Recently I was looking at the beautiful oak tree in the playground at church. I noticed that there were quite a few dead branches in the center portion of the tree. This is normal for a tree but it is often hidden by the luxurious leaves on the outside. Years can go by without noticing these dead branches. I brought a saw and started cutting some of these out the other day. There were more than I thought!
This pandemic has revealed some of the dead and dying branches in our society. These were all hidden by the seeming roaring economy we had just l6-8 weeks ago. Back then we had the lowest unemployment rate in decades, but almost 30% of American families had NO savings account! Almost 60% had $1,000 or less! The stock market was are historic highs but the U.S. government was running a trillion dollar deficit! We have the strongest military in the world that planned for all military contingencies but our health care system and government were not ready for a virus that has killed more people than we lost in the Viet Nam War and the casualties are still climbing. We lived in a celebrity culture that put rock stars and athletes on pedestal and valued stock brokers and bankers more than teachers, truck drivers, grocery store workers and farm workers but now we have come to see how essential these workers are.
Most of us are longing for a return to “normalcy” when we don’t have to be social distant, wear a mask, when we can go to restaurants again and weddings and graduations, etc. But maybe, with God’s help we can do better than a return to normal. Maybe we can take what we have learned in these last weeks and create a better stronger community.
When God helped the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt the Israelites found themselves free but in a desert wilderness with all the rigors that entails. They found themselves longing for their old lives, for the “fleshpots of Egypt” and “when they ate their fill of bread”. Their old way of life looked better than being free and heading to the Promised Land!
God had them wander around the wilderness for 40 years learning how to be a true community and depend on God. Then and only then did they get to enter the Promised Land. Hopefully we won’t be wandering 40 years in the wilderness of this pandemic but may God help us to learn the lessons of true community and may our faith in God deepen and may we keep before our eyes the vision of the Promised Land and not our old way of life. Amen.
