It’s been curious to track the passage of Covid-19 by the newspaper headlines. We’ve gone from a story announcing that ‘Something is Happening Over There’, to a stream of stories announcing that ‘Something is Now Getting Closer’, to a barrage of headlines telling us that ‘Something is Now Here. HERE! IT’S HERE!’.
I really don’t know the most responsible way to share accurate news and give advice. How do we prepare for a genuine threat without giving in to panic? Is it even possible these days to inform people about something serious without feeding that inner screaming voice that urges us to rush down to Tesco’s and buy all the pasta?
I’m convinced that in these situations, fear doesn’t help at all. In fact, it does the opposite. Fear makes us inward-looking. Fear turns us against other people. Fear says that you’re the only one that matters and, of course, if everyone is afraid then the only result can be a zero-sum game where I win if someone else loses, so who cares if no-one else can get any toilet roll. Is that type of thinking compatible with the gospel? That’s a rhetorical question. You already know the answer.
However, there are lots of different ways to not love our neighbour when something like this is happening. We are a low-risk household and are not likely to find our lives threatened by the Coronavirus, even if we were to contract it. I want to just get on with life and carry on as normal. Indeed, the idea of self-isolation sounds like it would be a huge inconvenience to me. But self-isolation protects others, especially those for whom the virus presents a very real threat. For me, the temptation is not stockpiling, but rather just not being willing to inconvenience myself in order to save others. That doesn’t sound like the gospel either, does it? That’s another rhetorical question.
A non-rhetorical question is to ask whether we’re truly committed to the New Testament’s teachings about serving and loving others, or if we’ve mentally inserted an ‘…except in the case of a pandemic’ onto the end of all those verses.
The Coronavirus is a serious issue, but then so is our selfishness. So serious in fact that Jesus was willing to die for it. It makes me wonder what will do more harm to humanity in the long run: the Coronavirus or a fear-driven, self-focused response to it?
Thanks for this shipmate
Despite being part of the ‘at risk’ population, I can safely say that I threw caution to the wind and enjoyed a couple of pints of Pepsi Max down my local this morning with a friend. I praise God that there’s not a shortage of that . . . at the moment.
Pepsi Max? Things must be bad.
I have it on good authority (mine) that Pepsi Max Cherry is the only known cure for the coronavirus.