Wizard of Oz, pulling the levers of creation behind the scenes. 

But this is not the only image of God in Scripture. 

In what follows, I would like to briefly comment on three alternative images that we find in the Bible, all of them from the New Testament. 

The first comes from John’s Gospel, in the story of the encounter of Jesus with the Woman at the well. When she begins to ask Jesus where God is supremely located and where God should be worshipped, whether in the Temple in Samaria or the Temple of Jerusalem. But Jesus answers her by giving her a new understanding of God. God is Spirit he says to her, and in future, the true worshippers will worship God in Spirit and in Truth.  The word for Spirit is the same as the word for Breathe. And the word that is used for Truth in this passage is a word that means Reality, where all our illusions and mental misconceptions have been wiped away.  

From this passage, God is not a great big powerful human being on a throne somewhere else, but rather God is the Breathe of Life that breathes through all of life and all of creation. God is the animating Spirit of Life and the hidden Intelligence behind all of life. To live the spiritual life is to live in harmony with this Great Breathe of Life or the Great Spirit of Life that lives and breathes in and through all things and that Jesus described with the word Abba, the great loving and compassionate source of all things. 

The second passage compliments this passage and comes from the book of Acts where the Apostle Paul is speaking in the Aereopagus in Athens, and quoting a Greek philosopher, speaking of God, Paul says: He is not far away, for “In Him we live and move and have our being.” And directly afterwards, quoting from another Greek philosopher, Paul says “We are indeed his offspring.”

He is not far away, for in Him we live and move and have our being, and we are his offspring. Contrary to the image of God seated far away on a throne somewhere else, in this passage God is the Source and the Ground of our being, in Whose Presence we are moving every moment of every day.  In a way, it is a passage that suggests that we live inside the womb of God.  We are God’s offspring in whom we live, and whose life sustains us and helps us to grow. 

And then a third passage that again is complimentary of these two is found in Ephesians 4:6, where the writer, believed by many to have been the apostle Paul describes God as the Father (in other words Abba, the Loving Source who Jesus spoke of) who is Over all, Through all and In all. 

God is the Loving Source, whose Life is in all things, whose Life is through all things, and whose Life is over all things.  This idea is echoed in the words of that beautiful hymn Immortal Invisible: 

“Immortal, Invisible, God only Wise…

...To all life Thou givest
to both great and small;
In all life Thou livest, the true life of all.”

And so getting back to the question we started with in this sermon: “Where is God then in this time of Coronavirus?”

One answer to that question is that God is living God’s Life in and through all of us: God is not far away, for in God we live and move and have our being. God is the Breathe of Life in each life-form in this world. God is in each insect, God is in each animal, God is in each flower, God is in the drops of rain that water the earth, God is in the soil from which we grow our crops. God is in the hands of those who are reaching out to serve, help and heal during this time of coronavirus. God is in those who are protecting us and feeding us. God is also in those who are struggling and suffering due to Covid-19. God is in those who have died from the coronavirus. God is in those who grieve.  God is the Mysterious Breathe of Life at work in all, through all and over all. 

This is the mystery of the Christian message: that God has chosen to incarnate God-self in and through God’s creation. God is not separate from us, but God is in fact our Real and True Self and that God is thus living and experiencing the fullness of life in and through each of us: The glorious and liberating parts of life, as well as the difficult and painful parts of life. God is not separate from us in all of this. Our pain is God’s pain. Our joy is God’s joy. Our suffering is God’s suffering. 

On Good Friday as we remembered the death of Jesus by cruel crucifixion, our Christian tradition invited us to recognise that God does not stand at a distance from this world, but that God is in the midst of it. For those who have eyes to see, God is to be seen in the dying, suffering figure of Christ on the cross.  

And yet, God is not just in all and through all, God is also over all. And maybe that is where our hope lies. God is in this world of joy and pain, but God is also the great Mystery that  transcends that goes beyond this world of mystery of joy and pain. 

