Via Media Podcast, Episode #39 God, Liturgy, and the Coronavirus Ben Jefferies March 26, 2020 Announcer: The Institute of Anglican Studies at Beeson Divinity School welcomes you to Via Media, a podcast exploring the religious and theological worlds from an Anglican perspective. Here is your host Gerald McDermott. McDermott: Welcome to Via Media. This is a very special session or episode of Via Media because we�re in the midst of the time of the Coronavirus. So, the title today is �God, Liturgy, and the Coronavirus.� I have as my guest today, Father Ben Jeffries, who has been a guest at least twice on the Via Media. Father Jeffries is the Rector of an Anglican Church in Opelika, Alabama. He was on the prayer book committee that helped produce the 2019 ACNA prayer book. So, welcome back to Via Media, Father Ben. Jefferies: Thanks, Father Gerry. Thanks. Glad to be back. McDermott: Now, we�re going to have a conversation today, Father Ben and I, and in the first part he�s going to interview me and in the second part I�m going to interview him. He will interview me about dealing with epidemics like this in the history of the Jews and also in Christian thought. And I�m going to interview him about the liturgy. And we�re going to close together talking about staying sane and dealing with fear in this crisis of the coronavirus. Jefferies: Right. Professor McDermott, I know that your specialty is historical theology and certainly this is not the first time that God�s people have faced an epidemic or a scourge. What do you understand from the past, both Jewish and Christian history, and what ways have God�s people responded or interpreted epidemics? McDermott: Well, Father Ben, I thought I would start talking about wisdom from the Jews. Pesach Wolicky is an Orthodox rabbi in Israel who is a good friend of mine, and who sent me something recently; who wrote something, I believe it was posted at Jerusalem Post, in which he talked about Moses after the golden calf incident. He asks God to show to Moses God�s glory. God goes past him, as it were, I mean, the scripture says. This is in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 33. He doesn�t show him his glory face to face. But only after he�s passed by Moses he shows Moses his back, all Moses can see is his back. He can never see God�s glory directly. Rabbi Wolicky says what that means is that only after events can we interpret them properly, and we can�t always interpret them properly. Perhaps, we have to say �perhaps,� we have to say �maybe� this is what God had in mind. So, he reminds us of what God tells us in Isaiah 55, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. Jefferies: Such a good caution in the face of this sort of Chicken Little apocolypticists who want to say, well, this is because of that, or whatever, as people are sometimes doing. Especially in the internet age. McDermott: Precisely. So, the Rabbi says the Jewish tradition, which means the rabbi�s taught that in an epidemic, in a crisis, in a tragedy, and Jewish history is full of tragedies, the thing to do when wondering what is God doing, what is God saying to us, here, is to take the position of humility and not blame. To take seriously 2 Chronicles 7:14. Where God says, �if my people� ... and here, too, it was written in a time of crisis ... �if my people will humble themselves and turn from their wicked ways, I will forgive and heal their land.� So, this is a time when the land is stricken with calamity. Rabbi Wolicky says the point is, is we who are God�s people, Jews and Christians, we must humble ourselves and think about what ways of ours might be wicked and not point the finger in blame. Now, there�s another fascinating portion of ancient Jewish history and ancient Jewish teaching and practice that F M Radner has recently pointed the church to. That is Leviticus 25, the year of the jubilee. It teaches us the lesson that is so apropos to all of us who are in our homes right now because of the virus. The basic lesson is going home is a gift. Many of our listeners know about the year of jubilee. Once every 50 years. And it�s a time when God told the Jewish people, �return to your roots.� In Leviticus 25, God says to the Jewish people, on this every 50th year, �you should return to your property, return to your family, and in this year neither sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines, but this is a time when you are to go home and be with your families, and you shall fear your God, for I am Yahweh, your God.