“The Restoration of Community”

January 17, 2021

I was in the Bernadine Center at the St Francis Hospital this week.  I work in this hospital system and this past Wednesday I was given the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.  Medical literature reports two doses give from 94-95% immunity to the Covid-19 virus, which should be helpful to me as a medical person caring for the sick and the well.  I encourage everyone to obtain the vaccine, if possible.  My side effects were fatigue and a headache which lasted for a few hours. 

After receiving the second dose of the vaccine, I was required to sit for 30 minutes in a separate room, where all recipients of the vaccine wait together, socially distanced. Some waited for 15 minutes after dose 1 and some for 30 minutes after dose 2.  There was a large wall clock and we were instructed to watch it to know when to leave.  The nursing personnel collected all our paperwork and recorded these for us.  We all were given a small 3” X 3” card, which carries the record of our two vaccines.  The CDC VAMS site has this information also.

It has been a long day for me, so instead of talking to anyone, I sat and closed my eyes for a brief rest.  There were around me a lot of persons talking to each other.  Sitting, listening to the various conversations, not trying to pry, but unable not to hear I was so pleased to finally hear persons together talking, telling stories, some laughing.

This happened to be the same day that President Trump was being impeached in the House of Representatives, so some were railing out at the “sorry politicians” in Washington, D.C. who were “all corrupt!”  I am not sure which politicians they were referring to, and frankly, did not care.  After a little, those same persons began talking about a “big, sweet, kind-hearted dog” which this person had adopted from the animal shelter and the talk then centered on more happy things.  I thought this was was a strange juxtaposition, but in South Carolina, anything is possible!

About this same time, down the hall, another room of persons sitting together erupted in laughter!  It was as if the whole building was shaking, glad to have something finally to laugh about!  I have no idea what provoked the laughter, but it is so nice to hear it!

Right after this, the nurse manager for the whole event came in and huddled with her nurses and other employees who were recording all the data from the immunizations.  I heard her say, “our time clock computer has been compromised so all of you will need to sign in again.”   Such is life in the computer age.

About this time, the nurse who had given me the first and the second vaccine injection came in to check on how I was doing.  I told her fine and she smiled.  I thought, now this is very nice, to have someone care about me in such a busy setting as this!

On the way home, I thought about my experience of being given the second Covid-19 vaccine.  It occurred that I had a really great experience.   My experience on this day is because of all those persons who had gathered in one place to make it possible for this day to occur!  This same group of employees and volunteers in the hospital system show up day after day, in good times and bad, to do their service to our community.  Is there any way we can ever thank them enough?  I have been immunized as a physician so I can care for so many more.  But without this community of nurses, hospital staff and volunteers, this would never have occurred. The vaccine being given is a scientific marvel.  But if no one had been there to administer it, then all is for naught.

The Covid-19 Pandemic has been one of the mostly stressful and sad experiences of my life.  So many have died from a virus outbreak that may have been preventable.  Yet, when it began to spread into all our communities and continues to worsen as to numbers and deaths, there are those like the community of persons at St Francis Downtown Greenville Hospital who are rising up collectively to treat the ill and infirmed and more than that, doing everything in their (our) power to stop it!

In the midst of one of the worse events possible, somehow, we as the human family, made in the image of our God, find the restoration of community!   All of us need each other!  We rely on each other daily for our well being, our happiness and our very lives!  So many things recently have attempted to destroy our community and to separate us from one another.  Some, so angry they cannot speak, have resorted to violent means as their primary act of communication!

And yet, violence destroys community.  It promotes an “us vs them” mentality.  It makes us behave in ways that are tribal.  We destroy community when we demonize the other person(s) or group.  We promote community when we work together, regardless of political views, to stop a pandemic and save as many as we can.

Since our God is sovereign over all of life and our existence on the world, we might even say that perhaps God is trying to speak to us collectively as a human family across this earth, joined not by race or tribe, but by our common blood and genetics.  We are all homo sapiens, with the same 46 chromosomes and helical DNA that make us human.  It is surprising to me that we have not yet figured this out.  We are all made “in the image of the same God!”  Our God is doing everything possible to save us all!

When Jesus Christ came to our world, God as human being, he showed us the true nature of our own humanity, male and female, when we choose to follow in His way.  Dying upon the cross for all those things which estrange us from God and from one another, he lay 3 days in death.  On the third day, Jesus Christ the human man, God the Son was raised up from the dead to bring us life anew.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ as a human being shows us what is in store for each of us as we believe in His blessed and Holy Name!

