Day 56: "Has the Pandemic Changed Who We Are?"

DAY 56

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: SATURDAY 9 MAY 2020

Has the Pandemic Changed Who We Are?

“Beloved brethren, what is it, what a great thing is it, how pertinent, how necessary, that pestilence and plague which seems horrible and deadly, searches out the righteousness of each one … to see whether they who are in health tend the sick; whether relations affectionately love their kindred; whether masters pity their languishing servants; whether physicians do not forsake the beseeching patients.”  Cyprian, c. 200-258  

Cyprian was the Bishop of Carthage on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. A pandemic swept across the Roman empire that was labeled by subsequent historians as the Plague of Cyprian, not because he caused it, but because he emerged as the primary record keeper of what happened. So detailed were his accounts that epidemiologists today can identify the particularly virulent form of plague that ravaged the empire, killing 5,000 a day in Rome.

And what is the question he is asking? Whether or not we remain the same people in a time of plague that we were before it all started. How do we handle, how do we respond to, tests and trials?  God has a formula for responding to, and a purpose in, such times: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4       

It’s an intriguing way in which Cyprian casts the role of a pandemic, that it “… searches out the righteousness of each one …” It’s not a matter of us having the virus, rather it’s a matter of the virus ‘having us,’ its very presence on the planet eliciting from within us a behavioral statement about who we are. Consistency of commitments, and an increased desire to live in such a way that others may see Christ in us in the midst of crisis, serves notice on the virus that in Jesus we remain in control of our lives, and that He who wastes nothing will use the virus to sharpen and refine who we are in Him during this time of trial and testing.

Reflective question: Simply put – who are you during this pandemic? Have you changed?

Reflective Scripture: Philippians 1:27 – “… conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”

Reflective hymn:

“I Want to Be Like Jesus” – Thomas Chisholm (1866-1969)

I have one deep, supreme desire, that I may be like Jesus.

To this I fervently aspire, that I may be like Jesus.

I want my heart, His throne to be, so that a watching world may see

His likeness shining forth in me. I want to be like Jesus.

Day 55: "Goodnight Moon"

DAY 55

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: FRIDAY 8 MAY 2020

Goodnight Moon

“Goodnight room … Goodnight moon … Goodnight light and red balloon …. Goodnight bears ... Goodnight chairs … Goodnight kittens and goodnight mittens … Goodnight clocks and goodnight socks … Goodnight comb and goodnight brush … Goodnight stars … Goodnight air … Goodnight noises everywhere …” - "Goodnight Moon", a popular preschool story book.

I loved reading to our children when they were small, and now to our three-year-old grandson, to whom I read every day, and also at night as he is in bed, his drowsy body sinking into his mattress as I read. Now temporarily removed by a six-hour drive, I read to him via FaceTime – every day. Sleep comes easily to him, absolutely unaware as he is of the trauma through which the larger world around him is passing.

Would that sleep comes as easily for the rest of us. My journey includes significant wrestling matches with insomnia - something, unfortunately, I have passed on to all three of our children. Disengaging when getting into bed has never been easy for me – the mind keeps working when the body is saying ‘enough already.’ Coronavirus confinement to our house and daily exposure to a constellation of historical happenings, the likes of which I have not observed in my lifetime, make midnight clock-watching a nocturnal pastime.  

So what is this children’s book teaching us? That there is a place for saying ‘goodnight’ to all of the things that surround us in the worlds of the seen and the unseen in our lives. Disengaging from the former is easier than letting go of the latter, for we take all that elicits fear, anger, sorrow, resentment to bed with us, in our minds.

"Goodnight Moon" may just be the book we need now. Jesus actually invites us to “… change and become like little children …” Matthew 18:3. Not childish, but child-like, like children for whom “Goodnight Moon” will work at face value if we will take it at face value during this pandemic.    

  

Reflective question: Will you make a ‘say goodnight to’ list and read it after you get in bed?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 4:8 “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Reflective hymn:

“Day is Done” – James Quinn (1919-2010)

Day is done, but love unfailing dwells ever here;

Shadows fall, but hope, prevailing, calms every fear.