And perhaps that connects us with the image of the Resurrected Jesus from last Sunday… In the Risen Christ we see the mystery of God revealed also beyond, transcending this world of of pain and suffering, where every tear is wiped away. The mystery of God, not only in all and through all, but somehow also beyond and over all.  Amen. 

Resurrection Sunday
Matthew 28:1-10

Greetings to you all again on this Resurrection Sunday. 

Last Sunday afternoon saw the end of Wendy’s and my 14 day quarantine period after my travels. We broke the quarantine in the late afternoon by going for our first proper walk in 14 days.  

It was a strange experience, not just being able to really stretch our legs again, but also being out with so few people on the road. Dromore felt a little like a ghost town. 

And then on Monday we went for our first shop since I arrived back in Dromore. I don't know what felt more strange, queuing up outside the shop standing 2 meters apart from other shoppers, the quiet tense feeling in the shop as we all did our best to avoid one-another, listening with anxiety for the sound of anyone sneezing or coughing, or knowing what to do with the groceries once we arrived back at the house. Do we wash them all or quarantine them for three days?

For two weeks we had lived in a little Coronavirus free bubble, but going out for a walk and then a shop plunged us back into the crisis that is facing the whole world at the moment and for the foreseeable few months. 

But perhaps even more sobering this week was not just the news of Boris Johnson’s decline and admission into I.C.U. but also the news of the death of a friend of our own congregation, the Rev. Ivan McKnight who was one of this week’s victims of Covid-19. The reality of Coronavirus is coming ever closer to home for all of us.  Perhaps even more sobering to hear on Friday night that the daily death toll had exceeded 1000 here in the UK, more than either Italy or Spain on a single day and the knowledge that for each of those people, families are doing the difficult work of grieving loved one’s they were unable to say good-bye to in the final moments. 

Not since World War 2 has death felt this pervasive or this close to each of us, and we are told the peak is still coming. And after the peak, still more deaths, only a bit less.

While the bright sunny days of Spring have been upon us this week, there are still dark clouds that hover over us and likely to continue to be around for quite sometime to come. 

How easy it is to give in to despair, and to fear. It is good that in the midst of all of this, there have been many who have sought to share messages of hope.  On our walk on Monday I commented to Wendy about all the Rainbow’s that I was seeing in the windows.  Pictures of hope she replied as we walked on. 

While on Good Friday, we paused to remember the death of Jesus and people all around the world were able to see mirrored in Jesus crucifixion and death something of our own suffering, fear, pain and sorrow at this time, today we reflect on that part of the Christian story that invites us to go beyond the stories of suffering and death to be reminded of the message of hope. 

And that is what the Resurrection story is, it is a story of hope. That even when death does it’s worst, death will never have the last word.  A message of hope that even though darkness surrounds us, it is not darkness that will have the last word, but light and life. 

The hope within the Resurrection Story of Matthew’s Gospel is communicated to us in a number of ways and today I would like to explore just three of them that might otherwise be lost in the finer details of the story. 
Firstly, in verse 1 we read that the Resurrection narrative begins at dawn.  “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.”

The word “dawn” invites us to imagine the first rays of sunshine beginning to come over the horizon, breaking through the darkness and bringing the first rays of warmth into the chilled air of the early morning.  During the darkness of night it is often that our problems and struggles become magnified and the stories in our heads can terrify us and leave us feeling helpless. But at dawn, when the sun comes up, life often seems more bearable again. 

One of Wendy’s favourite bands from South Africa is called the Parlotones. They have a beautiful song with moving lyrics that express this experience. The song is called “The Sun Comes Out”.

This is more than I can take
I won't tolerate this anymore
It's more than I can take
Wake me before the sun comes out
And everything's alright

The sun comes out and everything's alright

Hold on for one more day
I don't believe in much
But for this I'll pray
The sun comes out and everything's alright

Matthew’s Resurrection story begins at dawn. The sun was just beginning to rise… this is a story of hope. 

The second sign of hope in this Resurrection narrative are the words: “The First Day of the Week”  “After the Sabbath, at dawn, on the first day of the week...”

