Insights Into The Covid-19 Church Era –Part XXXVIII
“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your one”, and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27)
One of Jesus’ last acts as a human was to take care of his mother, a widow. Taking care of widows and orphans was central to the 1st century Church. Even though Jesus had a brother James, He entrusts His disciple, John, known as the Beloved with his mother’s care. John obediently responds.
Care is organically person-to-person. When organized it has the potential to be institutionalized where it loses the person-to-person touch and eventually becomes a “for profit” institution. Take for instance, caring for the sick. Jesus always cared one-on-one no matter if it was Peter’s sick mother-in-law, a person with highly contagious leprosy, or multitudes of people who sought him. When Jesus physically touched them, healing flowed out of Him. Over the centuries the church built mission hospitals. Later the responsibilities of these hospitals shifted to communities. Eventually they became institutions that have produced “for profit” networks. The church has been pushed out of the evolution of today’s healthcare system.
This same evolutionary path has directly affected eldercare. Families took care of the elderly. The church build “old folks homes” and governments established “poor houses” for the elderly. Today Assistant Living Facilities offer cottages, apartments, in house care, and critical care as a “for profit” institution, which have eaten up most family’s potential inheritance.
Today, Americans count on their government to bail them out. When unemployed, homeless, needing healthcare, and not having insurance, they do not look to the church; they look to their government. Covid-19 has exposed how the church has given up much of its ministries to sectarian influences. Although Americans fear socialism, the church is not filling the void since it has little to offer. What “new wineskins” does the church have to offer in this Covid-19 age? How should the church be responding to a disease requiring self-quarantine and isolation? What would Jesus do? Although highly contagious, Jesus still physically touched those who had been self-quarantined with leprosy, and they were healed. Although not very hygiene, He spat in mud and applied it to the eyes of the blind, and they saw. Lazarus died physically, yet Jesus verbally called him out of the grave. Speaking and believing with authority and physically touching brought results, but that would take a new wineskin mentality for us to activate.
Hispanic families often house three generations under the same roof. Grandparents parent grandchildren as parents work, but Covid-19 can ravish a family when just one gets infected. How should the church respond to a disease that can infect several generations under the same roof?
If we stood at the foot of the cross, what would we do with Jesus’ mother? Have her apply for a cottage in the Assisted Living Community? Since all the adults have to go to work, how would we take care of her when she is ill or gets dementia or Alzheimer’s? When home, we would show her love, but we are an active family. The Covid-19 Stay-At-Home order has made us reevaluate and reexamine our family values. Whose responsibility is it for childcare or eldercare?
The 1st century’s answer to this was a new wineskin called the “ecclesia”, the community of believers in Jesus Christ, the Church. The Covid-19 era Church needs to rediscover this wineskin because “When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.” (John 16:13) The new wineskins will come when the Holy Spirit speaks, so we must be obedient. The topic of our next blog!