Preparing for Our Next Pandemic

 

Things We’ll Do Better….During Our NEXT Pandemic

Although we’re still in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic, it’s not too early to start reflecting on what we’ve learned for the sake of being more prepared for the next pandemic.   In this blog-post I’m sharing eight thoughts that have come to my mind.  Please chime in with your own thoughts, hopes and dreams for how we might handle the next pandemic better than we dealt with the current pandemic.

 

Number 1:  We’ll be grateful that—after our LAST pandemic (i.e. the pandemic of 2020-2021)--we invested time, imagination, and resources in preparing for our next pandemic.    Examples:  strengthening our public health infrastructure, maintaining adequate inventories of vital tools (e.g. PPE, facemasks, sanitation supplies), “capturing” our learnings, etc.

 

Number 2:  We’ll recognize the critical differences between public health and individual health and thus share a consensus about the necessity of sacrificing individual freedoms for the sake of society-wide, global  responsibilities.

 

Number 3:  We and our elected leaders will trust science and expertise, and we’ll  all resist any attempts to politicize scientific findings and public health guidelines and recommendations.

 

Number 4:  We’ll willingly embrace short-term sacrifices for the sake of long-term gains.

 

Number 5:  We’ll support one another in cultivating patience and managing our anxieties.

 

Number 6:  We’ll understand that a pandemic is, by definition, a global epidemic that requires global solidarity and cooperation.

 

Number 7:  We’ll be mindful of and address the critical needs of our neighbors whose circumstances make them more vulnerable and “at risk” during pandemics.

 

Number  8:  We’ll pray for and generously support local faith communities and agencies that address human needs, in partnership with governments and pertinent non-governmental organizations.

Healing the Wound Lightly

 

Healing the Wound Lightly

In 1991 I transitioned from parish ministry to wider-church ministry on the staff of the Southwestern Minnesota Synod ELCA.   One of my chief duties on the synod staff was to assist the bishop in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct.  In preparation for this task I spent a week in Pennsylvania being trained by the Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune, whose ground-breaking book “Is Nothing Sacred:  When Sex Invades the Pastoral Relationship” (1989) was leading church leaders to rethink their whole approach to handling this grievous problem.

Previously too many churches dealt with ministerial misconduct by NOT dealing with it.   The focus, all too often, had been on salvaging the minister’s career in order to keep peace in the parish.   In the late 1980s, however, there was a sea change (thanks to persons like Dr. Fortune) that placed a premium on believing and pursuing justice for victims, even if that meant ending ministerial careers and shining the light of truth on congregations and other organizations where sexual misconduct by members of “helping professions” was happening.

Looking back on this era, it seems obvious that churches and other institutions started doing what they should have been doing all along.   But it wasn’t obvious.  Indeed some parish lay leaders resisted the new approach—finagling ways to retain the services of beloved pastors who had abused parishioners, while refusing to allow full disclosure of the misconduct in the congregation.  In her book, Dr. Fortune described this as “healing the wound lightly,” based on a striking passage in the Old Testament prophecy of Jeremiah:

“For from the least to the greatest of them, every one is greedy for unjust gain;

and from prophet to priest, every one deals falsely.  

They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying,

‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.  

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? 

No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. 

Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;

at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,’ says the LORD.” 

Jeremiah .6:13-15 (RSV) 

The phrase “healing the wound lightly” has kept coming back to me since January 6, 2021, as leaders of our two major political parties have haggled over the second impeachment of the former president—with many but not all Republicans declaring that it’s time to “move on” from the dreadful event on January 6.  

This week our nation has an opportunity to look at itself in the mirror and pursue the only kind of just peace that will bring long-term healing:   a peace that begins with fearless, full accountability for  the former president’s role in inciting the unprecedented violent assault on our nation’s Capitol.  

 On January 23, 2016 the former president, while campaigning in Sioux Center, Iowa, declared:   “They say I have the most loyal people — did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters …It’s like incredible.”[1]

This week I will join many Americans in praying that members of the U.S. Senate recognize and declare that no one—not even the President of the United States—is above the law.

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[1] https://time.com/4191598/donald-trump-says-he-could-shoot-somebody-and-not-lose-voters/

Breaking the Silence

 

Christ Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill, St Paul, MN

February 7, 2021 (recorded on January 30, 2021)

Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 2:22-40 (texts for the Presentation of Our Lord)

Baptism of Malachi Lawrence Haddorff

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

At 11:56 a.m. on Monday, December 21^st when the earth’s atmosphere hit his brand-spanking-new lungs, a tiny little baby uttered his own unique OMG”—oh my goodness, I’m alive, I’m here, watch out world—I’ve arrived!

What the adults in the birthing room actually heard were none of those words.   What they heard was actually a cry, a wail they’d been anticipating, an exclamation that brought relief and a few tears to the eyes of the medical team and a mom and a dad.