� This is a time when work ceases and sadly for much of the country many people are starting to lose their jobs. But it�s a time to turn to God. It�s a time to pray. It�s a time to give thanks. Isn�t it providential, Father Ben ... do you think ... that this virus has hit us during the season of Lent? Jefferies: Right. McDermott: When we are, especially, told by the Church, the historic Church, to turn back to God in a season of repentance, in a season of introspection, the right kind of introspection, looking for the things in our lives that are keeping us from coming closer to God. Jefferies: Yeah, those are really two fresh insights. In fact, the ones that the scriptures hold together, I think the passage in Isaiah where it says, in returning or in repentance and rest you shall find your strength. Those two things go together. Lent is a resting of the stomach, for instance, and to not be working so hard. I hadn�t thought about how those two things really interplay until you kind of connected them just then. McDermott: Yes, and then we can turn to the history of Christian thought. And look at four great minds in the history of Christian though: Augustine, Luther, Jonathan Edwards, and CS Lewis. First, Augustine. Now Augustine was writing �The City of God� after Rome had fallen in 410 and barbarians had swept through north Africa where he was and had tortured Christians, murdered Christians, and raped Christians. Horrible, horrible time. Augustine is reflecting and trying to answer the questions that many Christians were asking him, �Why would God allow this to his people? To Christians?� Augustine�s answers are answers that we probably would not give. They are answers that to us, in some ways, seem harsh or cruel, and yet when we compare them with scripture I think most of us have to concede that they�re profoundly biblical. Jefferies: I�ve never been brave enough to actually tackle �The City of God� myself, so I�m eager to hear what his answers were. McDermott: Well, this is all in Book One, it is right at the beginning of �The City of God.� He says that humiliation and suffering are medicines from God that God administers to his people to cure them of their pride. Now, for Augustine, pride is the epitome of sin, and the greatest of all sins. It is THE thing primarily that keeps us from God. Now, some of the Christians were asking, why would God permit the barbarians to murder young, beautiful, wonderful Christian teenagers, and Christians in their 20s? They could have had a whole life ahead of them. Or, they did have a whole life ahead of them of serving God and the Church. And Augustine says, well, it could be that God was preventing their future fall into sin, their future falls into pride, that would have cut them off from God. That�s not an answer that we would give, but that was Augustine�s answer. Now, he says, look, if we�re asking why did God permit this, these horrible murders and tortures and rapes � there�s no final answer we can give. We really don�t know. And, here, Augustine quoted that statement of Paul at the end of Romans 9, where Paul is deliberating upon God�s mysteries. Where Paul says, incomprehensible are God�s judgments. While Augustine was writing this, I mean, Christians were still facing terrible persecution and torture. He reminded the Christians, and we think of God�s people in this country, well, all around the world who are afraid of getting the coronavirus and asphyxiating, as apparently happens sometimes, if they can�t get a medical intubation. Augustine reminds them, God will always give us grace when we�re tried and tested. So, suffering, Augustine says, and that�s the main thing he says, is God sends to keep us from pride and also to wean us from this life, from loving this life too much, and not being willing to let go of it to return to him. Jefferies: That sounds like Augustine. McDermott: (laughs) Now, Luther, of course he was an Augustinian monk, and he was quite, quite familiar with Augustine. His evangelical breakthrough came largely because of his reading of Augustine. He wrote a treatise that is going all over the internet now. Jefferies: Yeah, I�ve seen that. McDermott: In a time of an epidemic, very much like ours today. And he was quite forthright. He said, look, this epidemic has come as a chastisement from God to test our faith and our love; our faith in Him, that is do we still trust that he is good even though this terrible epidemic? In his case it was the bubonic plague. Do we trust that God is so good? He is testing our love. Are we willing to help our neighbors who need our help even if it�s risky to our own health and our own lives? He said, the devil is filling us with fear. The way we deal with that is we mock the devil by going quickly to help our neighbor and overcoming our fear. That will show the devil who�s boss. Jefferies: (laughs) McDermott: He says to preachers, he says, now in the time of this epidemic, this is a time to preach to our people how to live and how to die. We need to prepare our people for death. I�m thinking about all these online sermons and online services that are being held all over the country today. He tells pastors in this time of the bubonic plague, teach in your sermons your people how to die. There�s two things they need to do to prepare themselves for death. Number one, they need to go to confession and confess their sins to a priest. Number two, try to get the sacrament once a week or once every fortnight, which means once every two weeks. That�s, very briefly, Luther. Jefferies: Certainly he�s plunging much deeper than the sort of simple truisms of ... which there is truth in them, but prayer over panic, it�s