COVID-19, Lament, and the Message of Jesus
Recently I (virtually) shared a brief message with my local church reflecting on Psalm 42, that implored us to rethink or perhaps reframe our interpretive grid for making sense of COVID-19 and the disruption, uncertainty, and fear it has wrought on our lives. In the prayers and language of the Psalmist in Psalm 42 exists a spirituality of lament, living between the dialectic of trust and mystery, hope and acceptance; between knowing and trusting that God is good and realising that everything around you is not.
I had, for a while, been feeling uneasy about the response a lot of fellow believers reflecting on the tragedy of COVID-19 had been, which seemed to express an uneasy gratefulness and silver-linings-naïvete when in my own experience reflected a sense of bitterness, anger, and worry. (This, no doubt, most likely says more about me than anything else...) It’s all very well to think of this time as an ‘enforced Sabbath’ or a message from God for us to slow down and smell the poppies, but as N.T. Wright has written in his fantastic piece for Time magazine, “This is a stillness, not of rest, but of poised, anxious sorrow.”
I’d hoped that the message on Sunday would point to and provide a language for people to express any sense of pain, concern, or anxiety, finding a tension in proclaiming “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” But, in many ways, I felt like a similar response I’d already seen was vacantly administered; people instead felt pleased about the time they’d been able to spend at home with their families, sentimental in their view of what this will do for our country, and overall rather certain that this was a message from God to wake us from our complacency. It embodied in, to be perhaps needlessly candid, something I would have called ‘privileged suffering.’
Privileged suffering is the pithy lesson for westerners about the lack of control they actually have over their lives and the saccharine reminder that ‘life is precious.’ Only a few get to enjoy these lofty benefits of suffering; those suffering meaninglessly do not get the chance. Privileged suffering - of which I enjoy tremendously as I write sermons, articles, and essays from my comfort of my bedroom - is the disconcerting suggestion that thousands of people suffer in order for us to learn self-care lessons about taking walks in the neighbourhood, slowing down, and only drinking plunger coffee when your favourite café is closed (to retract slightly: I am upset about the coffee situation too). Let’s save the ‘meaning-making’ till much, much later.
“This is a stillness, not of rest, but of poised, anxious sorrow.” - N.T. Wright
This is harsh, I freely admit, but I am concerned. I am concerned that while we face the difficulties of adjusting work patterns, productivity habits, and day-to-day life, others across the world are suffering dearly. Most of all I’m concerned with how we think about and understand the message of Jesus in these times.
What is the message of Jesus in these times? How are we to respond amidst the great suffering of the world in conversation with our own positionality within it? What do we have in the way of offering hope, meaning, and a future? What answers can we give?
Let me provoke you (if I haven’t already): not much; at least, not much right now.
Not much to the sick family members who have to spend their days alone in isolation. Not much for the fearful trapped in places where they might not be able to get the help or protection they need. Not much for the child who lives in the dust and might not see the year through.
Because instead of offering easy answers, the message of Jesus offers hope through presence. Hope through the presence of his Spirit who is among us with the strange persistence we are granted through the pain. We offer hope in the consistent presence of being there for people, mourning alongside them, staring at the same patch carpet together (over Zoom) and not jumping to explain away their pain or remain blind to it from behind our own immunity.
We must take such care to apply the themes and realities of resurrection, hope, and victory when it comes to times of suffering and pain, especially when we are often in positions of significant privilege. The Apostle certainly may have been able to write, “O death, where is your victory?” yet in the Garden our Lord knew intimately what the dread and fear of defeat felt like; in the fullness of time certainly we shall be able to claim “O death, where is your sting?” while Christ himself this side of eternity felt its keen bite before the tomb of his friend Lazarus.
The point is this: the faithful response to times of pandemic and pain might not be to always look for the hidden meaning in it all but instead might be to simply, alongside the innumerous victims and families of this disease, cry out ‘Why God?’ even while knowing Christ has the last word, all and all.
Perhaps you are enjoying this time of isolation and disruption. Perhaps there are lessons to be had and little joys to be relished amidst our enforced, uneasy quiet. But we must take great care, both in how we talk about our hopes and experiences and in the ways we might unwillingly explain the suffering of others, and even of our Lord, away.
Wright again, “It is no part of the Christian vocation, then, to be able to explain what’s happening and why. In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain—and to lament instead. As the Spirit laments within us, so we become, even in our self-isolation, small shrines where the presence and healing love of God can dwell. And out of that there can emerge new possibilities, new acts of kindness, new scientific understanding, new hope.” So with that understanding of our present situation, come Holy Spirit, come.
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Andrew Clark-Howard is the current editor of Metanoia.