Coronavirus Pandemic Wednesday 15th April, 2020

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Joshua 3:1-17; Matthew 28:1-10

 

Wednesday 15 April - Rev. Jerry Eve

 

Today’s psalm is the same as it’s been for three days running, and the reason for this is that if we were to read a different psalm on each day of a three year cycle, and there are only 150 of them, then we would soon run out. There is, though, great virtue in reading the same one over and over, for these are poems in which it’s always possible to find something new each time.

 

Today, what’s jumped off the page for me has been the military context of Psalm 118. Verse 14 is a direct quotation taken from Moses’ song in Exodus 15:2 which he sings in triumph at the destruction by God of the Egyptian army, after the Israelites have safely managed to cross the Red Sea. And then there are ‘shouts of victory,’ and a reference to God’s ‘mighty power in battle.’

 

When we turn to Joshua and read the whole of chapter 3, the military plan that is outlined there is one of invasion. That there are seven peoples mentioned (the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites), and seven is Jewish code for complete, means that the take-over or occupation is intended to be wholesale. As an aside, I do like the name of the place where the River Jordan stopped flowing i.e. that it’s Adam (or a dam!). The first of many targets singled out by Joshua for destruction by the Israelites then becomes the walled city of Jericho.

 

There is, of course, a huge problem in terms of human rights and war crimes with this policy. Much of Scripture does use military metaphor. The times (maybe as all times are) were violent. Even our Gospel mentions ‘guards’. Coronavirus, though, serving to show us that the battles we ought to be fighting aren’t ones against each other at all, but against common enemies such as disease. For this, it seems to me, we don’t so much need alpha males such as Joshua clearly was, but leaders who leave their egos at home when they go to work – as Jesus counselled when he told us in Matthew 16:24:

 

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me. For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it.

 

Sorry if this is a bit too ‘preachy’. If I can finish, though, with Jesus’ words on that first Resurrection morning:

 

“Peace be with you,” and, “Do not be afraid.” (Matthew 28:9-10)

 

Let us pray:

 

God,

 

Lead me from death to life,
from falsehood to truth;
lead me from despair to hope,
from fear to trust;
lead me from hate to love,
from war to peace.
Let peace fill our heart,
our world, our universe,

 

Amen.

 

(World Peace Prayer, an adaptation of a mantra from the Hindu Upanishads by Satish Kumar)

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