When Jesus Christ ascended into heaven after the 40 days of instructing his disciples regarding the kingdom of God, concluding his 3 years of ministry on this earth, Jesus Christ the Risen Savior promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who followed him (the church) so that we as the church of Jesus Christ could be empowered to carry the good news of his life, death, and resurrection to the whole world.  This is being done even now, but there is much left still to be done.

From time to time, the church has gotten distracted from our primary task, which is defined as “making disciples of all nations” (see Matthew 28:16-20).  It is difficult to focus on “making disciples of all nations” when we are torn asunder by political divisions among us.  We need to repent from these and other sins and come back to our Redeemer, pledging ourselves anew to, in service “be about the business of our Lord!”

I sincerely hope it does not take another pandemic worse than this one to remind us of our duty to serve our Lord.  Climate change is bearing down upon us.  We have only a few years left to get this right.  Injustice across the globe is worsening.  Dictators are thriving, democracy is under duress everywhere!  The number of men, women and children who go to bed hungry is increasing even as we speak these few words.   There are some who have no home at all in which to lay down their head and sleep at night.   There are some who live in such unsafe places, they cannot sleep at all.

The church of Jesus Christ cannot alone solve all these concerns and problems.  But a community of persons of goodwill, made of the whole human family, regardless of race, creed, color, religious faith or national origin might somehow have a fighting change to ensure the survival of this planet and the human family.  We simply do not have any more time for divisions, hatred, warfare, and greed!  Those better off than others should share their wealth to make this planet a more hospitable home for us all, including all the creatures, wild and domestic.  The loss of diversity of our flora and insects speaks volumes of the coming demise of our planet if we ignore these warning signs.  And we could go on…

I chose to believe in a God who gives hope and creative life to our present and our future!  Without hope in Christ and our ability to tackle and solve these common problems, which affect us all, we are left only with despair, resignation, and death of all those things we treasure.   All of us are required to wake up and begin to do our part to solve these problems!  We are all together the problem and we are also together the solution.  We have lots of lemons.  Our choice is whether we will begin to take these lemons and make lemonade!

We are on the verge of some of the greatest technological and scientific breakthroughs every known to humanity! We are at one the most important linchpins of history ever encountered! It is time we begin to re-imagine our future with hope and faith in our Redeemer and not with images of despair and gloom!  The restoration of community and fellowship in the greater human family is necessarily a place to begin, despite all those adversarial things and persons against us.  We should not allow evil to triumph when we, as Christians, are full of the love of God in Jesus Christ our Redeemer!  Because I know Christ and Christ knows me, I am immensely hopeful for our future together!  Let us reduce the rhetoric, call each other friends instead of enemies and put away our guns!  Christians are not called to kill one another or anyone else!  As our God tells us, “Vengeance is mine!  I will repay, says the Lord!” (The Epistles to the Romans 12:17-19 from Deuteronomy 32:35)

                “Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; their foot shall slip in due time; for the day of their calamity is at hand.  And the things to come hasten upon.”  (Deuteronomy 32:35)

Let us pray: “Dear God and Father of all humankind, our Creator, our Redeemer and our Friend:  Hear us when we collectively pray and call out to you for our redemption!  We admit we have as your human family failed to love and to care for one another.  We admit that we have trusted more in ourselves and in our human prowess than we have in you.  We recognize that our failures to act and to eschew evil have put all of us and our planet and all those creatures you have made and love in jeopardy of being no more.   We are ashamed and sorry for all we have done to displease you.  We admit that we deserve only judgment and condemnation, but we ask for your mercy, your truth, and your grace to save us.

Over these past days and years, we have come to know we cannot save ourselves.  When we trust too much in human politicians, gurus, advisers, and so-called experts, we always fail because these are mere men and women who have no power, not even to save themselves.  So, God, because you alone are God, our God, we appeal to you for mercy and grace to help us in this hour of our need!  We cannot help ourselves and all our attempts to save ourselves and this world have failed.  We have placed our faith in those who are ‘no gods’ and have made them to be idols unto us. We have placed more faith in scientific accomplishments, weapons of mass destruction and demonstrations of power, than we have in You! Tear down those idols we have attached to in our hearts and bring us again to the true faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the only Redeemer and Savior of us All!

Glorify your Holy Name!  You alone are God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are our God!  To you alone we give all our worship and our praise!  Amen and Amen!”

Bill Wilson, servant of God, by God’s grace and mercies.

“Amen!”