like, yeah, right, but let�s teach our people to be ready for death. I remember reading once this idea that ... the quote was that a priest stands already beyond execution. It was talking about theology, actually, in the shadow of Auschwitz. I think what�s true for the priest is true for the Christian, that actually the very worst case scenario with coronavirus to the Christian is actually nothing to be feared. The fact is our great hope is in the Savior who will redeem us from death. I love that, as always, Luther with the vigorous exhortation. I think that�s really solid. McDermott: Then there�s Jonathan Edwards, the great theologian of the 18th century. He�s called American�s theologian. He�s the theologian, strangely enough, who not only is known for his sermons on hell, but also for the fact that he did more with beauty than anyone else in the history of Christian thought. But Edwards taught the national covenant. Now, this was very common for Christians until the enlightenment, in the 20th century we�ve lost sight of it. This is the idea that God deals with whole nations, not just individuals. We have particularly lost, most of us Christians don�t think in these terms, we think just of how God deals with us as individuals. But for most of the history of Christianity Christians thought, as Jonathan Edwards did, about the national covenant. That God makes covenants with whole nations and God deals with whole nations as a nation. Both the righteous and the unrighteous, both believers and unbelievers, suffer together in the discipline, you might say, that God sends to whole nations. So, every time there is a catastrophe that comes upon a whole nation, like an epidemic, and he preached once during an epidemic that broke out east of Boston, in 1735, in a sermon entitled, �God is a Prayer Hearing God.� His basic message is that God answers prayer. But not always according to our wishes. He answers prayer according to his wisdom. He gives what�s best to us and oftentimes things that we don�t think are best, but God knows better than we do. Now, Edwards in terms of the national covenant, he said there are great sins against God that whole nations perpetrate. One of the greatest sins in scripture that comes up over and over again, and particularly in the Old Testament, is the shedding of innocent blood. You see that several times mentioned in the Psalms and in Proverbs. When I think of our nation, I mean, I�m not trying to interpret here the virus, but when 2 Chronicles 7:14 calls on the Church to repent of its sins, I mean, we have been complicit in the sexual revolution, which has involved the shedding of innocent blood, because of abortion. Abortion, as a means of birth control, so that we as a Church and we as a nation can use sex in all of the wrong ways. So, the shedding of innocent blood. We�ve been guilty of it as a nation. Our rebellion against created realities, particularly the marriage of a man and a woman. And I would say our churches ... you know, the western Church, how too much tolerant we have been of the persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world. My Jewish friends wonder why Christians don�t protest more the persecution of their fellow Christians around the world as Jews have always stood up to protest the persecution of fellow Jews in various parts of the world. So, these are things that I think, and Edwards would say today, that we Christians need to start to lament and start to repent of when we consider a calamity coming against our nation and now, indeed, the whole world. Jefferies: I completely agree that those things you named in our midst are really wicked and that because God is sovereign over the entire cosmos that every scourge that is permitted ultimately comes from his hand and is for our chastening. So, I�m with you there. How would we distinguish what you just described from the very thing Rabbi Wolicky was warning against, which is trying to sort of pointing... I see that they are different, but how would you kind of hedge in, sort of, the edges of when there�s sort of that safe speculation or sort of, like you said, that provocation for repentance versus pointing the finger? What makes the difference there? McDermott: Right. Good question, Father Ben. Here�s how I would answer it. We cannot say that�s why God is sending this pandemic. Jefferies: Right. McDermott: But what we can say is that scripture makes it very clear that in crises like these we, in the Church, need to repent of our sins and any participation we have, as a Church, in the sins of our nation. Jefferies: Yes, almost sort of like the corporate version of what is the pastoral exhortation to the sick in the Book of Common Prayer that you�re not sick because you sin, but while you�re sick you should examine your soul for sin to confess. It could be used for that. Sort of just broadening that out to a national self examination rather than pointing to a one to one correspondence. If that makes sense. McDermott: Yes. Finally, CS Lewis. He wrote this wonderful sermon on learning in the time of war. Jefferies: Oh, yeah, I