This is from a post I made in my church’s facebook group for the Sunday just gone (22nd). I’ll do this every Sunday for at least as long as we’re on lockdown.

Looking at the lectionary for the Sunday just gone it’s amazing how relevant some of the scriptures are to our current situation.

Psalm 31:11 “I am… a horror to my neighbours, on object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.” Isn’t this how everything feels? I get nervous whenever I see too many people in a shop. Whenever I go for a solitary walk I keep my distance from other walkers, crossing the street to avoid them if I need to. Me and my housemates text each other to see who’s in the kitchen so not too many of us are in there at once. And of course, we can’t go to church in the way we’re used to. This sort of thing doesn’t come naturally to me or probably to many of us, but we have to do our part. If we need encouragement we only need to look forward to when we can once again say with Psalm 122:1-2: “I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the LORD!’ Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.”

John 9:1-4: “As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.’”

One of the impacts of the virus outbreak has been an increase in acts of racial hatred towards Chinese people, or people perceived as being Chinese. This has been reported in many parts of the world, including many majority-Christian nations. It takes different forms: verbal abuse, assault, exclusion from services, and bullying online. Most likely there is a lot more to come. It stems from a need to have someone to blame. I’ve heard a lot of talk that the pandemic can be explained by unusual meats eaten in China, or apparent poor hygiene practices there. This is a very easy, comfortable explanation for someone with a pre-existing racism.

We find a similar attitude from the disciples here in John 9, who echo a common idea about disability from this time, that it must be the result of sin. They just want to know who is to blame; Jesus says that neither the man nor his parents are to blame: something entirely different is going on. Obviously, we shouldn’t pretend to have knowledge of what God is up to, so I don’t think we should say that the virus has been placed on earth by God so that his “works might be revealed.” But in such difficult circumstances, we do have an opportunity to show the works and the love of God. I’m grateful that we are staying in touch, having virtual church services, and creatively working out we can continue in good works.

Jesus gives the blind man sight, but as with many of the stories about Jesus, the miracle is not the only remarkable thing. These stories tend to be a vehicle for a lesson. When Jesus says “We must work the works of him who sent me” he is getting at something important about the gospel: that the power of God’s love, and the change to the heart that the gospel brings, are most visible in the world when God’s people are putting it into practice. We have never been commanded to sit around and wait for God to act or for Jesus to return.

The Apostle Paul also understood this, as we see in the readings for the letter to the Ephesians. In 2:9: “We are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works” and 5:8-9: “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light–for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.” (He expresses it best in his letter to Philemon: “My prayer is this: that the partnership which goes with your faith may have its powerful effect, in realising every good thing that is at work in us to lead us into the king.”)

1 Samuel 16:7 ”The LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.’”

Medical teams in mainland China, and all those who assist them, have done incredibly well to assist 71,000 people in recovering. By contrast, Italy has found itself unprepared and under-resourced, and there is a sense that the situation is out of control. As in other places, Chinese people in Italy have been assaulted, threatened, and had their businesses vandalised. And yet, some of the doctors who had worked so tirelessly in China have shown incredible bravery: they have travelled to Italy, risking their own lives again that they might save even more lives. In 1 Samuel 16, David was the last person that Samuel and the elders wanted as their king. But because God could look upon the hearts of the candidates, David was chosen. And God sees the kindness in the hearts of these doctors from China, just as he sees the kindness in the hearts of all the NHS workers fighting for our lives here. It’s hard to imagine how pleased God must be with them.

Nobody knows when we’ll be over the worst of this pandemic, but every trial has the possibility to turn us into kinder, more patient people. So I’ll end with these two verses from ‘How Firm a Foundation’, which are based on Isaiah 43:2:

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o’erflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.“