“Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God” (Jn. 11)?

One of my most vivid Pandemic memories Pandemic involved shopping for survival supplies at Smart and Final in the Outer Richmond. Raise your hand if you remember doing something like this. At that point we didn’t feel confident that grocery stores would remain open or that there would be enough food. Do you remember those lists of disaster supplies on the Internet (tarps, water storage containers, tools for turning off the gas, etc.). One included a shovel for burying bodies in the backyard.[i]

We heard the constant ambulance sirens in New York City and about refrigerator trucks filled with corpses. Indeed family members and friends were dying. Do you remember we also went through a period when it seemed like a third of all workers would lose their jobs. Then there were the days after the rioting when downtown San Francisco looked like a war zone. Then the wildfire darkness descended on us.

Because we are trying so hard just to keep going and to help the people who depend on us, we forget just how traumatic our experience of COVID was. But now we are beginning to come out of our caves. Something in us had died. And now we are wondering if we might be able to really live again. My sermon comes in three parts: 1. Believing and Seeing, 2. Feeling and Showing, 3. Acting and Being Helped.

[i] We wiped down our groceries but didn’t yet know that we should be wearing masks.