Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
When I was in university, I read Albert Camus’ novel, The Plague. If you don’t know the novel, it is set in the city of Oran in Algeria in the late 1940’s. A plague descends upon the city and, in the novel, Camus explores how a cast of characters react to the discomfort and deprivation brought about by the quarantine, to the threat of death that surrounds them and to the challenge to human community as people choose between selfishness and selflessness.
During the last two and a half years, sales of The Plague have increased significantly. People throughout the world have been searching for meaning as they have asked the same questions as the characters in Camus’ tale.
· How do we endure the isolation and losses caused by the lock-downs and quarantines?
· How do we rebuild relationships that have been stretched and frayed, some to the point of breaking?
· How do we face the threats of debilitating after-effects and even death from a virus that seems to come at from nowhere and everywhere?
These questions are not new to our times, just as they were not new to Albert Camus. Throughout human history communities have experienced various ‘plagues’ of one sort or another. Five hundred years before the coming of Christ, the prophet Joel described his plague as ‘a plague of locusts’. Whether they were actual locusts or some other unwelcome army – scholars still debate this – does not matter for us now. What does matter is that Joel’s community experienced destruction and social disintegration at every level and in every dimension of their lives.
Joel does not diminish the scale of what the people have suffered nor its impact upon them, but he does proclaim a message of hope. The present, as bad as it is, is not the future God envisions for the people. ‘Wait for the Lord whose day is coming,’ is his message, a day when every member of the community, male and female, young and old, slave and free, will experience God’s indwelling presence. But how shall we wait for such a day? What will sustain us as we wait? For Joel the answer is prayer, worship and service.
If anyone were to search on-line using the key word ‘prayer’, they would get 1,130,000,000 results in 0.53 seconds on Google! There are any number of suggestions from a vast array of Christian and non-Christian sources. Today I offer one simple suggestion that Jesus gave to his disciples two thousand years ago, the prayer we know as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. In times such as ours it continues to give hope and strength and confidence.
· Pray it when you rise in the morning and when you pause at midday and when you go to bed at night.
· Pray it slowly, letting each phrase become a source of reflection: How is God not just ‘our’ Father but ‘my’ loving parent? How do we, do I, hallow God’s name? What ‘kingdom’ am I waiting for?
· Allow each phrase to generate petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving for this moment: When I ask for daily bread, what am I anxious about? What I ask for forgiveness, for what do I need forgiveness, whom shall I forgive, who are the ones from whom I need forgiveness?
And the waiting becomes more bearable even life-giving.
Personal prayer is an essential part of our spiritual lives, but worship is no less important. In worship we hear the Scriptures proclaimed, so that their wisdom can inspire us. In worship we gather with others to be encouraged, to be fed, to be embraced in loving community. In worship we sing, an activity that brings our whole bodies into play. In worship we join others in holding up before God the needs and concerns of the world. In worship we discover that we are not alone. And the waiting becomes more bearable even life-giving.
Although prayer and worship are rich resources to strengthen us in our waiting, it is perhaps in the service of others that we find meaning. Our service may find its expression in caring for friends and neighbours. Our service may find its expression is undertaking simple tasks for others who are unable to do them themselves. Our service may be in our attentiveness to the people who serve us in all the aspects of our daily lives. Our service may be in our advocacy for and care of those who are not heard or seen by those who have power and influence. And the waiting becomes more bearable even life-giving.
One of the underlying themes in Camus’ novel is that human beings always find themselves assaulted by one plague or another. The plagues may be physical; they may be political or social. But they come nonetheless. I think that we who live in a connected world may feel even more overwhelmed by the plagues of our time – we need only read the on-line news or turn on our televisions or read our newspapers or look at social media.
But Joel would have us put our faith in the God who brought an opposed tribe of nomads out of the clutches of one great imperial power after another, so that they might witness to God’s fidelity. Luke the evangelist and Paul the apostle would have us put our faith in the God who not only raised an itinerant rabbi from the dead, but who raised up a people who bear living witness to the God who is always raising us from the many little deaths human beings are prone to suffer.
So, while we are waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled, let us pray. While we are working on restoring relationships and renewing the life of our communities, let us worship. And while we are working so that all God’s children may be free and the earth be filled with the glory of God, let us serve.
