Expertise

One piece of the COVID-19 situation that has concerned and confused me is the disdain some people have exhibited toward experts.

I was in Baltimore, Maryland a few years ago working at a conference. (Remember the old days when people traveled to conferences?) I was sitting at my table in the Exhibit Hall when I realized that the vision in my right eye had become very blurry. This would have seemed like something I should get checked on anyway, but I had recently had laser treatment to repair two retinal tears in that eye, so I was certain I should.

But my retina specialists were in Macon, and I was in Baltimore, not scheduled to return home for two more days. So I called my doctors’ office to see if they could get me in to see someone in Baltimore. They could and they did. Later that day, a friendly Lyft driver deposited me at a retina specialist’s office somewhere in some suburb of Baltimore. As I waited in the exam room, I used my functioning eye to read the diplomas on the wall. The doctor who was about to examine me had earned his medical degree at Johns Hopkins.

Friends, I did not say to myself, “This doctor’s training is too good for me. Why, he probably thinks he knows more about retinas than I do. I’m going to find someone who has less expertise.” No, I said to myself, “I have hit the jackpot. I am grateful to have been sent to a doctor with such good training and so much expertise.”

(By the way, as it turned out, the Johns Hopkins-trained doctor discovered that a blood vessel had burst in my eye. It healed and my vision cleared up in a few days. I trusted the doctor’s expert diagnose. And had I needed laser or other treatment, I’d have been grateful for his expertise.)

I see a lot of posts on Facebook (usually memes, which I swore off sharing a long time ago, but I wouldn’t share one like this anyway) that say something like “Someone can have a college degree and still be dumb.” There’s a variant of it that says something like, “Someone can have a college degree and still lack common sense.” In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I have three degrees, and I had to marry someone with common sense before I acquired any.

While I’m on the subject, I’ve also noticed that often people sharing such a meme tie it to remarks about how vocational and technical education is a better route for some than going to college. I’d like to say four things about that. (1) Vocational and technical education is valuable and the careers to which it can lead are indispensable. (2) One can champion such education without denigrating those who pursue a college or university degree and/or graduate degrees. (3) Classism is classism, regardless of the perspective from which it comes, so looking down on those with university degrees is no better than looking down on those without them. (4) I find it really silly and sad that I need to say anything about this.

Let me tell you: I admire experts. I admire experts in auto mechanics, in plumbing, in electricity, in heating and cooling, in dental hygiene, in hair cutting and styling, in construction, in carpentry, and in many other fields. I appreciate and accept the expertise of people who know more than I do about important necessary things (and in many of these cases, if they know anything at all, they know more than I do).

Can I insist on living my life without taking the expertise of such professionals into account? Sure I can. But I’d be foolish to do so. Someone who has been trained to fix that thingamajig under my car’s hood knows more about it than I do. If our house’s air conditioning system goes out this summer, I’m calling the experts at Rooks Brothers Heating & Cooling (full disclosure: we’re kin, but they’re good). The fact is that my ignorance is not as legitimate as their expertise.

My point is that disdain for expertise is misplaced, and disregarding expertise is dangerous. We should take medical professionals and other scientists seriously, because the fact is that they know more than non-professionals and non-scientists know.

I don’t know where the willingness of some people to think they know more than the experts do about science and medicine in general, and about viruses and pandemics in particular, comes from. Maybe they’re influenced by the eagerness of some in high office—included the one in the highest office in the land—to dismiss and ignore the advice of experts, and even to attack the experts themselves. They do so for political reasons. Maybe some of us do too.

If you ignore and denigrate science, whatever reasons you have for doing so aren’t good enough to put yourself and others at risk.

Fifty > Forty

I’m a words guy. Math isn’t my strong suit, despite the best efforts of Mrs. Pitts, Mrs. Fambro, Mrs. Heinz, Mr. Myles, Mrs. Easton, and Mrs. Byars. Lord knows they tried.

