Entombed

A popular technique for beckoning a person to enter into a Gospel story is to invite him or her to pick a character with whom s/he identifies.  For example: in the parable of the Prodigal Son, am I the younger son, or perhaps the older son?  Or in last week's Gospel reading of the Man Born Blind, am I the cured man, or the man's parents?

It's a bit disquieting that, in this time of COVID-19, we may find ourselves identifying with Lazarus.

We're living in a time of imposition.  Civil authorities are imposing restrictions upon us which curtail our accustomed freedom.  Some have compared it to the blackout drills during World War II, when all of us would have been expected to turn out all outside lights and cover all windows, so that entire neighborhoods and towns might be invisible to enemy bombers flying overhead.  Civil defense organizations enlisted volunteer air-raid wardens who patrolled neighborhoods during the blackout drills to ensure nobody was cheating.  Others have compared the stay-at-home restrictions to minimum-security imprisonment - albeit imprisonment with cell phone and broadband service, and unlimited grocery shopping and walks around the neighborhood.  Still, our freedom is restricted, and in many cases jobs have been lost, and many outside amusements and non-essential activities have been eliminated.  I'm already badly in need of a haircut.  My family may need to resort to cutting one another's hair.

Today's Gospel reading proposes yet another, and more disturbing, metaphor for these civil restrictions: that of entombment.  We wait in our houses like Lazarus waited in the tomb for someone to rescue him.  One friend joked that our governor, in apparent defiance of Jesus himself, would have cried out, "Lazarus, stay inside!"

In some ways, the stay-at-home-all-day-every-day regime isn't much of a change for me.  I had worked from home full-time for a number of years before anyone had heard of the word "coronavirus", so the stay-at-home order hasn't had a huge impact on my day-to-day routine.  But in other ways it's been difficult.  I am an energetic extrovert, so after working at home, I like to get out of the house, be with people, see things and do things.  I'd spend at least one evening every week, and big chunks of the weekends, at the parish, and nearly all of that is shut down now, as is our nightlife, which was just starting to bud after a quarter-century or so of child-rearing.  So I'm chafing for someone to roll the stone away so we can return to normalcy.

What is worse is that we can't do anything to fix this.  We Americans not only prize our liberty, we are ready to defend it.  But if, as many civil leaders have proclaimed, this is war, it's a war that most of us can't fight.  It's an invader we can't repulse.  All we can do is wait and watch.   And as we we wait and watch, the infection rate and the death toll climbs by the day.  And apparently there is nothing I can do to stop it.  If it was possible to shoot it, I'd beg someone to give me a gun.  Or let me drive an ambulance, or something.  But apparently there is nothing to be done except stay inside.

And yet, there may be a spiritual path forward.  I've referred a couple of times recently to something that pundit Kevin Williamson wrote when it became apparent that we'd all be spending a lot of time indoors.  There is wisdom in it.  This is what he said:

If Americans are, as I hope they are, turning to prayer in these anxious times, then they will be obliged to do so as the earliest apostles did, in their homes and in small groups. Thomas Merton argued that the monastery is not a retreat from the world but the very center of it, the place where truth is encountered and where real life is lived genuinely. If we are to have retreats necessitated by public hygiene, we might enter into those retreats with something of Merton’s spirit. We are not running away from anything but toward something. Stocking up on canned soup and Lysol is not the only preparation that is needful.

If we are to be entombed for some time, can we lean into it, as Williamson suggests?   Can our metaphorical houses of the dead become real houses of prayer?  While it's true that we can find God in the church and in our neighbor, we may also find him in the quiet of our rooms, kneeling beside our beds.  We may find that, even though the walls of our homes may be the stone that keeps us in, it can't keep God out.

It is a Christian paradox that the way to Easter Sunday runs through Good Friday.  "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." [Mt 16:24].  The teacher then continues, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."  Our governors are asking us to lose big chunks of our daily lives, perhaps not directly for Jesus's sake, but for reasons which Jesus surely would approve of: to preserve the health and even save the lives of others, especially those who are poor, elderly or otherwise vulnerable.  Even if we aren't asked to embrace this piece of death for Jesus' sake, let's embrace it nonetheless for him, as citizens of his kingdom.

In following our governors' directives, in rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's, let us also render to God what is God's.  Of course, all of us, all of our beings, belong to God.  God's Son rendered his life for us.  In the present health crisis most of us are not asked to give that much, but let us give at least what is being asked of us.  I am confident that the stone which seemingly is locking us inside can become a portal to the fullness of life.