As COVID-19 ravages our country and many other places around the world, state and local governments have shut down restaurants, bars, and stores, asked people to stay home except for necessary trips out for things like groceries, and asked us to wear masks in order to protect both the healthy and the vulnerable from a deadly disease.
There are two overlapping sets of people put in danger by this situation: those vulnerable to the virus – everyone, really, but especially those like me whose health is already compromised due to age or sickness – and those whose economic livelihood is threatened by the shutdowns. We cannot forget either of these groups or their current reasons for anxiety and fear, but whether it comes to our personal decisions about masking and social distancing or political demands for how our tax dollars are spent to relieve those whose income is cut off, our public discourse seems inevitably to come down to questions of rights and liberty.
After all, we Americans (including American Christians) hold our rights and liberties dear. So dear that our ideas of individual rights and liberties frequently take precedent over all manner of other, more community-oriented social goods.
But just what are our rights? Does it actually matter? Do they matter? Perhaps they do, but for those who profess to follow Christ, maybe they matter less than American culture would seem to suggest. Not every right must or ought to be claimed. Instead, we are frequently called to lay them down for the good of others – not by the politics of man, but by the words of Jesus. Consider the following passages:
Luke 9:23-25
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”
John 15:12-13
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Christians have always found these to be hard teachings. For the early church, sacrificial love for one another could indeed be a matter of giving up one’s life and facing death.
But what does love ask of us today? To take care of family, friends, and neighbors. It’s possible that to do so may require significant sacrifice, but to many, if not most of us, standing against the pandemic may be as simple as staying home as much as we can and wearing masks if we need to go out.
Yet here in Wisconsin, people have been protesting not being able to do things like get haircuts, with one judge comparing the shutdown to Japanese internment camps in World War II. Within an hour of the State Supreme Court striking down the governor’s stay-at-home order, the bars were packed with maskless patrons crammed in like sardines with no apparent thought for how these actions might affect others. In Michigan, protestors have been showing up to the state capitol with guns and death threats.
We believe that the God who created the universe loved us so much that He became a human being to die so that we might have eternal life. Can there be a greater sacrifice? But that is how He loves us. Are we too selfish to sacrifice even a little comfort to save the lives of others?
We like to talk a big game about giving our lives to Jesus, but what are we doing in the face of even relatively simple impositions for the sake of one another? We are complaining about our comfort and our money. Some of us are even threatening violence. Is a human life worth that little to us? Is Christ? Are we not willing to sacrifice for love?
With states opening up, we have many options, some wise and some dangerous. But what does it profit us if we live as we wish at the cost of offering our neighbors up to die? What have we then to do with Christ? We have forfeited our very selves.
Right now, we need to lay down our pride and our immediate self-interest to love one another as Christ has loved us, even if it’s hard. Especially if it’s hard.
Stay home when you can
Wear a mask when you do go out.
Support those who need it financially.
Stay strong in the Spirit of God, and show the world that the love of Jesus is more than just words on a page.
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