As our local, state, and national response to the Coronavirus pandemic has shifted from mandates to recommendations, you’ve probably spent time considering how these recommendations, options, and suggestions apply to you. While the application of recommendations can be perplexing–frustrating, even–Jesus’s mandate to us remains the same: love one another, and through your love people will know that we are his disciples.
In practical terms, that means that Christians interpret recommendations, options, and suggestions through Jesus’s command to love. Christian charity is God’s “love received and given.” Over the past year that’s frequently meant wearing masks out of concern for public health. Sometimes, it means adjusting to local and family customs as a matter of hospitality. The command to love challenges each of us differently according to our context.
In light of high community transmission, use of masks is encouraged during indoor church functions. Whether others wear a mask or not, show Christian charity to everyone. While the health risk to many of us is low, the risk to some in our church body is significantly higher. This past weekend, I heard from a family who recently learned that their child may be at a greater risk of significant long term complications due to a preexisting condition. For them, care for their child has meant assessing risk and weighing local recommendations much differently than they did just a few weeks ago.
We pray earnestly for an end to this pandemic. But while this trial continues, it remains a rich opportunity to obey Jesus’s command to love and to make him known to others. “Count it all joy…for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.“
blessings in Christ,
Paul+
For a Virtuous Heart – Thomas Aquinas
Give me, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy thought can drag down; an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose can tempt aside. Bestow upon me understanding to know you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, and faithfulness that finally may embrace you. Amen.