God, our Maker, none forsaking, take our hearts, of love’s own making;

Watch our sleeping; guard our waking; be always near.

Day 54: "Vessels for the Grief and Fear of Others"

DAY 54

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: THURSDAY 7 MAY 2020

Vessels for the Grief and Fear of Others

“As emergency rooms are flooded with coronavirus patients and ICU’s exceed their capacities, hospital chaplains are finding their jobs changing. Certified in clinical pastoral work and tending to people of all faiths, chaplains are no strangers to daily tragedies. They serve as vessels for the grief and fear of patients and their families.” - From a newspaper article on 14 April 2020 Hospital Chaplains Try to Keep the Faith in a Strange New Landscape

My wife, also an ordained minister, did her clinical pastoral internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, and worked before retirement as a hospital chaplain, often in the emergency room. There were times when weariness was in her eyes as she would come home with stories of pain and suffering and loss and grief. And that was before the pandemic.

Pastors by definition, by training, and often by personality, are those who are available to “serve as vessels for the grief and fear” of others, a quiet unseen ministry not spelled out as such in their job descriptions. For the chaplains in the Seattle hospital referenced above, the weight of it all is something unlike anything they were trained or prepared for.

Being vessels for the grief and fear of others is really the calling of all Christians – to one church Paul put it this way: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2. To another: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” Romans 12:15. And in his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul used an analogy common in Greek culture as a metaphor for the church as the body of Christ: “Now you are the body of Christ … if one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27, 26. I like the way The Message puts it: “If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing.” Break a bone and see how your whole body feels the pain. Thus also are we connected to each other in Christ’s Body.

Reflective question: Connected to others, whose pain or grief can you help carry today?

Reflective Scripture: Galatians 6:10 – “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Reflective hymn:

“The Servant Song” – Richard Gillard (1953 -    )

We are pilgrims on a journey; we’re together on this road.

We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.

I will weep when you are weeping; when you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.

I will share your joy and sorrow till we’ve seen this journey thro’.

Day 53: "Elders Face the Coronavirus Crisis Alone"

DAY 53

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: WEDNESDAY 6 MAY 2020

Elders Face the Coronavirus Crisis Alone

“When schools close, home care workers have to stay with their children, leaving frail elders isolated in homes they cannot manage. … It is a terrible situation that for older adults, the steps to prevent the spread of Covid-19 increase the risks of social isolation, which carries its own devastating health effects. A study by AARP compared the effects of prolonged isolation to those of smoking 15 cigarettes a day…’When you can’t be around people altogether, and people are afraid of catching something,’ said Lujira Cooper, 72, ‘it creates a self-imposed prison.’”  Elders Face the Coronavirus Alone – newspaper article 22 March 2020.  

A side effect of mandatory social distancing has been the closing of senior centers across the country where many seniors, living alone, can go for a meal, conversation and activities. “I’m really isolated now,” said Anna Reifman, 69, in the article above: “This isn’t just about lunch. I come here to talk to people other than my cat.” These closings for the elderly include their houses of worship, where they come not only to connect with God but to connect with people.  

So if you are young or middle-aged, seek out an elder, yes, someone who is old, and engage them in a conversation about what they have learned about life and faith – and listen. You will have blest them and you will be blest. God calls us in Deuteronomy 32:7 to “Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you.”

And if you are old, hear God’s faithful powerful promise to you during this time of pandemic social isolation: “Listen to me,…you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:3-4.

Reflective question: With whom do you need to connect this week?

Reflective Scripture: Leviticus 19:32 – “Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord.”

Reflective hymn:

“They Found Purpose” – Richard Garland (written in 2016)

Sung to the tune of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”

When advancing years confront us, we’ve a choice in how we cope;

feel defeated, prone to distrust, or seek wisdom, live in hope.

When the losses and the loneliness, grieve the spirit, try the soul,

come to Christ and let his goodness warm the heart and make us whole.

