One People Under God
This past week I had the pleasure of speaking with some church members over the phone and Zoom. If you have not gotten a call from me to schedule a time, you will soon and I look forward to having more conversations with you all. One particular conversation struck me, a long-time dear member said, "If there is one thing that we can learn from Covid-19 its that we are one people under God." Those profound words hit my heart. She is absolutely right.
I was a sophomore at Rutgers University when 9-11 hit. I remember it like it was yesterday. I lost a dear friend that I grew up with, he was like an older brother to me. He worked on the 96th floor of the 2nd Tower of the World Trade Center. I was taking a film class at the time and after the incident, my professor ripped the syllabus and said, "Go and film people and see what they are feeling." Channeling the raw pain of loss for my friend, I went out with my project partner, who was the cameraman, and we interviewed as many people as possible; students that were waiting for the bus or walking to class. We went to coffee shops and walked around the student center asking people what they were feeling. The interviewees had a wide range of opinions and thoughts on what happened, but every single one of them started off by saying something along the lines of "I can't believe this happened to us.." This idea of our country's exceptionalism was so ingrained in our collective consciousness, that we not only did not know how to deal with this tragedy, we did not know how to process that we could be vulnerable to such a tragedy. Before then, my generation opened the newspapers and thought much of the pain and strife of the world was another country's problem, it was never our problem.
In regards to the Covid-19 I remember just back in February flying to California for my ordination interviews, and at that time Covid-19 was "China's problem." It was still a water cooler conversation topic. "Did you hear?" "Yea I can't believe it..." etc. Now there is not a soul on earth not affected by this pandemic in one way or another. Our Bishop recently sent out a letter addressing the uptick in cases and he said "It is estimated that 9 family members are affected by 1 COVID-19 death. Since to date, we have lost 137,871 lives in the U.S. This means that 1.22 million Americans are dealing with the loss of someone to COVID-19." There is no country, culture, race, or ethnicity that is immune to this pandemic.
Going back to my 9-11 recollection, I'll never forget seeing people holding candlelight vigils, crying, and holding and comforting one another around campus. The East Coast is known for its cynicism, and for everyone holding their cards close to their chest, but at that time we all let down our guard. We were all hurting together and we all felt compassion for one another. This pain was no longer an abstract thing across the world, it was our pain, our tragedy, and our problem.
When I read through the scriptures, I see a God that hears the cries of God's people. Whether they were crying out because of their Egyptian slave masters(Ex 3:7), or under attack by the Midianites (Judges 6-8), Hittites (2 Kings 7), Amorites (Joshua 10), or suffering under Roman occupation. In our Scriptures, we see that God not only hears their cries but also feels the pain of God's people (Ex 34). God's ultimate act of compassion and love for us is embodied in the life and death of Jesus Christ (John 3:16). Through Christ's resurrection, we all can have a new understanding of the world and God's heart for those who are suffering. Fortunately, God never saw the suffering of humanity as "their" problem. I pray that through all this, we as the human race can emerge as a people who are more compassionate, empathetic, and loving. From here on out, I hope that when we read about the world's tragedies we would feel something, when we see our neighbor's misfortunes we would pause and see how we can help. My prayer is that after all of this humanity would reflect the heart of God a bit more as "one people under God."
