Every Knee, Every Heart

When I went to the church last Saturday, I took my mask with me. Chris laughed, since clearly I was going to be the only one there on Saturday afternoon. “You never know,” I responded. “This way, I’ll have it.” As it turned out, the fire alarm was blaring as I entered the building, which required a call to the alarm company, and a technician coming out, and a call to the sprinkler company and another technician coming out. All is fine. The point of my story is that the two technicians who came were not wearing masks, but I had my mask. And I was faced with the decision of whether to wear my mask or not. I didn’t want to seem rude and put it on when they weren’t wearing one. I didn’t want to get sick. I felt sure I wasn’t sick, since I haven’t seen anyone but family for weeks, but I would never want to make someone sick. As I’ve reflected on that simple, yet socially complicated choice, I am aware of the level of disruption we are experiencing.

We face so many decisions, we have so many questions, and many answers are not clear. We know the importance of avoiding the highly contagious novel coronavirus. We also know the dependence of most of the world on their next paycheck to feed themselves and their children. What is the right timing for reopening? What is the moral thing to do? What is the greater good?

Perhaps the hardest thing is not just that we don’t have answers and politicians don’t have answers, but that researchers and doctors don’t have answers either. We have models. We have predictions. We have fears – much like the Christians living in Philippi to whom Paul wrote.

First Century life was filled with unknowns, and dangers, disease, famine, and fears, too. Paul is writing from prison to the Philippians, who are facing persecution for their faith. And as long as they remain faithful, they are conspicuous because of their refusal to worship the Roman emperor or to participate in the worship of gods and goddesses in an effort to improve their afterlife.

Paul says, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” The literal translation shows that Paul understands being Christian as an alternative citizenship. He writes, “Whatever happens, live out your citizenship in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Paul is saying that your ultimate identity is that you are a worshiper of the One True God. You are God’s creation, and you exist to bring glory to God. Everything else in your life flows from that…

This time of pandemic and the disruption it has caused in our lives offers us an opportunity to reflect on the idols we have been worshiping. Protestant reformer and theologian, John Calvin encapsulated our propensity to claim other citizenships this way, the human heart, he said, is a ‘factory of idols.’ What have the idols in our hearts been? Success, security, family, nationalism, for doctors and healthcare workers the power to heal, …anything that claims God’s place in your heart and mind is an idol. And now, in this time of disruption, our idols are being revealed as perhaps good, but certainly not God, giving us the opportunity to claim our identity as worshipers of the One True God and reorder our lives so that everything else flows from it.

In the midst of all the ambiguity about when to open and how much to open and safety protocols, I find myself pausing when I feel my anxiety rising and practicing the ancient prayer practice of breath prayer. Breath prayers are prayers offered to the rhythm of deep breaths. One of my Lenten disciplines was to pray a breath prayer every time I thought of one of the things I had given up for Lent, the breath prayer was this, to pray as I inhaled, “Remember who you are” and to pray as I exhaled, “and whose you are.” I had no idea that this prayer would be so meaningful and helpful to me in these weeks of sheltering at home, but as I pray “Remember who you are, and whose you are” I am released from worry about things I cannot control. I am God’s creation, God’s child, and I belong to God, who is almighty, all powerful, all loving. And I am reassured and challenged at the same time to allow God’s will to be done on earth through me because the very reason for my creation is to bring glory to God. The very reason I have a heart is for it to be transformed. The very reason I have a will is to be able to lay it aside and take up God’s Will.

Paul says his joy will be complete if the church in Philippi is like-minded, with one love, one spirit, one purpose, and the mind, the love, the spirit, the purpose is Christ’s. We bring glory to God when we stand together with Christ at our center. The Body of Christ at work in the world today is believers united by the Holy Spirit working in and through them. The life of a disciple is life in community.

We need each other, and it is hard as we are not able to gather together in person. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus drew away to pray, he asked Peter, James, and John to remain close by and keep watch. Even in our misery, perhaps especially in our hardest moments, we need one another. Who are your Peter, James, and John? Who are the people who you want with you in your most challenging times? Who encourages you, just by their presence with you? Call them this week. Placing Christ at the center of our lives requires us to be intentional about being in community.

For some of us, during this time of sheltering at home, we have had a lot of community with the people who share our house. Let’s be honest, it’s not always easy to live in unity even within our family. In our house, Chris saw a joking suggestion just as the shelter at home was starting that you “hire” a “co-worker” and you blame abandoned coffee cups, messy work space, anything that is irritating, on that imaginary co-worker. Well, we did it, and our “co-worker” has been fired and replaced several times over the last several weeks; and it has let us laugh at ourselves and adjust our irritating behaviors to working together at home. It is human nature to want to place blame, to put self-interest first, to see ourselves as better, or less flawed. It is the way of Christ to lay down the “right” to blame, to put others first, in humility to consider others better than ourselves.

Jesus did not hold onto his equality with God. Instead, he humbled himself to the point of being human, and became obedient to the point of death – by capital punishment designed to warn and control would-be criminals by its public display and its painful, slow leaching of life. He rose from the deepest of depths to the highest place, exalted above all.

And so, even in the midst of so much change and unknown, we breathe deeply. Who am I, whose am I? Who are you? We are sinners, for whom Jesus died; God’s unique, unrepeatable creations, miracles, and so loved that he humbled himself for you and for me. Whose are you? In life and in death, we belong to God, and the very reason for our being is to bring glory to God. We are called to make choices that are for the good of others over ourselves. We are to live with transformed hearts in such a way that others’ hearts are transformed. To the end that at the name of Jesus EVERY knee shall bow.

Our daily lives present us with many questions. Some are simple to answer, “Should I wear a mask?” “Yes.” Others require us to admit our human frailty – we are not God and we don’t have all the answers . Whatever decisions we face, may the attitude of Jesus guide us in making them, so that God’s will is done in the world through us. So that hearts are transformed until every heart is transformed, and at the name of Jesus every knee bows.