Day 52: "Don’t Feel Guilty: It’s OK to Laugh"

DAY 52

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: TUESDAY 5 MAY 2020

 Don’t Feel Guilty: It’s OK to Laugh

“Throughout history humor has played a role in the darkest times, as a psychological salve and a shared release. Large swaths of the population are living in isolation, instructed to eye with suspicion any stranger who wanders within six feet. And coronavirus jokes have become a form  of contagion themselves, providing a remaining thread to the outside world for the isolated -  and perhaps to sanity itself.” - “Don’t Feel Guilty: It’s OK to Laugh at Some of This” 23 April 2020 newspaper article

“Mary Berg, a 15-year-old trapped by Nazis in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, wrote in a diary entry from Oct. 29, 1941: ‘The typhus epidemic itself is the subject of jokes. It is laughter through tears, but it is laughter. This is our only weapon in the ghetto.’” And this from Renee Firestone, an Auschwitz survivor: “The instinct to laugh showed that we were still human beings while in the camps; this inner sense of humor is what kept me alive.” Narratives recorded in the documentary “The Last Laugh” about humor in the ghettos and death camps of WWII.

‘Listen’ to the testimonies of Abraham, in Genesis 17:17, and Sarah, in Genesis 18:12, when told by God they would bear a son: “Abraham fell face down, he laughed and said to himself, ‘Will a son be born to a man a  hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?’” “So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, ‘After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?’” And after the birth of Isaac, more laughter in Genesis 21:6 – “Sarah said, ’God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.’”  

Look at what God promises to those who weep: not peace or comfort but laughter in the beatitude in Luke 6:21 – “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” The God who made our bodies wired them to release dopamine when we laugh, and our blood pressure to drop when we let go in the midst of grief or anger and laugh. He knows what He’s doing.

“He who sits in the heavens shall laugh,” Psalm 2:4 says of the God who made everything, and if He can laugh, seeing all He sees going on in the world, perhaps its OK for us to laugh a bit as well. Pandemic ‘humor’: “Shouldn’t we wait until after the pandemic to fill out the census?”

Reflective Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:4 – “There is a time to weep and a time to laugh…” 

Reflective hymn:

“Give to Us Laughter” – Walter Farquharson (1936 -    )

Sung to the same hymn tune as “Be Thou My Vision”                                

Even in sorrow and hours of grief, laughter with tears brings most healing relief.

God, give us laughter, and God, give us peace, joys of your promise among us increase.

Day 51: An Unparalleled Crisis of Hunger

DAY 51

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: MONDAY 4 MAY 2020

An Unparalleled Crisis of Hunger

“In the largest slum in Kenya’s capital, people desperate to eat set off a stampede during a recent giveaway of flour and cooking oil, leaving scores injured and two dead. In India thousands of workers are lining up twice a day for bread and fried vegetables to keep hunger at bay. And across Colombia people are hanging red clothing and flags from their windows and balconies as a sign that they are hungry.”  Pandemic Moves Globe Toward Unparalleled Crisis of Hunger - Newspaper article 23 April 2020

There is no shortage of food on the planet, but inequities in distribution and availability mean hundreds of millions are facing a slow death from starvation during the pandemic, and here at home we see long lines of cars waiting for food to feed families where household income has ceased due to job loss. From the famine that sent Joseph’s brothers to Egypt in search of food to the Mediterranean famine for which Paul collected funds from the early churches, to the famines predicted in the Book of Revelation, famines have marked human history.

Christians – who are increasingly concentrated in third world famine-prone countries, have a sober promise into which they can lean: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us.” Romans 8:35,37. But they would also like to eat.

And for us not experiencing famine? A call to fasting, but not from food. In Isaiah 58:6,10, God asks: “Is not this the kind of fast I have chosen:… to spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry?” When it comes to giving, I have asked you to follow me in tithing to the church. Now I ask you to do what I encouraged you to do two weeks ago today in this column: if you are income secure, donate your stimulus check to an entity that feeds the hungry, here or abroad. Mine has already gone to a ministry I have served with in Honduras, where I have seen firsthand the severe poverty that is their norm. Will you follow me in a similar act of true fasting?   

Reflective question: Income secure? What is God asking you to do with your stimulus check?