No articulate words—but communication, nonetheless.    And since December 21^st this wee one has continued communicating in clear, unmistakable fashion….conveying messages like:   “I’m hungry!”    “I need to sleep” or “I need my diaper changed!”

He has yet to utter his first word, but he’s been communicating every day….and that’s a good sign that he’s already living up to his name:   Malachi, which is Hebrew for “my messenger.”

The shadowy biblical figure Malachi was indeed a messenger, God’s messenger….in fact, the last voice to speak in our Old Testament…and when this little-known messenger was done prophesying, there began a 400+ year period of prophetic silence….

 ….a desert of wordlessness that lasted until John the Baptist, the herald of God’s New Covenant, God’s New Testament came upon the scene to break that four-centuries-long silence…to proclaim the arrival of  Jesus of Nazareth, God’s anointed one, the Messiah…the Savior of the world.

Our gospel lesson for today narrates an even earlier episode in the breaking of that four-century-long silence, as a mother and father brought their infant son to the Temple in Jerusalem, to purify the mother after childbirth and to present their first-born son to God.

But they were interrupted, more than once, by other worshipers in the temple….strangers who spotted them and immediately broke the silence of that Holy Place to give voice to what God was now up to in this baby boy.

Like those old Busby Berkley Hollywood movies of the 1930s, in which actors and actresses suddenly burst forth into song and dance….here in Jerusalem’s Temple, bystanders step out of the shadows and break the silence of that Holy Place.

First there was a man by the name of Simeon, who had hung on for years, living on the edge of his seat, eyes peeled every moment—watching every day for the long-anticipated arrival of the Messiah.

Simeon makes a Spirit-led beeline to the Holy Family in the Holy Place….and—amazingly--the parents just hand over their infant son, entrust him to Simeon’s old arms so that he can break the silence and sing his swan song…a song that—millennia later, we Christ-followers still sing, most often after meeting and receiving our Lord in His Supper:  “Lord, now let your servant go in peace, because I’ve seen all there is to see—I’ve beheld the Light that will never be quenched, a Beacon to the outsiders and the glory of the insiders, Israel’s stubbornly persevering faithful ones.”

No sooner does Simeon finish his song, than ancient Anna gets into the act. 

Having attained an incredibly old age, having lived twice as long as women lived back in the 1^st century A.D.….old, wrinkled Anna—the original “Church Lady”!--who basically lived in the Temple…. Anna chimes in and prophesies—foretells and “forth-tells” to anyone who’ll listen as she trots around the Holy Place, breaking the silence with her exuberant, overflowing praise for baby Jesus who would redeem, liberate God’s people.

Imagine all that….four hundred years of silence….broken by a man finally ready for his own funeral, and by a frail old lady, who had doggedly held God to God’s promises…..now uttering her ”gloria hallelujah” all around the temple precincts.

It is not lost on us this morning, that most folks who are worshiping together via Zoom aren’t present here physically in this house of worship.  

This beloved, historic holy place—like thousands of church buildings across our world—has been silenced by the coronavirus pandemic….a plague—ironically!—that is spread by the movement of air—especially whenever folks are speaking, shouting, singing….or even prophesying!

We ardently wish for this seemingly endless, enforced silence to be broken…and we’re longing to be healed from all the other plagues this viral pandemic has either caused or exposed:  plagues of racial strife, economic injustice, civil unrest, and the despoiling of the atmosphere that surrounds planet earth—which, Pope Francis reminds us, is our common home!

All of which is to say:  we long for a breaking of the silence about everything that’s threatening us…especially that ancient unholy trinity:   sin, death and the power of the devil.  We pine for God in Jesus Christ to disrupt our wretched condition of being curved-in-upon-ourselves, we long for God in Jesus Christ to uncurl us and to open us up again to trust God completely, love our neighbors gracefully and care for this good earth unreservedly.

Taking our cues from Simeon’s sober warnings to mother Mary, we also acknowledge that our Lord Jesus will not make all this happen with the wave of a magic wand, but with his self-emptying life…his passionate self-sacrifice on a Roman cross…his bold assault on the gloomy house of death…his relentless defanging of the Devil,…and his rising from the grave to open up—for all his precious people--a bright, new future without end.

This whole drama of rescue that Simeon sang about and that old Anna foretold….this story of salvation will be played out again this morning… right before our eyes, in just a few moments, as we break the silence of this pandemic to baptize a little squirt named Malachi, God’s messenger.

My dear friends:  today as we utter the promises of God and pour out the water in the Triune Name and light a candle, let us all remember our own baptisms into  Christ….and let us remind our little ones and everyone else that they, too, are signs and instruments of God’s in-breaking strong but gentle rule over all things….and that even if we aren’t all named Malachi, we are nonetheless messengers of Christ, heralds of peace, and workers in the kingdom of God.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.