Faith, Hope & Love: Keeping Your Distance 16

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. First Corinthians 13:13

Faith, hope, and love.  All are important to us as Christians (and other religions as well).  And although love indeed is the greatest of these, faith and hope are vital as well.

Hope is particularly poignant at this time.  We are in the middle of an onslaught by a global pandemic, one that is tearing a hole in throughout the world.

We hope through prayer.  We hope through the love and care we show for others who are under stress and suffering.  We hope by how we share our blessings with others.

We have hope that this pandemic will be checked and that people will do what they can to reduce its spread and harm.

We hope for the coming of a vaccine that will end this.

We hope that the weaknesses that have been shown in our social structure will be addressed.  That we will learn to be able to take better care of all of us and provide the social safety net we need to live and thrive.  

We hope improvements come in our medical access, that people aren't left without care because they can't afford it, or lose the job that their healthcare insurance is based on.

We hope that what this terrible pandemic has laid bare, that the poor and minorities that bear the brunt of its ravages are better protected, and that horrific income inequality is addressed.

It is a good and right and justified desire to want this era of social distancing to come to an end.  It is an evil and wrong and unjustified urge to want to bring the economy back at the cost of human lives.


"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Money."  Matthew 6:24

Yes, that is from the New Testament of the Christian Bible.  But I do not know of any significant religion where that is not advocated.  Even a pantheist faith like Hinduism does not believe in the worship of a money God.

As someone who believes in inclusive worship, I would never tell someone who worships money, to not enter the church.  All have some good in them that can be appealed to.

But I do not endorse their view.  I do not consider part of the faith, and it does make wonder if those people truly believe that opening the economy is worth the sacrifice of lives. If they are genuinely Christians/Jews/Muslim/Hindu/humanists in their hearts.

You can hope and pray and work to make things better.  You can reach out (without actual physical contact) to those suffering and in pain.  

But you cannot say you have faith if you choose money over people.

You cannot say you have hope if you are willing to let people die to boost the economy.

You cannot say you love if the mighty dollar is more important than the lives of those you purport to love.

May God bless all who are struggling to get through this.  

And I hope and pray better days are ahead very soon.