Reflective Scripture: Matthew 25:35 – “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat.” Jesus

Reflective hymn:

“Let Your Heart Be Broken” – Bryan Leech (1931-2015)

Let your heart be broken, for a world in need,

feed the mouths that hunger, soothe the wounds that bleed.

Give the cup of water, and the loaf of bread.

Be the hands of Jesus, serving in his stead.  

Day 50: A Journey of Faith Through the Black Plague

DAY 50

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: SUNDAY 3 MAY 2020

A Journey of Faith Through the Black Plague

With Ulrich Zwingli, Swiss Reformer, 1484-1531

In the heart of the city of Zurich, Switzerland stands the imposing Grossmunster, completed around 1220 on the site of a church constructed by Charlemagne 400 years earlier. As a Swiss citizen, it is a church I have been in many times - an impressive edifice. Ulrich Zwingli, Swiss Protestant Reformer, held forth there for many years, engaging in the expository preaching of Scripture, verse by verse, and declaring with conviction salvation through Jesus Christ alone. During his tenure there a plague swept the city, taking one-third of the population, and his days were spent comforting the sick, consoling the grieving, and conducting funerals. He himself contracted the plague but lived to tell about it. He wrote a hymn, referred to as “The Black Death Hymn” or “The Plague Hymn,” his text written from within the plague itself, over time, in stages: his contracting of it, his acceptance of his own impending death, his miraculous healing recovery, and his awareness that he still would die but in God’s timing, not Satan’s. Let’s ‘enter’ a plague and journey through it in time and text with Zwingli, in his personal testimony of faith.

Zwingli facing his mortality as he becomes ill.

1. Help me, O Lord, my strength and rock; lo, at the door I hear death’s knock. Lift up Thine arm, once pierced for me, that conquered death and set me free.
2. Yet, if Thy voice in life’s midday, recalls my soul, then I obey. In faith and hope earth I resign, secure of heaven, for I am Thine.

Zwingli recognizing he is dying from the plague.

3. My pains increase; haste to console’; for fear and woe seize body and soul. Death is at hand. My senses fail. My tongue is dumb; now, Christ, prevail.
4. Lo! Satan strains to snatch his prey; I feel his grasp; must I give way? He harms me not, I fear no loss, for here I lie beneath thy cross.

Zwingli experiencing a miraculous healing.

5. My God! My Lord! Healed by thy hand. Upon the earth once more I stand. Let sin no more rule over me; my mouth shall sing alone to thee.
6. Though now delayed, my hour will come. Involved, perchance, in deeper gloom. But, let it come; with joy I’ll rise, and bear my yoke straight to the skies.

Reflective question: With which of these verses do you most identify? Why?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 118:17 - I will not die but live and proclaim what the Lord has done.”

Reflective hymn: Zwingli’s “Black Death/Plague Hymn,” above.

Sermon Notes: "An Inheritance That Can Never Perish"

A Stable Word in an Unstable World

“An Inheritance That Can Never Perish”

Patuxent Presbyterian Church

California, Maryland

Sunday 3 May 2020

Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Scriptures: Job 19:23-27; 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5; 1 Peter 1:3-9

Stability: from Latin ‘to stand’ = to be firm, constant, steadfast, fixed; lit. ‘to be able to stand.’

The source of this ability to stand is the promise of “an inheritance that can never perish.”

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you.” 1 Peter 1:3-4

Q: How do we gain this stable inheritance in an unstable world?

1.      This inheritance involves a relationship that provides stability – Job 19:25.  

“I know that my redeemer lives…”  Eternal life is available only through Jesus Christ: John 17:3. “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Q: Do you know Him?

This inheritance involves a deposit that provides stability – 2 Corinthians 5:5. “… God … who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”

This Holy Spirit enters our lives when we are ‘born again,’ ‘born anew,’ ‘born from above.’ “Unless one is born … of the Spirit, they cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus – John 3:5

Q: In what ways are you experiencing the Holy Spirit in your daily walk with Jesus?

This inheritance involves an affection that provides stability – 1 Peter 1:8-9.

