Masks

Man has the world gotten messed up lately and it doesn't seem like it will right itself anytime soon. I see people arguing for masks, no masks, keeping distance, staying close, let the old die, herd immunity, and all I really hear is it's all about themselves. I know this is an unpopular opinion, and I'm liable to get some hate here, but why can we not go from how you are bothered by something to how you can show how great God is and how he gives his grace to us during these hard times. 

I know I'm not perfect, or even very good at doing this. I too am angry about how we are being treated by our own government but I am more inclined to bite my tongue and just do it. No I am not weak minded or a coward willing to roll over when told. No, I just don't see how any of my freedoms have been infringed upon. I am still free to worship my God the same as before. 

Sure they say we can't go to a building, but I wanna ask this, when did the Church become a building? When did our worship of Jesus become bound to a lot of land with wood piled on it in a fancy shape. I could be wrong, but isn't the Church supposed to be the people of God? Each and everyone of us who call ourselves Christians? Why does it matter where you are worshiping when the important part is who you are worshiping? How is that face mask hurting your ability to worship God?

Matthew 22:21, Luke 20:25 and Mark 12:17 Jesus is quoted as saying 

"Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s."

I know, trust me I know, this is talking about taxes, and whether we should pay them or not being followers of Jesus, but I think it can be taken further as well. We live in a country, this country has rules, it has taxes and it has a lot of people. There are things that happen every day to protect other people in this country. Sometimes it is a soldier giving his life that we can be free to express our opinions. This time it is someone asking you to wear a mask when you are out to help keep the spread of a virus down. The merits of a masking working or not can be debated for days, and both sides can find science to back it up, I don't care if it works or it doesn't, I am wearing the mask for safety. I am wearing the mask to be a comfort to those around me IF they are worried about it. If they are not worried then I am wearing my mask because I have a mask and masks are meant to be worn. If it doesn't work, what am I out? But what if it does work? Then isn't the possibility of the benefits worth the inconvenience if it doesn't?

We live with in the country and we are citizens of this country. We should obey the laws of the land and I would even say the "Orders" of the land unless it conflicts with Jesus. Just an FYI, wearing a face mask does not in anyway conflict with Jesus, his message, or God in anyway. To argue otherwise, ("I refuse to wear a mask because of my religion") is simply a lie and you fool only yourself.

I have a dream of a Church. A building and a people. I call it The Shelter. It was inspired by a Jars of Clay song of the same name. The chorus of the song is

"In the shelter of each other We will live
We will live (Never walk alone)
In the shelter of each other
We will live (Your arms are all around us)
We will live"

 

In this church all of the people are united with our differences set aside and we love each other deeper than the oceans. We love each other as if Jesus was all there ever was. When something bad happens, it is to the Shelter we look because we know, without judgement, we will be loved with all the love of God a human can muster. 

The reason I bring up this idea of a church is to point out love. That at the center of everything we do, everything we think, should be love, first and foremost. If love is the center of our choices, our arguments, our anti-establishment rhetoric, then that lower case love is now a capital case Love and the only true capital case Love there is is God. 

Which brings me back to the mask wearing. Despite whether you think the mask does anything or not, now that we have thought about keeping Love centered in all we do, where is the harm of the mask? Where is the oppression of the mask? With God as the complete center of our lives, with trying our hardest to show a literally sick and dying world the love of someone who is Love, our only course of action is to wear a mask to be comfort for those who need it, and if there is even a percentage of a chance that the mask can help from spreading it then it is our duty as Christians to wear it with Love.

Let us be a little peace in a time of trouble for a world who is so desperately seeking something. Let us be a shelter for the world, despite our differences, that we can come out of this stronger and more united as ever.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called sons of God.

"If there is any peace
If there is any war
We must all believe
Our lives are not our own
We all belong

God has given us each other
And we will never walk alone"

The Shelter - Jars of Clay