love that. McDermott: His basic point, it seems to me, Father Ben, and you can please comment on what you got out of it, is that war, spiritually, is not really unusual. We think of it as this terrible unusual time. Of course it is terrible. But his point is that war simply rolls back the curtain from everyday reality. The everyday reality is that we�re always on the precipice about to fall off into eternity. We are always radically vulnerable to death. It�s a myth that we are healthy by our own strength. God holds us up over the abyss of eternity, simply by his thinking of us moment by moment. So, therefore, even in a time of war we should read good books, and listen to great music, and get involved in wonderful conversation with our friends, because there is a future if God lets us live another day. But at the same time, God might not let us live another day, and therefore we should be ready to be thrown off the cliff into the abyss of eternity, prepared for that entirely. Jefferies: Yeah, I feel like what a watershed sermon that was for CS Lewis. I know, for me personally ... in fact, I�m looking at it now. That quote, �war creates no absolutely new situation. It simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice,� just like you were unfolding. Yeah, I think absolutely the coronavirus pandemic doesn�t devalue sacred study and prayer and all the things which give �ordinary� life meaning, in fact, we see the need for it more acutely. McDermott: Father Ben, let�s turn now to the liturgy. Particularly, for Anglicans, but also for non Anglicans. We, Anglicans, just this week and last week, have been sent to our homes, as it were, without the sacraments. The bishops got together in the Anglican Church of North America and told us to stop holding worship and administering the sacraments on Sunday morning and during the week at our churches, and to go online. What do you think of this latest directive from our bishops, Father Ben? Jefferies: Yeah, it�s so painful, and I know the bishops knew that it would be painful to receive, as I�m sure it was painful to determine. But to be told that we shouldn�t gather as a Church. Now, on the one hand, they�ve been pastoring for decades and I�ve only been pastoring for less than I can count on two hands. So, I defer to their judgment and of course I think for all of us, second order, third, clergy, priest, and deacons � ours is to submit to that direction as trusting their wisdom and that God is guiding them, which I do willingly, but it is very painful to have to do. I think when some churches were just closing themselves voluntarily and I was considering it and praying about it, two things, three, stuck out in my mind when the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago closed the churches there. Chicago Tribune interviewed some Catholics who said, �We will drive as far as we have to receive the Eucharist on Sunday.� The laity who have been well catechized would rather, frankly, rather die, even from coronavirus, than to forgo participating in the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus. That spirit ... and I think about how the Russian Orthodox Church was asked, will you close? And their answer was, of course not. (laughs) I know different scenarios and different things, but it�s very painful. I think the only thing ... to add salt to the wound ... is how quickly the response has been to live stream, which I get it. We use Skype for all these things and we�re used to screens. But I don�t think there�s been serious enough thought, which I�d love to try and contribute maybe just very briefly to the fact that � and as the old saying goes, �The revolution cannot be televised.� (laughs) Liturgical worship in spirit and truth can�t really be done passively in front of a screen, which is technologically transporting you into a room that you�re not in. So, while I�m fine with broadcasting sermons, we do that at the church I serve, and the idea that liturgy can be live streamed seems to really miss the point of liturgy itself. The reason I�m an Anglican is because this is the one church that can�t be live streamed. As all the other mega churches have been doing for 20 years now. McDermott: Just for the sake of our audience, in one sentence, why can liturgy not be live streamed? Jefferies: Yeah, I haven�t figured out the one sentence answer to that, yet. McDermott: (laughs) Jefferies: It comes deep out of my heart from ... I think about the way Professor Read Schuchardt talks about worshiping an incarnate God in a discarnate age. And how everything about God saving us comes through incarnation and participation, and we used to be clear to add the adjective �virtual� participation when we talked about going through a screen, but we�ve kind of dropped that. People have mistaken Facebook realities for realities. I think that we live in our bodies ... let me just say, obviously worship must continue in the Church, even though the buildings are closed. But I�m encouraging people to pray with whoever is in their household; their spouses, their roommates, their kids. Where