It is important to remember that when we are reading the Gospel stories, we are not just reading factual details. The Gospels have been written in such a way that often words are meant to be read as if dripping with meaning and significance. 

What is the significance of the first day of the week… it is meant to be a reminder and an allusion to the first day of creation, that day in the Hebrew Scriptures in which God spoke over the chaos  and brought forth light, life, order, meaning and beauty. 

The Resurrection Narrative of Matthew’s Gospel invites us to place our trust in the One who is able to help us start over again, the One who is constantly placing before us new beginnings.  

Thirdly, in verse 2 we that there was violent earthquake…  The writer of Matthew’s Gospel seems to have a particular love of earthquakes. He is the only writer to include it in his resurrection narrative.  He is also the only writer to describe and earthquake at the time of Jesus death.  

Again, I believe it is a word that is meant to drip with meaning.  It is meant to communicate to the reader a sense that there is something bigger and more powerful at work in the world than the ordinary events of human existence.  There are bigger forces at work in life, which often we cannot see or understand and which can unsettle us and yet, which, as in this passage, can open the tombs of death at work in this world. 

The Greek word earthquake in this passage is the word “seismos” from which our English words seismic and seismology come from.  Interestingly I read this week on a news site that because of the massively reduced activity of people on earth, there are much less vibrations in the upper layer of the earth. With less cultural noise, as they call it, Seismologists are able to detect seismic activity in the earth much further away than they were able to before. 

The standstill across the world, caused by the coronavirus is highlighting just how much seismic noise and disturbances we as human beings create.  It has also been quite heartening to read of how reduced human pollution has been enabling the recovery of nature. Dolphins and turtles being seen in Venice where they haven't been seen for decades. With less traffic on the roads and less planes in the air, levels of toxicity in the air have been massively reduced. 

In the midst of personal tragedy, the coronavirus might also be coming to us metaphorically as an earthquake, as a messenger, to help wake us up out of business as usual, to invite us to rediscover a life that is much simpler and less complicated. 

On Facebook on Saturday morning, I read a very challenging quote  by Sonya Renee Taylor about  our collective talk about life going back to normal. She writes: 

“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was.  Our pre-corona existence was not normal, other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return my friends. We have been given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all humanity and nature.”

Has the earthquake of the coronavirus come upon us as a sign of hope, to break open our tombs of death and to invite us to learn how to walk more gently upon the earth than before? 

Lastly, our passage invites us into hope as we hear the words of the angel and then words repeated by the Risen Christ “Do not be afraid!”  Why should we not be afraid? Because there is One who calls to us, whose Life whose Presence and whose Love transcends death. “He is not here, he is risen. Come and see the place where he lay.”

Amen. 

Dear Friends

On this Easter Saturday as we live between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, I would like to share a poem written by Jeffrey Martin that reflects on the sacrifice of Christ. 

Many blessings
Brian 

The Cross - By Jeffrey Martin

I thought about a man one day
Who hung upon a cross
Of the Life he gave for all of us
So we forfeited the loss.

How he walked among the people
Just as any man can do
But how the lives he touched so much
I mean of people like you & you & you

His life he gave so freely
Just like a dove upon the wing
For a message of Hope & Faithfulness
Of a new covenant he'd bring

For the Parables, they speak to us
Like the sower seeding corn
Of the Faith he laid before us
Before the day that we were born.

The Bible holds much knowledge
The truth is cased within
Redemption lies before us
To atone for any sin

For Jesus he wants disciples
To spread the goodly word
To take the message of Christ himself
Into this Sleeping world.

For life it throws up challenges
Each day into our path
And only steadfast faithfulness
Can stand this awful wrath

But of all things we must remember
No matter what our Loss
Is the sacrifice made for us
By our Saviour on the cross.

Good Evening Friends,

As Good Friday draws to a close, so we bring our readings from "Jesus the Son of Man" to a close also as we hear reflections from the following voices: 

• A lamentation by a woman of Byblos
• Barabbas
• A man outside Jerusalem reflecting on Judas
• Simon the Cyrene who carried the cross

Many blessings

Brian ​

Good Friday Reflection:
"Father, into your hands we commend our spirits." 

