I work in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, which currently is home to nearly half of the state's cases of the coronavirus. As I drove home from work a couple days ago, my wife called me from Target. "The shelves of the pharmacy area are picked clean" she reported. "There's nothing here!" Across the Philadelphia area, it was the same story, with store after store sold out of cleaning products, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, medications and other basics. Suddenly, COVID-19 wasn't the only virus in town. Fear was going viral as well.
Scarcity is a rare experience for us in America. We're used to having whatever we want waiting for us at a store just down the road or delivered to our doorstep courtesy of Amazon. But as I paged through my father's sermons looking for one that might speak to our new national obsession with panic buying, it didn't take me long to find these words that Dad wrote during the energy crisis of the 1970's:
"If scarcity is having an adverse effect upon people's attitudes and the way they live and think, then it is a spiritual problem. Our problem, of course, is that we tend to be concerned first of all about our own comfort and convenience. It's one thing to recognize that you are materially insecure; there's nothing sinful about that; that's just a simple determination of the facts. Sin - the spiritual problem - enters in as we begin to react to our insecure situation.
When we believe that the basics of life - such as energy, food or shelter - may become scarce, people tend to withdraw and become suspicious of one another. It's every man for himself. Effort that we once used when times were better for worthy causes or unselfish deeds is now expended on ourselves as we turn a nervous eye to our gas gauge or the price of bread. More and more, we are pulling away from involvement with a needy world, saying our own needs come first. This is what the Bible calls 'sin' - our basic inability to entrust ourselves and our well being to the God who made us and loves us and promises to take care of us.
But what is to be done if this is the natural human reaction to bad times? Don't we have to accept the fact that, at least for a while, people will have to set aside concern for others while they take care of themselves? No! As Christians, we cannot accept that. In fact, now more than ever we will be called upon to reach out and fill in the gaps left by those who are running scared for their own hides.
How can we be different from everyone else? How can we forget ourselves and continue to be compassionate and outreaching? The answer lies in having faith like the author of Psalm 16. Reading this psalm with an open heart will give you an escape into inner peace. But this escape is not 'escapist' in the sense that you run away from the facts of your bad situation in world. Rather, to read this psalm is to face other facts - facts of greater permanence, facts about God and God's staying power, good facts that outweigh the bad facts in your situation many times over.
Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing."
This is a song of trust. The Psalmist is quietly confident that God, and nothing else, is the source of life's highest satisfaction. There is only one way to live in the kind of world we have today and keep your balance. That is to truly let the Lord be your Lord. Everyday, we must rid ourselves of self-reliance and re-submit ourselves to God. When you look at the chaos of the world around you and you panic and say, 'How can I cope?' you have made the typical human blunder. Don't look to yourself. Look to God. Your strength to cope is with God.
I say of the holy people who are in the land,
"They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight."
Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I never cease to marvel at the contrast between the peace and joy of a true saint and the misery of the person who has chosen another god. A man's true god is not what he bows down to on Sunday morning but what he trusts in through the week. If the object of his trust is some material thing (like money) or some institution (like the government) how miserable he is in times like these when money and governments fail. He is hopeless and at sea, because what once gave him security is no more. But he who makes the Lord his God rests easy and remains unmoved through anything, because he believes God will provide him with everything he really needs.
Why are we nervous and frightened, short-tempered and withdrawn in these times of scarcity and crisis? Because our gods have failed us. Because what we really trusted in is either in short supply or has been shown to be flimsy. We have worshiped at the altars of two gods - money and government. And now that money is losing its value and government has been shown to have feet of clay, we are naturally nervous and afraid. The old animal instinct of self-preservation takes over. We withdraw and almost unconsciously decide that we will just take care of ourselves and our own. And so we justify ignoring the needs of others.
It's not really you and me who are hurt by scarcity. We may have to put forth more effort than usual, wait an hour in line, or spend more money than usual to get what we want, but we get it. Those who suffer are the poor and oppressed, those on fixed incomes, those who depend on our charity that we are now spending on ourselves. As we turn inward toward ourselves, we leave others out in the cold. And even then we are dissatisfied. We worry and fret that we don't have enough of this or that. Our anxieties grow, and we become tight, selfish, withdrawn and hostile people.
In our anxious situation, it seems almost absurd to listen to the words of Jesus as he sits on a mountainside teaching the multitudes: "Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on." You know, Jesus said that to people who had far less than you and me, and he meant it. All of us today live like kings compared to the poor rag-tag mass of suffering humanity that followed Jesus around. And yet Jesus really expected them, desperate as they were, to find a spiritual security that would relieve them of their material worries. My friends, if that peace was possible for them, it is certainly possible for us.
The key to this peace was summed up by Jesus in that same Sermon on the Mount when he said, "Seek first His kingdom, and all these things will be yours as well." It is the person who trusts his own well being to God and reaches out to help his neighbor who is given all he needs. Those who manage to live these days and remain unruffled are those who are so busy caring for others that they must rely on God alone for their own needs. The Christian response to scarcity is not to withdraw and hoard and look out for Number One. That is the pagan response, and we see enough of it all around us. The Christian response is to entrust ourselves, body and soul, to God ... and to reach out our hands to our neighbors, not counting the cost. Then we will sing with the Psalmist:
Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance. ...
I will keep my eyes on the Lord.
With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
From: "Scarcity - A Christian Response"
Scripture: Psalm 16; Matthew 6:22-35
Preached at: Grace United Methodist Church
Millersville, PA
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