(Full disclosure: my math grades were fine. Math just didn’t become part of the fabric of my being as reading and writing did.)

But even with my limited mathematical prowess, I know that fifty is greater than forty. (Feel free to check my math, but I’m pretty confident about this.)

I bring this up because we have just exited the season of Lent, which lasts forty days, and have entered the season of Easter, which lasts fifty days. The Easter season begins on Easter Sunday and ends fifty days later on Pentecost (which means “Fiftieth”) Sunday. So after mourning our mortality and repenting of our sins for forty days, we celebrate resurrection and new life for fifty days.

Fifty is greater than forty.

This simple math speaks great truth.

We have much to mourn. We always do, but these days, we have the additional losses of life due to COVID-19. It is particularly sad to me that so many people are dying without the presence of loved ones, who must stay away because of the virus. If we weren’t already aware of our mortality, surely we are now (despite the fact that some people seem to think they’re immune to the risk and live in arrogant ways that put themselves and others in danger).

We have much to repent of. Some folks are quick to say that the pandemic is God’s judgment on a world that rejects God. I’m not willing to jump on that bandwagon. But I do think we should be learning some lessons and repenting of our sins. We should repent of the ways we treat and mistreat one another. We should repent of the precarious position we are too willing to let the most vulnerable among us occupy. For example: people that some of us don’t think deserve $15 an hour are risking their lives to do their essential minimum wage jobs. We also should repent of our unfortunate practices of prioritizing political loyalty over embracing the truth and of cheering falsehood while ignoring facts.

We need to keep thinking about and working on our mourning and repenting, even though this year’s Lent observance is over.

But now it’s the Easter season. We are in the season of resurrection, of life, and of hope. Fifty is greater than forty. Easter is greater than Lent.

Jesus’ resurrection means that none of the realities that threaten and frighten us—sickness, pain, sorrow, suffering, and death—have the last word. It means that other, greater realities—wholeness, joy, and life—do have the last word.

I have little patience with pious platitudes, trite tropes, and clever clichés (and also with abounding alliteration). I’m talking about sayings such as, “I fear no virus, because I trust in the Lord.” The problem with such sayings is that they don’t tell enough truth (at least they don’t in my case, and if you’re honest with yourself, they probably don’t in yours). Yes, I trust in the Lord. But this virus still scares me, not so much because of what it can do to me, but rather because of what it can do to my loved ones and to the most vulnerable in society.

When I hear someone speak a pious platitude, I tend to hear them saying, “Everything’s going to be all right someday, so I don’t really need to do anything about what’s happening today.” Now, I affirm and proclaim that, because of Jesus’ resurrection, everything is indeed going to be all right someday.

But resurrection also affects the ways we live today. Living in light of Jesus’ resurrection should mean that we will do everything we can to bring about life in the midst of death and hope in the midst of despair.

The New Testament teaches that when Jesus returns, those who have died in him will be raised to new life in him. It also teaches that the power of Jesus’ resurrection brings new life to us here and now.

When Jesus returns, everything will be one hundred percent good. Life will be everlasting. Death will be no more.

We can’t make the complete victory of life over death happen before its time. But I believe that if Christians will live in light of Jesus’ resurrection, life can eke out a slim victory over death even here, even now.

But it won’t if we don’t try.

Snake Handlers and Poison Drinkers

Modern Bible translations note that the Gospel of Mark probably originally ended at 16:8. Manuscript evidence indicates that the material found in Mark 16:9-20 was probably added a few decades after the Gospel was produced. Most of what’s in those verses is found in the other Gospels.

But Mark 16:18 has something that none of the other Gospels have. It says of believers in Jesus, “They will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them.” Some of us might be glad to know that verse isn’t part of the original Gospel. We might say, “Well, that’s not really part of the Bible, so I can ignore it.”

I wouldn’t go that far. After all, it is printed in our Bibles, even with the explanatory notes that imply that maybe it shouldn’t be, so we have to deal with it.

