A Year of Pandemic: Lifted by Eagle’s Wings Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On February 7th, 2021 Scripture: Isaiah 40:21-31 Today our Hebrew scripture reading is from the book of Isaiah. The prophet writes to the people of Judah who are held captive in Babylon. Some 70 years earlier, Babylonian invaders had razed city and the Jerusalem temple to the ground. The invader took the people from Jerusalem and the surrounding area of Judah into exile. The former center of the Judahites’ religious and political life and the very residence of their God, had been destroyed. Now, the Jewish people have grown accustomed to life in Babylon. The elite members of the community have assimilated and made themselves new lives. But life has been harsh for the poor, servant class. They have been required to serve their foreign captors, without even the spiritual comfort of their home and their temple. Only the elders of the community remember the former grandeur of Jerusalem and the temple. For the children, Jerusalem is remembered only as a story of long ago. But now, Cyrus of Persia has taken over, and he has declared that the Israelites should be allowed to go home. This is what they have been dreaming of, all these years of exile. And, still, it seems that the people no longer have the energy to go. They have been exhausted by their years of grief. Over these past 70 years, they have buried their dead, birthed their young, and their youths have married in this strange new world. Could they ever truly return to Jerusalem? The long journey home and the arduous tasks of rebuilding the city and the temple seem insurmountable. And so, the prophet does not write words to reassure the returning exiles that their life back in Judah will be as before. He does not minimize their suffering in Babylon, or paint a rosy picture of what the journey back will look like. He does not deny that the restoration of the city and temple will require years of hard work. Instead he reminds them that God is their source of strength. The prophet creates an image of God as a mighty eagle, the largest, most powerful bird of prey. He helps the exiles to imagine God lifting them on mighty wings. Even as they are exhausted and weary, God will renew their strength, bringing them home to Jerusalem to live into the future that God imagines for them. They are to reconstruct and rebuild, creating a new community. They are standing at the threshold of an entirely new era for their people. This past summer I took some time for continuing education with the Hebrew Seniorlife organization. The Spiritual Care department was offering a program in Pandemic and Tele-chaplaincy, I didn’t want to miss this unique opportunity. At the beginning of the program, the other students and I were provided with a very useful model: the emotional lifecycle of a disaster. [1] This is a graph of the ranges emotions experienced as a community works through a disaster. This lifecycle can be applied to many community disasters, such as storms and hurricanes, mass shootings, events like those of September 11th, 2001, to name a few. The cycle tracks emotions beginning before the event, possibly with warnings and threat. Those emotions begin to move from neutral gradually downward until the point of impact. Do you remember around this time last year, when we knew that the novel coronavirus was spreading through China and some European countries? Our hearts were sinking as we realized that there was no escape from this pandemic and that the virus was already on our shores and in our communities. In the disaster lifecycle, emotions track downward until the point of impact hits, when there is a rapid boost of emotional energy. This is known as the heroic phase of the lifecycle, peaking in what is known as “community cohesion.” First responders rush to help. Healthcare providers work overtime, and back to back shifts, running to greet the gurneys of the victims arriving at the hospital. Community groups like churches respond to the need for emergency food and housing. Community members donate money, food and clothing. But, of course, human beings have a limited ability to remain emotionally “on call” in this way. This heroic phase can only last so long. Do you remember the pictures we have seen, over this past year, of exhausted nurses, doctors, hospital employees, and even morticians on constant call to the hospital? Under “normal” circumstances, if a disaster could ever be described as normal, energy subsides after impact. The next phase is known as disillusionment. In this phase the responders take stock and realize that if things had been different they would not have been required to sacrifice so much. And so, last year some healthcare providers were angry over the lack of PPE available to them. They were overwhelmed the great onslaught of victims, that may have been avoided by better planning. They were tired of being called “heroes” as if that was an excuse for expecting far too much of them. The disillusionment phase of the disaster is the time for grieving. The