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

And the source of our affection for the Lord? “We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19.

Q: Affection grows over time: how are you cultivating affection for Jesus in your life?

MONDAY MORNING

Each day this week spend your quiet time reflecting on each of these three

 themes and ask the Holy Spirit to show you how they are operating in your life.

Day 49: "This Too Shall Pass"

DAY 49

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: SATURDAY 2 MAY 2020

This Too Shall Pass

“Let nothing trouble you, let nothing make you afraid. This too shall pass. God never changes.

Patience obtains everything. God alone is enough.” - Theresa of Avila 1515-1582

What began in March and took us through April now sees us at the door of May, with no indication of when we will be able to cautiously emerge back into things the way they used to be, carrying with us an inner wariness of an unseen enemy that will still be lurking around somewhere. Until then, we remain in the ‘hunkered down’ status advised by Dr. Anthony Fauci, wondering how long it will be before all this will pass, be over.

Adele Besserman, 90, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War II, has observed regarding the present pandemic and its restrictions on free movement: “Right now I’m obeying whatever we are told to do for the better for me and the rest of the people, but I’ll tell you the truth, this will pass. We survived a war and we’re here. We’re going to survive this, too. And we understood – us children - this too shall pass. With God’s help, we will survive.” - Newspaper interview of holocaust survivors, 17 April 2020

For Adele Besserman, as a child the duration of the war was totally unknown. Hindsight gives gifts, and one of them is her observation that just as the war passed, so will the present pandemic.  The plea ‘how long?’ is universal throughout history and contemporaneously. Whether it be a root canal, chemotherapy, Parkinsons’ Disease, a deep grief over a personal loss, or an invisible pandemic, God has placed within us all a uniquely human awareness of the concept of ‘how long?’ From the plaintive cry of the Psalmist wanting to know the duration of the assault of his enemies – “How long will my enemy triumph over me?” Psalm 13:2, to Habbakuk wondering how long it will be before God answers his prayer – “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” Habakkuk 1:2, we all live in the world of ‘how long?’     

Even Jesus knew a painful ‘how long’ on the cross: “… why have you forsaken me?” - Mark 15:34.

Reflective question: Where is there a ‘how long’ in your heart? Talk to the Lord about it today.

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 37:7 – “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; …”

Reflective hymn:

“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” – Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all our years away;

They fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.

Day 48: "Who Will Be Saved?"

DAY 48

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: FRIDAY 1 MAY 2020

Who Will Be Saved?

“The concept of triage stems from Napoleon’s battlefields. The French military leader’s chief surgeon, Baron Dominique Jean Larrey, concluded that medics should attend to the most dangerously wounded first, without regard to rank or distinction. Later, doctors added other criteria to mass casualty triage, including how likely someone was to survive treatment or how long it would take to care for them.” - Newspaper article 22 March 2020, The Hardest Question That Doctors Could Face: Who Will Be Saved? By Sheri Fink

And in another newspaper article on 2 April 2020 there was this headline: “In New York, Doctors Face Wrenching Decisions as Supplies Dwindle,” with the following sober note: “’There’s no protocol,’ Mr. Cuomo said on Tuesday when asked if there would be triage of patients if critical supplies run out.” And here’s more: “’We put a lot of weight on saving lives. But it’s not the only consideration,’” said Casey Mulligan, a University of Chicago economist in a newspaper article on 25 March 2020 entitled “Hard Math: Some Economists Want to Measure Economic Cost of Saving Lives.” Translation: Is the cost involved worth it to save this patient?

Let us be clear: what they had to do in Italy earlier in this pandemic is what this is about in these articles, sending home to die the elderly hospital patients who are coronavirus afflicted with pneumonia due to lack of facilities, supplies and staff. This is not about euthanasia, the intentional ending of a life deemed no longer viable. If euthanasia poses an ethical dilemma, this does more so, and there are no easy answers: It is the facing of a painful unavoidable question in the medical context of a pandemic: Who will be saved? 