But I will go this far: Christians who intentionally handle poisonous snakes or intentionally drink poison, daring God to protect them, are misguided.

It’s one thing to trust in God through thick and thin, come hell or high water, in times of plenty or times of want.

It’s another thing entirely to assume that God will protect you no matter how foolish you choose to be. It’s another thing entirely to dare God to protect you. It’s another thing entirely to act as if God didn’t give you a brain and the good sense that should come with it.

There’s a difference between trusting in God and presuming upon God.

This is why churches that keep meeting during the COVID-19 crisis are doing wrong. Their pastors and members can claim to trust in God all they want. They can claim that their continuing to meet during this pandemic demonstrates their faith and courage. But they are in fact presuming upon God’s care. Non-essential businesses that stay open in the belief that God will protect their workers and customers are being presumptuous too. They are putting God to the test, which indicates a self-centered and thus inadequate view of faith.

Jesus himself gives us the example we need. We read about it in Matthew 4:

Then the devil took [Jesus] to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (vv. 5-7).

Would God have protected Jesus if he had jumped off the temple? Maybe. But even if Jesus knew that God would protect him, he also knew that he shouldn’t try to make God prove it. We can’t know what Jesus knew, but we can know that we shouldn’t put God to the test either.

Besides, there’s this business of loving one another. We’re supposed to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. If we insist on continuing to participate in large gatherings, even with a faith community, we are putting other people at risk.

A meme that’s been going around on social media helps make the point. It shows someone sitting with his feet dangling off the edge of a very high cliff. At the bottom of the image are these words: “When we have nothing left but God, we discover that God is enough.”

Amen to that.

Then it continues: “But we still shouldn’t sit on cliffs. That’s just dumb.”

Amen to that too.

The Cross and COVID-19

(A reflection on Matthew 27:37-54. This post appeared originally at Coracle, the blog of Next Sunday Resources.)

When the devil tested Jesus in the wilderness, he introduced two of his three challenges with, “If you are the Son of God” (Mt 4:3, 6). In refusing the devil’s challenges, Jesus declined to prove his identity on the devil’s terms. To do so would have been to abandon the mission he had as the Son of God. To do so would have been to deny his identity as the Son of God. To do so would have been to claim the victory without going through the battle.

That was at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Now he is at its end.

Now Jesus hangs on the cross. He is dying. Now it isn’t the devil challenging him, but people. Passersby use the same words the devil used as they challenge Jesus to prove his identity: “If you are the Son of God.” He can prove it, they say, if he will “come down from the cross” (v. 40). Some of the religious leaders say a similar thing: “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, ‘I am God’s Son’” (v. 43).

But Jesus doesn’t come down from the cross. He doesn’t because to do so would be to abandon the mission he has as the Son of God. To do so would be to deny his identity as the Son of God. Ironically, he proves he is the Son of God by staying on the cross. He proves he is the Son of God by dying.

Jesus was (and is) the Son of God. Would Jesus have still been the Son of God had he come down from the cross? Yes, but he would not have been the Son of God he was supposed to be. He would not have done what the Son of God was supposed to do. To be who he was as the Son of God, Jesus had to stay on the cross.

I think a lot these days—all days, really—about what it means to follow Jesus. When we trust in Jesus as our Savior, we commit to following him. We become Jesus’ sisters and brothers. We become children of God.

Whether we realize it or not, we are also challenged with the words “If you are a child of God…” We are constantly tempted to prove we are God’s children by thinking and acting in ways that run counter to what it means to be God’s children.

Jesus was (and is) the Son of God. He proved his identity by entering into our suffering and thereby overcoming it. We benefit from his death on the cross. As his sisters and brothers, as his followers, as his fellow children of God, we also participate in his death on the cross.