two or three are gathered, praying morning prayer, that is the Church worshipping in spirit and in truth in a much more profound and habit-forming way. I�m thinking about James Smith�s ideas that everything we do is habit-forming. Then sort of teleporting through a screen to watch someone else praying and kind of participating in my heart, you know, it�s so easy, it feels natural, but I think deep down there�s something wrong with it. I would encourage all pastors to reconsider sort of live streaming as sort of the first response to this prohibition from our bishops. Frankly, I�m praying every day that the Lord would guide our bishops to lift this prescription, as soon as they can. I don�t think it�s going to be when this disease is blown over. It doesn�t look like it�s going anywhere soon. And the thought of being without the gathered people of God ... that�s one other thing I want to touch on. Some bishops have made provision for sort of drop off consecrated sacrament, which I think is a pastoral response, but one of the things it�s shown me is that participation in the liturgy is more than the moment of receiving, it�s worshiping together. It�s hearing the word live read. It�s hearing the sermon. It�s so much more than just the moment of eating � even though that is of course when we receive the risen body and blood of the Lord. It�s so much more than that, too. Yeah, I mean, I�m speaking frantically because I�m just ... I�ve been in a tizzy about all of this. It�s so confusing. McDermott: Well, as long as we are at home, and that is the order we received from our bishops and we respect them, and we respect their wisdom, what liturgies can we use at home? Jefferies: Yeah, great question. The bread and butter is morning and evening prayer. That Cranmer�s adaptation of the Benedictine monastic prayer offices. That are built around the hearing of holy scripture, the recitation of the Psalms, and then prayers for the needs of self community and nation. Twice a day. That�s really the bread and butter. It can be done every day, including on Sundays. One of the things the Anglican Church has always turned to in times of distress is the Great Litany and Supplication. Where we invoke all the promises of God for all the needs of the world. And remembering that coronavirus is not the only problem in our midst. There�s other things, too. Even though it�s the most glaring and praying for all those things. Specifically, the supplication, which is at the end of the litany, the rubric directs that in times of great duress and anxiety. So, that�s a really special prayer. I kind of think about that, like the way doctors have antibiotics as a last resort. I think of the supplication as sort of our prayer of last resort, when things are really bad, pray the supplication. So, those are things in everybody�s prayer books that we can pull out to pray at the end of morning prayer, they two go hand in hand like two puzzle pieces connecting together. So, that�s really key. I know for families with kids, I�ve got three little kids, the family prayer offices resemble in shape the larger offices, and those can be prayed briefly and frequently. That�s sort of the catholic principle of prayer is short and frequent. It is of greater benefit to the soul�s health than trying to make long laborious prayers and then feeling guilty in avoiding them, et cetera. So, family prayer, if you�ve got kids, have them join you with that, too. McDermott: Excellent advice. How about non Anglicans who are listening to Via Media? Can they use these liturgies? Jefferies: Absolutely. Of course! In fact, I�m friends with a Baptist pastor here in town in which I serve, Opelika, Alabama, who he begins every morning, by himself, praying the Great Litany in his arm chair as he�s reading the scriptures. He prays the Great Litany because it�s such a marvelous tool for intercession, and he�s a Baptist. Yeah, these prayers are at-hand for anybody. It�s one of the things we see in moments of great focus or stress like funerals and things. No matter what denomination we have, there�s great strength and solace in turning to patterned words from our forebears in the faith. To grab a prayer book to grab a prayer off the internet from the prayer book, anyone can use these things, and they can really guide our prayers when our hearts don�t know how to pray � a set text is a way that the Spirit often uses to set free real petition and intercession. McDermott: We Anglicans believe that the texts that are in the Book of Common Prayer really go back to scripture and to the Early Church. I just want to always emphasize that. Jefferies: Absolutely. McDermott: The Great Litany, before we close, how can non Anglicans find this online, Father Ben? Jefferies: So, they could go to www.BCP2019.AnglicanChurch.net or just link to it right on the www.AnglicanChurch.net website. If you just search �Book of Common Prayer Great Litany� I�m sure you�ll have dozens and dozens of things pop up. The 1662 Prayer Book was mostly put forward in the 2019 Prayer Book. They�re all good. All the Great Litany�s are