Economics aside, the excruciatingly painful decision of to whom a ventilator will go when more needs are present than ventilators is impossible to fathom. The decision-making metrics,  whatever they are, will never hopefully be reduced to cost. For the Christian who belongs to Jesus, whatever happens, we can say confidence “My life is in your hands.” Psalm 31:15 CEV

Reflective question: Will you pray daily for wisdom and strength for all health care providers?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 18:3 – “I call upon the Lord, … and I am saved.”

Reflective hymn:

“God is the Source of Life” – Robert Bayley (1942 -    )

God is the source of life, Father of all living,

Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit giving

life to the souls of all, all of life has value:

God is the source of life.

Day 47: “We’ve Lost It All.”

DAY 47

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: THURSDAY 30 APRIL 2020

“We’ve lost it all.”

“’I’m feeling scared,’ said Mr. Palma, who is 41 and nervous about the $15,000 in medical bills he has from two recent hospital stays. ‘I don’t know what’s the ending. But I know I’m not in good shape.’” - We Have Lost it All: Millions Reel from Sudden Unemployment newspaper article on 28 March 2020 

We stood at the window watching as the house across the street illuminated the darkness of night, consumed by flames that destroyed everything, valiant firemen’s efforts notwithstanding. I remember thinking to myself that in a way I would wish for the same experience as the young couple who lived there, because it would free me from attachment to all things material, a musing reinforced when, after the ashes had cooled, I watched as they  picked through burned ‘things’ looking for any memento of their previous life they could salvage.

For some the loss of everything happens with the loss of employment and income, as with Mr. Palma above. For others it’s like our neighbors who lost it all in a fire. For my ancestors all was lost when they were forced to abandon everything and walk the Trail of Tears from Georgia to Oklahoma, and Japanese-Americans on the west coast lost everything when forced to walk away from all they owned and move into ‘relocation camps’ during WW II.

Then along comes Jesus and He says to Simon Peter and Andrew, “’Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.” This was voluntary ‘loss’ of means of income and occupation, of family, of village and of identity. Later in the Gospel narrative Peter says to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you.” Matthew 19:27.

Paul the Apostle had his own ‘I’ve lost it all’ testimony: “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.” - Philippians 3:8.

Reflective question: Are you willing to let go of everything to follow Jesus? He won’t settle for less.

Reflective Scripture: Proverbs 23:26 – “My child, give me your heart,…”

Reflective hymn:

“Jesus Calls Us” – Cecil Alexander (1818-1895)

Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world’s golden store,

from each idol that would keep us, saying “Christian, love me more.”

Day 46: Decluttering During a Pandemic

DAY 46

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL 2020

Decluttering During a Pandemic

“I’ve cleaned out my garage, my storage shed, and now I’m working on my closets.”

“I’m in the process of cleaning out my basement. After giving a lot away I’m still going to need a U-Haul to get rid of what’s left.”

“I’ve cleaned out all my closets and bags are waiting to be picked up after this is over.”

- Comments from conversations I’ve had this week.

What do you do during a ‘stay-at-home-as-much-as-possible’ edict from the government? Yes, you can watch a lot of TV, but there is only so much available that has value until one is in danger of descending into mindless entertainment that dehydrates the mind and the soul.

Long before the current ‘decluttering fad’ of Marie Kondo fame, Jesus addressed the whole issue of storing up ‘things’: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21.

Years ago I was asked to give the sermon at a funeral in a simple wood frame church on a dirt road in a small, rural African American community. Just before I stood to speak a man sang a solo. I have never forgotten the moving sound of his voice or the lyrics as he sang, a cappella –

        

There’s a dream that I dream of my heavenly home

I know that I’m going there one day, yes I am.

Maybe morning, noon, or night, I don’t know just how soon,

That’s why I’m sending up my timber every day.

Everyday! Everyday! Sending up my timber on up to glory

Sending up my timber everyday.

It was a sung, culturally adapted reiteration of the command – and it is just that, not a suggestion: “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, …” And, knowing our hearts as He does, He reinforced the imagery with this unavoidable confrontation with ourselves: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  It’s a ‘sending up my timber’ sort of thing. 

Reflective question: Where do you need to declutter material things so you can focus on spiritual things?