During these days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are called to live as children of God. We are called to enter into the world’s suffering so as to contribute to its redemption. Some pastors and Christians hear the world’s (and maybe the devil’s) taunts: “If you are the children of God, keep having public gatherings to prove that God will protect you from the virus.” Here’s one of many problems with that kind of thinking and living: it isn’t redemptive. It doesn’t help deal with the problem of the virus.

Jesus couldn’t come down from the cross because to do so wouldn’t have been redemptive. It wouldn’t have contributed to the defeat of sin and death. It would have ignored, avoided, and perpetuated the problem. Jesus defeated death by entering into it and thereby destroying it from the inside out.

If we could contribute to stopping the virus by gathering to worship, that would be the appropriate thing to do. But we can’t. If we insist on gathering, we contribute to COVID-19’s spread, not to its curtailment.

We can’t help stop the virus by getting sick ourselves and thereby joining our lives to those who are suffering with the disease.

We can only contribute to stopping the virus by joining in what the world is going through by staying at home.

Jesus defeated death by dying on the cross. We’ll help defeat COVID-19 by dying to arrogance, to ignorance, and to presumption. We’ll help defeat it by living in humility, knowledge, and trust.

Jesus saved us from sin, judgment, and death by staying on the cross. That’s how he showed that he was (and is) God’s Son.

We can help save people from sickness and death by staying home. That’s how we can show that we are God’s children and Jesus’ sisters and brothers.

A Prayer for Use in On-Line Worship During the COVID-19 Crisis

O God,

We know you see us wherever we are. We know you are with us wherever we are. We know you love us wherever we are.

Today, many of us are in our homes, doing what we can to protect ourselves and others from the COVID-19 illness caused by the coronavirus. Some of us are at work, doing all we can to make sure people have life’s necessities during this challenging time. Others of us are serving in our roles as medical professionals, testing people with symptoms and tending to those who have COVID-19 or other illnesses.

Thank you for the opportunities we have to serve each other, both those we know and those we don’t know, during this time, whether we help by doing something or by doing nothing. Use our active and passive contributions to stem the tide of this illness.

In these difficult days, give our leaders wisdom to lead us in the right ways. Give our scientists wisdom to develop an effective vaccine and to identity effective treatments for the disease. Give our doctors and nurses wisdom to know how best to help those in their care. Give our ministers wisdom to strengthen our spirits, to encourage us to think of others, and to guide our churches to make sound decisions. Give all of us wisdom to follow the advice of experts who are trying to teach us how to protect ourselves and others.

Protect those whose necessary service puts them at risk. Protect those who are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus. Protect us all.

O God, we need protection from threats other than the virus. Please protect us from excessive fear, from selfishness, and from apathy. Protect us from ways of thinking, talking, and acting that indicate racism, classism, or other sinful assumptions and perspectives.

Fill us to overflowing with your love, your grace, your mercy, and your peace, so that they pour out of us and on to others.

O God, we are not together today. And yet we are together. We are together because your love, your Spirit, and our fellowship bind us even we are apart. We are together in you.

As your scattered yet united people, we praise your name, ask for your help, and seek your will.

In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord we pray,

Amen.

Repentance

Many Christians observe the forty days (not counting Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday as the season of Lent. The name “Lent” comes from an old word meaning “to lengthen,” and, since the days get longer in the spring, it came to name that season. Lent is a season of repentance that is often accompanied by fasting.

It being that time of year, I’ve been thinking about what I need to repent of. (Some of you will say that I need to repent of ending that sentence with a preposition. I’m sorry, but “about that of which I need to repent” is too highfalutin for my taste.)

Let’s set my grammatical sins aside and move on to what I really do need to repent of. To repent means to turn away from something, but it also means to turn toward something else. So I’ll also mention the positive changes I need to make.

I need to repent of self-centeredness. I need to stop thinking of myself as much as I do. I need to stop putting myself first in my list of concerns. I need to turn toward empathy. I need to try to put myself in others’ place so I can attempt to see life from their perspective. I recognize that I neither can nor should stop thinking about myself. I also recognize that I can’t really see things as others do. But I can try. I can do better.

