David Chanski

The Coronavirus and the Church: Our Response, Addendum (Lessons from Luther)

The statement that Pastor Hoffmaier read last week of Martin Luther was really excellent. [It was] written at a time when, in his part of the world (in Germany), they were facing [a] plague situation, very similar to ours.

Luther said,

Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent a pestilence.

For my part I shall ask God mercifully to protect us.

Then I shall administer medicine and take it.

I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed,

in order not to become contaminated and thus, perchance, infect and and pollute others.

If people in a city were to show themselves bold in faith when a neighbor’s need so demands, and cautious when no emergency exists

(in other words, you have the people on both ends of the spectrum acting the way they feel like they should);

—and, if everyone would help ward off contagion as best he can, then the death toll would indeed be moderate…

What he’s saying there is [that] you should be bold in faith, when the situation (a neighbor’s need) demands it; but, if there’s no emergency that exists [that would create a need] to go somewhere, then be cautious. Stay home.

He’s saying to do what we’re doing right now; but now he addresses the people at the ends of the spectrum letting their emotions control them.

He says,

…but if some are too panicky, and desert their neighbors in their plight; and, if some are so foolish as to not take precautions, but aggravate the contagion, then the devil has a heyday; and many will die.

Let me just take some of the things we can glean from Luther’s statement here.

The first is, of course, that we are to trust God and we are to pray. He says,

I will ask God mercifully to protect us.

He knew that we’re all in God’s hands; and he therefore, first and foremost, was going to give Himself to prayer. Brethren, at this hour, you should all believe that your prayers do accomplish as much as anything that anyone, any mere human, can do at this time.

Do you believe that? I hope you believe that. If you believe what the Bible says about prayer, you do believe it.

Carry on your life as though you believe that. Every time you think about the plight of your neighbor, every time you think about how terrible this pestilence is, fire up a prayer to God about it. Nothing hinders you. So, trust God and pray.

Another [second] thing that you see in Luther is: follow the golden rule. He was basically saying (if he were living here), I’m going to do what I’m asked—short of sinning—for the good of my neighbor’s health.

If the good of my neighbor’s health and the good of his soul requires me as a pastor to go to my neighbor’s house, I’ll go—I’m not afraid; but, short of that, he’s saying, I’ll stay away from my neighbor for the sake of his health—for my neighbor’s health, or my neighbor’s elderly mother’s health, or his elderly father’s health (and I may not even know them).

You may not be afraid to die. I’m not afraid to die.

So, you’re not afraid (wonderful!); but we’re not doing what we’re doing as a society for you. We’re doing it for our friends and neighbors, many of whom are not ready to die; and we’re doing it for our medical workers and hospitals, who are woefully unprepared to deal with huge numbers of patients who come down seriously ill all at the same time.

We are not prepared for it, unless everybody is lying to us; and I don’t think they are.

We’re seeing [in] Italy happen what could happen here. It was very sad to read, this week, an article about [what] is happening in one town in Italy, which was kind of the epicenter of what has happened there—to read about the accounts of hospital workers telling about many, many people dying alone in hospitals.

They’re not used to seeing people die at this present rate in those hospitals. People who work in hospitals an in ICU stations are used to seeing people die; but what they’re used to seeing is people die with friends and relatives and ministers of the gospel around them; and they’re seeing people die by themselves; and it breaks their hearts. This is what we’re trying to avoid, God helping us.

So, we should follow the golden rule and do unto others as you would have them do to you; and then, third, we should have no fear. We shouldn’t.

Luther was accused of being many things (some of which were legitimate), but not his being cowardly or unbelieving. As God’s people we have no reason to fear.

Fourth, we can learn from what Luther said and from his example that we should take precautions and we should utilize means.

Luther said he would give medicine, if he could; and he said, if he could, he would take it, if he had a need for it.

Here, we don’t have any medicine for Coronavirus COVID-19. We don’t have it. People are feverishly trying to find it.

We have social distancing; and at least I hope you can learn from this: social distancing is not new; and it’s not just the product of 21st-century progressive mentality.

Luther said this (I’ll repeat it):

I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed, in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others.

I think that’s a good attitude.

Then, fifth, we learn from what Luther said [that] we should avoid extremes.

In other words, if you’re on that extreme that you think is so commendable, because you have no fear, he says that for you just to take no precautions would give place to the devil.

If you’re on that extreme that says, these people don’t get how “viral” this virus is (if that’s a fair thing to say); how strong it is; how contagious it is; how dangerous it is; and you are going to be the person who takes every last possible precaution, to the point that you won’t help someone in need, you are giving place to the devil.

God keep us from those extremes!

Brethren, let’s just remember, before I go on from this point about why we’re doing what we’re doing. We have cancelled services many times for what we could call the providence of God: weather.

We do that a lot. When we do, inevitably one of my fellow elders will say, as we’re going back and forth whether we should do this, we don’t want to put our elderly members at risk; and often that’s the thing that ends the discussion; and we decide to cancel services.

Sometimes we feel sad, when the next day the sun comes up; and there’s just water on the streets and not ice; and we say, Well, we could have been at the house of God; but we don’t have a bad conscience. Because we did what we believed was right in light of what we knew, we had a good conscience about it.

Remember, avoiding contact with people isn’t simply—or even mainly—done so you won’t get sick. It’s so we won’t spread this virus to others, by being careless.

It’s to help keep hospital beds and equipment and nurses and doctors available for those who do fall sick, for those who need them—and who need them now and in the days ahead.

Conceivably, by being careful about what you do, as we’re being directed, you will be contributing to the saving of lives of elderly people—mainly in your own family, but also the lives of people that you will never meet. That’s the goal.

Remember, social distancing is not just an individual approach: it’s a societal program.

I thought of the kids picking up gum wrappers for part of the World War II effort, back in the forties. Someone might say to a kid picking up a gum wrapper and peeling off the aluminum (or whatever it was that he was peeling off to go put in the donation box somewhere), That’s not going to defeat Germany—what you’re doing right now.

That’s right, it’s not, but, because hundreds of people and thousands of people were doing it, it did contribute to the defeat of Germany.

Brethren, one other note—we could take encouragement and be thankful about what we’re seeing right now, for a couple of reasons, when we hear advice to stay home. We hear things like: We want to do this; We want to protect our elderly; We want to protect the weak, etc..

We can be thankful to God that certain ungodly philosophies that are prevalent in our day and age are not being consistently followed.

First, the big-time push for national healthcare everywhere, and If you’re not doing it that way, then you’re doing something wrong—you know what goes along with that? The idea that the government will decide who lives and who doesn’t live, and the notion that the elderly are expendable.

We can thank God right now that what our government is telling us is that we are implementing this strategy especially to save the elderly, the weak and the infirm.

I thank God for that; and another thing we can thank Him for is that we don’t see the evolutionary mentality being consistently played out—in other words, that we should just let the weak die. This is a naturally occuring virus and we can just let the weak die, let natural selection play itself out—survival of the fittest.

I thank God that’s not the note that is being sounded publicly, and by those who are in places of authority.

So, there’s an explanation of why we’re doing what we’re doing, with some lessons we can learn from Martin Luther, as he faced similar circumstances.

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