    

Reflective Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:6 – “There is a time to keep and a time to throw away…”

Reflective hymn: Go to YouTube and listen to “I’m Sending My Timber on Up”

Day 45: Quarantine: Medieval Social Distancing

DAY 45

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: TUESDAY 28 APRIL 2020

Quarantine: Medieval Social Distancing

“…those who come from plague infested areas shall not enter the city or its district unless they spend a month on the (deserted) islet of Mrkan or in the (isolated) town of Cavtat, for the purpose of disinfection.” - Order of the City Council of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) July 27^th, 1377

Long before there was any awareness of the existence of viruses, medieval city states knew that by distancing certain populations for a number of days they could be spared getting what they had. For a number of years it was 30 days and then, with the pervasive presence of the church, it became 40 days based on the social distancing of Jesus in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry, ‘quaranta’ for forty and ‘quarantino’ for forty days yielding ‘quarantine.’  

So here we all are now in a state-imposed quarantine, a social distancing of ourselves from each other, eliciting a new array of emotions and perceptions unlike we have ever known. Lest we think He doesn’t understand, He does – His ‘quarantino’ involved fasting from food and friends as the enemy of our souls tried to dissuade Him from His purpose in becoming one of us.

What happened to Jesus during His 40 days of quarantine, of social isolation, can also happen to us, as isolation can make us more susceptible to temptation. It’s the probing question, “Who are you when you are alone and no one is watching?”

Whatever happened in that 40 day isolation period – and we are given only the briefest of sketches in the gospels, one thing we can know for sure when we find ourselves similarly tempted: because of His ‘quarantine’ “…we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16.

Reflective question: With what are you tempted during this quarantine? Talk to Jesus about it.  

Reflective Scripture: Matthew 26:41–“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

Reflective hymn:

“Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days” – Claudia Herneman (1838-1898)

Lord, who throughout these forty days for us did fast and pray,

teach us with you to mourn our sins and close by you to stay.

As you with Satan did contend and did the victory win,

O give us strength to persevere, in you to conquer sin.

Day 44: A Hymn from a Time of Plague

DAY 44

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: MONDAY 27 APRIL 2020

A Hymn from a Time of Plague

Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done, in whom His world rejoices;

Who, from our mother’s arms, hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

If you were raised mainline Protestant as I was you are probably already humming the melody to the above, the absolute standard Thanksgiving hymn sung every year. And while you know the hymn, what you probably don’t know is that this strong affirmation of thanksgiving was written in the midst of unspeakable horror scourging Germany where the writer, Martin Rinkart, was a Lutheran pastor in the town of Eilenberg.  

During his tenure as pastor his community suffered the slaughter of the Thirty Years War, the   excruciatingly painful and deadly bubonic plague and a severe famine- all at the same time. While all the pastors in town fled, Rinkart remained to minister to all he could, with church records indicating he conducted some 4,000 funerals at a pace sometimes of 30-40 a day. It was during this time, in 1636, that he wrote, “Nun danket alle Gott” with the melody we know today written by Johann Cruger in 1637, and the harmonized hymn tune in our hymnals coming to us from the classical composer Felix Mendelsohn in 1840.    

How could he have even considered giving to the people in the midst of such horror a hymn of resounding praise and thanks to God – ‘wondrous things…rejoices…blessed us….gifts of love…”

The answer is unsettlingly simple: God’s Word tells us that this is His will for us: “…give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus,’ 2 Thessalonians 5:18. All means all means all means all – God knows that selective thanksgiving is not really thanksgiving, that the nature and dynamic of thanksgiving are such that they are marks of a personality, not selective acts of verbal gratitude. “Give thanks, with a grateful heart,” says the praise song.   

Reflective question: “… all circumstances …”  will you ask the Lord to give you a thankful heart?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 9:1 –“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; …”

Reflective hymn:

“Now Thank We All Our God” – Martin Rinkart (1586-1649)

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;

And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed,

And free us from all ills in this world and the next.