As we reflect on the crucifixion and death of Jesus today, I would like to reflect on a verse that does not appear in Matthew’s version of the crucifixion, but rather in Luke’s version. Across the 4 Gospels, Jesus speaks different words in his dying moments on the cross. In Luke’s version, the last words spoken by Jesus appear in Luke 23:46 “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” It is these words that I will be focusing on today. 

And as we do so, I would like to begin by first reading the words of an American Medical Doctor and writer, Lisa Rankin, who has been reflecting on the theme of death, in light of the current world crisis.  I include just a portion of what she writes (The link to her article will appear below for those who would like to read it in full).  Her work as a medical doctor has taken her to some of the poorer places of the world, like the country of Peru in South America.  And so I read a section of her article entitled: “Death in the Q’eros.”

Death in the Q’eros

In the village I visited in Peru, the chief’s wife was pregnant, and the night I arrived, just before settling into the hut I was sheltered in along with ten villagers, his wife went into labor. I asked if she needed my help, telling him I was an OB/GYN. He said no, that the women of the Q’eros just went to their huts and delivered on their own. Not wanting to impose my Western ways on their peaceful way of life, I trusted all was well.

The next morning, I asked the chief how his wife was. How was the baby? Boy or girl? He said, “Baby died.” I started to cry, but he waved off my tears. “Pachamama gives. Pachamama takes back.” Pachamama is Mother Earth, their feminine nature deity, who they worship with many ceremonies.

Where was his wife, I asked, wanting to offer my comfort.
“In the alpaca fields,” he said, “tending to the alpacas.”

“Isn’t she sad?” I asked.

He nodded. Yes, of course, he told me, but then he explained that she will be sad with everyone else during their quarterly grief ritual, when everyone grieves together over anything they’ve lost over the past few months.

I was shocked by this cultural relationship to death, so vastly different from the way my people experience and view death. Curious what else was different, I asked what happened when someone got very ill and might die. I was told they call the paqo, the shaman or spiritual leader of the tribe. The paqo attends the sick person in order to help them die well, to help the sick person go home. “Then we are happy our loved one got to go home.” They are also sad, he said, but only sad for themselves. “Pachamama gives. Pachamama takes back.”

This was inconceivable to me. In my experience in US hospitals, if a woman lost a baby, she was wrecked for life. She would grieve for years, maybe start a blog about it, maybe write a book about it, maybe join a support group for other moms who have lost babies. She might also sue her doctor, because surely, every life can be saved by modern medicine, and if a baby died, some doctor must have [messed] up.

The loss of her baby would become a defining event in the life of an American woman who feels she is entitled to a “healthy mom, healthy baby” outcome to childbirth, something most women worldwide are not entitled to. When an American woman loses her baby, our hearts go out to her and we cradle her in her despair, rallying around her, maybe having a fundraiser to help support her because she might not be able to go back to work due to her understandable distress. People would bring casseroles, as they would to a wake. She would definitely not be back in the alpaca fields the next day, nor would she have a communal grief ritual to help her process her pain. She’d be more likely to hold her grief inside and never have it witnessed.

I’m not intending to diminish the distress an American woman might have if she lost a child. If I lost my daughter, I’m sure I’d be one of those women who is wrecked by grief in a way that would define the rest of my life. It’s part of my inculturation, to cherish the preciousness of every life, especially a child’s life, and to feel entitled to out-live my child. Such is our cultural expectation, and I’m not intending to judge anyone who responds this way. I’m only pointing out that this is a particularly privileged, modern interpretation of death and not the only one currently active in the world.