I need to repent of dullness. I’m not talking about my personality. I’m talking about my mental laziness. Oh, I spend most of my waking hours editing, reading, and writing, so my brain stays active. But I’m too limited in what I deem possible. I need to turn toward imagination. I need to open my thinking up to ways I’ve never thought before and to possibilities I’ve never considered. I recognize that I can’t think about everything. I realize that my imagination has its limits. But I can do better at pushing toward them.

I need to repent of despair. Too often I look at the way things are and I throw up my mental hands and say, “What’s the use?” Sometimes I let myself think that if people really want to go down the road toward destruction, let them. I need to turn toward hope. I need to believe that change is possible. I need to keep working toward a better world. I know that sometimes I’ll get discouraged, but I also know that I—that we—can’t give up and can’t stop trying.

I need to repent of assumption. I’m guilty of assuming that I’m right, which means that I’m guilty of assuming that other people are wrong. I need to turn toward humility. I need to stop and consider the very real possibility that I’m wrong. The problem is with my first thought. That is, I tend to automatically assume that my attitude, position, and opinion are correct. I need to analyze what I think and what others think about an issue, and then, taking all the evidence I can muster into account, make a decision. If I need to change my mind, so be it. If I was right to begin with, so be it.

Maybe you need to turn away from similar ways of thinking. Maybe you need to turn toward similar ways of thinking. Hopefully, if we will by God’s grace and by our best efforts move toward thinking in more gracious and loving ways, we’ll also move toward living in more gracious and loving ways.

This kind of living takes much energy and great effort. But it’s worth it.

Let Your Light Shine

Sometime in the fifth century BC, not too many years after Jewish exiles returned to Judah from Babylon and several hundred years before Jesus was born, a preacher delivered a message preserved for us in the fifty-eighth chapter of the biblical book of Isaiah.

The preacher told the people that when it came to worship, they were missing the point. As with all preachers in that day, this one believed so strongly that he was speaking for God, he could actually quote the Lord’s words. So he presents the following words as if God is speaking them about the people:

Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God (v. 2).

These words display some holy sarcasm. God says that the people act as if they want to know and do what God wants them to be and do, but they really don’t. They “worship,” God tells them, only for what they think they can get out of it. Their focus isn’t on God, but rather on themselves.

God particularly addresses their practice of fasting, which is the giving up of something (food, for example) for a period of time in order to become more aware of your dependence on God. Speaking through the prophet, God tells the people that their fasting is meaningless (as are their other worship practices, no doubt) because they keep on mistreating and oppressing people.

Then God says,

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin (vv. 6-7)?

The fast God wants, God says, is for God’s people to help the helpless, to lift up the downtrodden, and to liberate the oppressed. If the people would do that, God tells them, “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn…” (v. 8a).

Real worship focuses on God, not on ourselves. We truly worship when we worship in order to show our love for God, not in order to gain something for ourselves. And we truly worship when our love for God leads us to love other people, especially those whom life has beaten up and beaten down.

Put simply, if you go to the church, to the synagogue, or to the mosque, and then go out into the world to hate, oppress, misuse, abuse, manipulate, or take advantage of people, you aren’t worshiping.

The fifth-century preacher told the people that if they’d care for those whom the world disrespects and disregards, then their light would shine in the world’s darkness.

You may have one of those candles in a jar. As long as you leave the lid off the jar, the candle burns just fine. But put the lid back on the jar while the candle is burning, and the flame is immediately extinguished. That’s because oxygen fuels the fire, so without oxygen, the fire goes out and the light gives way to the darkness.

Love fuels our fire and keeps our light shining. If we give in to selfishness, hate, and cruelty, then we give way to the darkness. But if we keep loving in ways that lead us to serve, give, and share, then our light will keep burning brightly.

We overcome darkness with light. We overcome hate with love.