Day 43: When the Veil Between Jesus’ Suffering and Ours’ is Thin

DAY 43

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: SUNDAY 26 APRIL 2020

When the Veil Between Jesus’ Suffering and Ours’ is Thin

“On a very personal level, the story of Jesus felt unusually close for many believers this past Holy Week, and not just on Easter Sunday. Christians on the front lines of the coronavirus fight described in interviews their feelings of being drawn into the memory of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection as they stared into suffering in their own midst and reflected on what it meant to hope. The veil between the story of Jesus and the story of the nation, they said, has felt thin.” - In Time of Anguish, Taking Solace in the Passion of Jesus newspaper article by Ellizabeth Dias 1 April 2020

Proximity – a closeness to the suffering of Jesus experienced in a way unlike any other holy week. What is it about the suffering of Jesus that draws us to His suffering in ours?

One day I was visiting a man dying of cancer, and without thought offered our standard cultural offer of support to those in pain: “I know how you feel,” I said, and the look in his eyes penetrated deep within me his unspoken response: “No, you don’t.”  From that day forward I have refrained from saying that to someone unless I have actually been where they are. Otherwise, it’s “I haven’t been where you are now, but I can imagine how it would affect me.”

Identification - Jesus has been where we are, wherever we are, no matter what, and from the vantage point of the cross can say so and in the saying identify with our individual journeys pockmarked by pain, loss, disappointment and physical, emotional and mental suffering. Thus compassion means literally ‘to suffer with,’ which is what Jesus does so we are not alone.

While the Roman Catholic Church has sanctified suffering, we Protestants have desacralized it with no room for it in our larger spiritual journey, and in the process we are missing the relationship of the suffering of Jesus to our own. Perhaps it’s time we revisit suffering from the vantage point of the cross. “I want to know Christ,” said Paul, “and the fellowship of his sufferings.” Philippians 3:10. For that to happen, we need to look for Him in our own suffering.

Reflective question: In what personal place of pain and suffering do you need to look for Jesus?

Reflective Scripture:

Romans 5:3 – “…we glory in our sufferings, because…suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character, hope."

Reflective hymn:

“My Faith Has Found a Resting Place” – Lidie Edmunds (1851-1920 

My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed:

I trust the ever-living One – His wounds for me shall plead.

Sermon Notes: A Stable Word in an Unstable World: “We Will Not Fear”

A Stable Word in an Unstable World:

“We Will Not Fear”

Patuxent Presbyterian Church

California, Maryland

Sunday 26 April 2020

Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Scriptures:

Psalm 23

Mark 4:35-41

Psalm 46

Stability: from Latin ‘to stand’ = to be firm, constant, steadfast, fixed, lit. ‘to be able to stand.’

Q: What do we need in order ‘to be able to stand’ during this time of a global pandemic?

God’s stable Word to us in this unstable time: The promise of PRESENCE – Psalm 23

Where we are - a pandemic: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,….”

How we can respond - “…I will fear no evil…”

The basis for our response - “…for you are with me…”

Q: Of what are you most afraid during this unprecedented time of a global pandemic?

E.g. – catching the virus; dying from the virus; loss of a loved one to the virus; loss of income. 

God’s stable Word to us in an unstable world: The promise of POWER – Mark 4:35-41

Where we are, on an unsure journey – “’…don’t you care if we drown?...’ ‘Why are you afraid?’”

How we can respond – “’Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.’”

The basis for our response – “’Quiet (peace KJV)) be still!’” - Jesus

Q: Where do you feel most unstable, in need of strength during this time of a global pandemic?

E.g. – emotional, mental, spiritual or physical weakness.

God’s stable Word to us in an unstable world: The promise of PEACE – Psalm 46

Where we are, in a world of upheaval: “…though the earth give way…”

How we can respond -  “Therefore we will not fear…”

The basis for our response – “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Q: In what area of your existence during this pandemic do you most need to hear Jesus speaking stability, peace and quiet?

E.g. – emotional, mental, spiritual, financial, relational, occupational turmoil.

MONDAY MORNING

In these three areas, presence, power and peace, how do you see Jesus bringing stability into your life during this global pandemic?