I’m not intending to suggest that American women who lose a child shouldn’t respond with such intense suffering. I also don’t mean to suggest that we should bully someone who loses a loved one into “bucking up.” Nor do I intend to suggest that Q’eros women don’t also deserve grieving time and caretaking. I certainly needed a lot of coddling when my mother died two years ago, and if my daughter were to die—of this virus or anything else—I would be wrecked and might never fully recover. I’m just pointing out the differences in how cultures respond to death, inviting us to have compassion for every human, not just the privileged and underprivileged who will suffer from of this virus, either through death or from economic instability, hunger, domestic violence, child abuse, suicide, overdose, or some other unexpected cause of death we may not anticipate. All death deserves our sensitivity and compassion.

On this Good Friday, as we pause to remember the death of Jesus, we hear the words of the dying Jesus as written in the Gospel of Luke where before he breathed his last he called out in a loud voice: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. For Luke, Jesus’ last words were a surrendering of himself into death and beyond that, into the hands of the Eternal Father. 

I wonder if within those words, we hear an invitation,  of how we as followers of Jesus might contemplate our own deaths… that at the moment when each of us will die, the invitation will be for us also to commend our spirits into the hands of the Father, the Great Spirit from whose life we have come. 

The truth is that at the time of our death, there will be little else that any of us will be capable of doing.  The only thing that we will be able to do is to surrender into the Great Mystery of Life and Love from which we have come, in whose presence we have lived every moment of our lives, and to whom we will all return. 

But if that might be the only prayer left for each of us to pray when it comes time for us to depart from this life and this world, it is also true that in many ways, it is also a prayer by which we can live each day.  For each and every day we live could indeed be our last. Such is the fragility of life. 

If each and every day we begin and end our day with the last prayer of Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”, not only will it be a reminder to live our lives in gratitude for each day we have here with our loved one’s, but it will also be a preparing of our hearts and minds for that day when we will all have to leave them behind and return to the Loving Source from which we have come. 

Prayer: 

On this Good Friday, as we remember the passion and death of Jesus our Master and Lord, so we pause to remember those close to us who have died. Father into your hands we commend them. We also remember especially at this time those who have died from the coronavirus. Father, into your hands we commend them. And then we hold ourselves and our loved one’s into the infinite love and compassion of God: Father, into Your hands, we commend our loved one’s and ourselves. Help us to know, whether in this life or the next, we belong to you and are held in your love. 

Dear Friends, 

As we join together tonight on our Holy Week journey towards the cross and resurrection of Christ, we have just two readings from Khalil Gibran's book "Jesus the Son of Man". On Maundy Thursday it is traditional in many Churches to reflect on the readings on the upper room, Jesus washing his disciples feet, and the Last Supper.  In our second reading tonight, Khalil Gibran, in his own unique way, invites us into the upper room with Jesus. The first reading invites us to see Jesus from the perspective of Annas the High Priest. 

Just to remind you that tomorrow at 12:00 there will be a short Good Friday service posted here on the website. It will be an opportunity to pause in the middle of the day to remember Jesus at the hour of his crucifixion. 

Tomorrow evening I will also post a few more readings from Khalil Gibran's book "Jesus the Son of Man" that pick up the theme of Jesus death from the perspectives of Barabbas and Judas and one or two others. 

Many blessings
Brian 

Dear Friends

Greetings again on this Wednesday evening of Holy Week in lock-down. As many of you remember with sadness the life of Rev. Ivan McKnight, a friend of this congregation, who has passed away due to the coronavirus, we continue our journey towards the cross and resurrection as we read passages again from Khalil Gibran's book "Jesus the Son of Man". 

We have 5 shorter readings today, the first being the longest about 6min30 and the last being only 1min35. 

May the poetry of the words help bring Jesus to life for you in a new way. 

Blessings
Brian 

​

Dear Friends, 

Jeffrey Martin shared the news with me this morning that the Rev. Ivan McKnight is one of the most recent in Northern Ireland to die of Covid-19. I understand from Jeffrey that he had preached a number of times from our pulpit and officiated at the unveiling of the new war memorial. 

We express our condolences to his family and all who knew, loved and respected him here in Dromore and beyond. 

​The link to the funeral times notice appears below, along with a link to a news article. 

With sadness,
Brian​