lowering of emotional energy is interrupted by a few trigger events, until the disaster anniversary comes around with its own reactions. In this phase there are memorial services, times of reflection, discussions on how to handle things better in the future. Churches and places of worship play a major role in this phase, as we facilitate grieving and reflection. The emotional energy gradually rises as the community enters a time of reconstruction, working through grief with some setbacks. I don’t need to tell you that the COVID-19 pandemic has not followed the typical lifecycle. There have been many numerous occasions when the impact has repeated, with new surges of infections and new quarantine restrictions. Some community leaders say that we will have a time of memorial when the pandemic it is over. But, religious and spiritual care providers recognize that there will be no clear end for some time. We need to reflect and acknowledge our grief now, especially at the one year mark. Healthcare providers, first responders, even funeral directors are exhausted. And we are weary … weary of being apart, weary of taking precautions, weary of thinking about sickness every day. And we are exhausted by the other challenges of life that are still going on in the midst of all this. We do have the hope of the vaccinations, of course. The roll out has been a little rocky, but we hope it is getting on track. We have the hope of lowering infection levels. Still, our hopes are often tempered by new concerns such as variants of the virus arising from different places in the world. And so, we long to be rid of this disaster, we hope for post-pandemic world. We imagine a return to the “good old days” pre-COVID. And, perhaps, there are children, even now, who do not recall what life was like before the pandemic. We elders will need to tell stories of those times before. The pandemic has impacted our economy, our work lives, our schools, sports, travel, leisure and cultural activities. Will these things return to “normal” automatically when it is all over? And what about us? How will this experience change us? Where will we draw our strength to reconstruct our church and our community? As we hope to transition out of the pandemic, do we have opportunities to rebuild our religious and communal life better? Do we have opportunities to address questions of inequality, inclusiveness, and stewardship of the environment? The phases of the disaster lifecycle I shared with you today have been observed, time and again in disasters that have played out in history. It is interesting that the final phase, “reconstruction”, is mirrored by something in our reading from the book of Isaiah this morning. The exiles will return to Jerusalem and begin what was known as a period of reconstruction. The will rebuild the city and the temple. This will be a new era: the second temple period. The Jewish diaspora has begun. Various sects will form, including the Pharisees, who are foundational for Rabbinical Judaism. This group will allow Judaism to move from temple ritual, to religious practices in the home and synagogue. And, of course, Jesus of Nazareth will be born toward this era. Early Christianity, began as another Jewish sect that was birthed in the second temple era. It’s hard to imagine that the exhausted, weary exiles from Babylon would be able to even think about this new era in their relationship with God. They have an arduous four month journey of 900 miles back to Judah, just to start with. It’s doubtful they would have any idea what the new city, and the new religious-political structure, and the new temple will look like. For now, they do not need to know. They simply need to wait, or trust, in God, who will give them the strength they need to do the task. And likewise, we who are weary, from this pandemic, and have a hard time imagining life: work, school, sport, travel, even church, in a post-pandemic world. And here at Wollaston Congregational Church, as we discussed during Annual Meeting last week, we are making plans to do something different in our church and with our building. We know that this must coincide with the needs of the community for the years to come. Our imagination may fail us, as we journey to get on track with whatever our communal life will look like then. But we are reminded, that we do not need to look to our own strength, or our limited human vision. Because God will raise us up on God’s eagle wings. We might even run, and not grow weary, and walk and not faint toward the future God imagines for us. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] https://www.edusc.org/blog/the-emotional-lifecycle-of-a-disaster/
2 Comments
Marge
2/9/2021 09:34:08 am
Enjoyed reading the sermon today. I had some vertigo when I got up. Doing better. Nice not to.miss your wotds. Have a good week.
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Rev. Liz
2/9/2021 11:49:01 am
Thank you, Marge. I'm sorry to hear you were not feeling well, but glad to know that you are doing better.
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