Covid 19 is making me count my blessings! It’s made me so grateful for being a bird. Because birds don’t seem to catch the virus. And more importantly, I don’t have to worry about getting hold of toilet paper!
But humans have a lot to deal with right now. And it’s when times become hard that the moral and ethical issues of life fall more sharply into focus. The differences between “the haves” and “the have nots.” The rich and the poor. The healthy and the sick. The strong and the weak. The young and the elderly.
When an international crisis comes along, who do you think of first? Yourself, or others? That’s a big question, isn’t it? Do you go around the supermarket, grabbing everything that you can so that your trolley is overflowing? Perhaps turning a blind eye to the needs of others? Do you really need to buy 500 toilet rolls to “see you through”, even if this means others will go without?
https://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/corona-carts-grocery-store
These are the kind of moral questions that humans have faced since the time of Jesus. Take for example, the story of “The Rich Man and Lazarus” (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man had it all; he dressed in fine linen and lived a life of luxury every day. But at the gates to his home, there also lived a homeless beggar named Lazarus. He had nothing. In fact, Luke tells us that “...even the dogs came and licked his sores.” (Luke 16:21b). But then both Lazarus, and the rich man eventually die. Lazarus goes straight to Heaven, but the rich man isn’t so fortunate. So the one that had nothing, eventually received everything. While the rich man who had it all, ended up excluded and alone.
The Coronavirus pandemic, terrible and tragic as it is, offers us all the chance to re-assess the way we live our lives. And to think about the kind of personal legacy that we are creating, and for which we’ll be remembered. And I wonder who we would rather be? A destitute Lazarus outside the gates or a rich man who has it all? What will our actions, or lack of them, eventually lead to? What really matters in life?
So as Covid 19 threatens to return in a second wave, will you go for 500 toilet rolls, or just one pack of nine? Or, maybe, like me, go for none at all!
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