solid. McDermott: Well, last question that I�d like for the two of us to address, briefly. In this time when many people are afraid, parents at home with their kids all day for the first time are trying to stay sane. (laughs) How do we stay sane and deal with fear in this time of the virus? Jefferies: Yeah. I mean, most foundationally, regular prayer and listening to the scriptures, but the message that we so often hear in the scriptures is that God remains sovereign, and that actually even in the prophecies that prophecy the absolutely worst things, like I�m thinking about the balls of wrath in Revelation, and these things � are actually still setting limits to when God will, in his wrath remember mercy, and that it is all part of his oversight of the world, and like you said earlier, judgment of the nations. We know that these things will actually get worse and worse as we progress towards the Lord�s second coming. So, we can expect them not only to get worse, but sort of in the same way that Jonathan Edwards took a private confession to the national level, we should do more broadly what St. Paul says, that though we are distressed we do not despair. The buffeted were not overwhelmed. The secret to that is clinging to the Lord in prayer. And even seeing his prophecies in the scriptures are comforting limits to the fact of what the work that he is doing � not that God is limited, but he has assured us that there will be a limit, and that he will save us through it one way or another � even through death. McDermott: Something I�ve been thinking about, Father Ben, as I listen to people talk about their fears, and fear has been in the land for the last few years, but now this coronavirus has heightened fear all around. I think what has been coming to me the last few weeks is that the greatest biblical prescription to curing fear is to have fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord drives out all other fears. Jefferies: Yes. McDermott: If there�s anything I think that the global north is particularly lacking in, is fear of the Lord. Now how do we get fear of the Lord if we don�t have it? I think the best way to get fear of the Lord, which scripture says over and over again, by the way, is the beginning of wisdom. The best way to get the fear of the Lord is to saturate ourselves with scripture. So, if our listeners want to overcome fear, get fear of the Lord. If you want to get fear of the Lord, get into the scriptures this Lent. Get into the scriptures in these times when you�re at home more. Jefferies: Yeah, that�s a great word. Could I add one more thing, Father Gerry, to that? McDermott: Yes, please. Jefferies: Actually, not to that, but just going back to sort of kind of what we learn in this time of prayer and liturgy is one other thing that comes to mind, too, is we can pray the prayer for spiritual communion, to participate sort of virtually, sort of in the old meaning of that word, like receiving the power of the sacrament, even without actually receiving it. This is a great tradition. But one of the things ... which many pastors are rediscovering, but it�s important to note that it�s not a replacement for communion, it�s still something a little bit less than communion, even though we can be assured of the full mercy of God, even though we�ve been not able to receive the actual consecrated bread and wine. I think that part of this season, where we can�t gather for communion should be a time also of reflecting � have we valued it enough? God has given us this enormous gift and I mean, even as a pastor, do I make adequate inward preparation for communion? Do I come full with faith and joy and zeal for what I get to participate in? Or do I come cold heartedly? I hope that this time being away from it blows air over our zeal and our hunger for holy communion; that we can sort of touch the fringes by spiritual communion, but we will be famished and ready to be fed when we can gather again. McDermott: Your mention of hungering for fellowship, and hungering for sacrament, and hungering for worship with others makes me think of the persecuted Church around the world. Because so many of them cannot gather with other believers and cannot get the sacraments. So, this is a wonderful time to pray. It�s a good reminder to pray for the persecuted Church. Jefferies: Yes. McDermott: On that word, we�ll bring this to a close. We thank all of our listeners for listening to this episodes of Via Media. Jefferies: Great chatting with you, Professor McDermott. Thanks for that historical overview at the beginning, in particular. McDermott: Great talking to you, Father Ben. Thank you all of our listeners. Tune into the next episode of Via Media. Announcer: You've been listening to Via Media with host Gerald McDermott, the director of The Institute of Anglican Study Studies at Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The Institute of Anglican Studies trains men and women for Anglican ministry, and seeks to educate the public in the riches of the Anglican tradition. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Via Media.