Social Distancing? We Need to Process It.

[HKHaugan]

Social Distancing?  We Need to Process It.

 But not for the reason you think.  On my morning walk today it was dark when I left and light when I returned.  While walking I was thinking about social distancing but not the media’s definition but the biblical rejection of it.  Follow me on this.  What we are really doing in this virus dilemma is not social but physical.  We are physically distancing ourselves.  We are keeping masks on, washing our hands and staying physically 6ft. apart from others.  It certainly isn’t social.  That’s a different animal.  We’re trying to physically distance ourselves from viral infection.

 Social distancing has to do with class differences, neighborhood distinction, school identities and all the things we use to maintain an invisible social structure.  That also led me to think about the identities we try to establish in the world around us.  Culturally we build a social classification system that has levels of acceptance and rejection attached.  Identity is critical.  We work for an identity that will secure us, feed us and give us a sense of control over who we are with and where we are.  Are we wearing masks of a social kind, a heart kind?  Are we washing our hands with a socially disinfecting attitude that has ‘we-they’ flavor?  This is the world you all. 

 As I continued to walk it came to me that there are all kinds of distancing taking place in us and around us.  There is educational distance, economic distance, religious distance, relational distance, political distance, gender distance, ethical distance, appearance distance, ethnic distance, spiritual distance, national distance, personal distance, technological distance, media distance. Now add your own. 

 What is the common theme in all of them?  Separation, division, judgment, disunity, choice, decision?  Probably all those and some others you would name.  But there is one theme that uses them all of them as attitudinal support systems apart from God---sin.  All that stuff is the attitudinal devices to keep us separated from one another.  Social distancing is social judgment, individual evaluation that is really individual distancing for identity and relational protection.  They are the victims of the spirit of fear leading the mind and the heart away from who and what we really are, images and children of God. 

 If there is a lesson in all this virus business, it is the distancing theme that is really physical distance that has its spiritual parallel, negative spiritual distancing.  Negative spiritual distancing is the judgments we make about people based on what the society, the culture, the social atmosphere and our own minds dredge up to give us a sense of worth, a feeling of self-worth and relational acceptance.  They are all attitudes we construct in the inner darkness of our hearts.  We all do it or have done it or see it all around us.  Who lives in the biggest house in town?  The most successful.  Then there is the biggest church.  The best country club.  The right neighborhood.  Who is the most handsome, the most beautiful, the richest, the poorest, the ugliest, the lightest, the darkest, the brightest, the dumbest, hoity-toity, they’re all like that, etc., etc., etc.

 Jesus sees all people as images of God, spiritually and personally.  Believers in Jesus see themselves as His children humbly serving Him among those who both believe and don’t believe.  It’s those socially distancing attitudes that keep us at arm’s length from one another.  They need to be shed.  When you leave your house and, on your way to wherever with whoever, what is your preparatory mindset?  When you get there, what are your first impressions about the place and the people?  That’s where we start.  Does the Lord’s evaluation take precedence or are you still suffering from ‘social distantitis?’  If so, do you ask the Holy Spirit to erase the first impression and give you a second spiritual impression?  Does it coincide with the Lord you know and serve?  Now we are talking Spiritude and growing through it. 

 It was dark when I left and it was light when I got back.  Spiritually thinking, here’s where our mind begins. It’s the dark secular world that gives us attitudes.  It’s Jesus who is the light of the world.  Jesus gives us a cross, faith in Him.  Jesus has borne all our multiple attitudes on the Cross.  He replaces them by giving us the One Holy Spirit to build in us a Spiritude.  Here’s what He says having prepared His disciples for their spiritual future:  “All this I have spoken while still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14:25-27).”

 This old hymn by John Oxenham says it well:

 1 In Christ there is no east or west,

In him no south or north,

But one great fam'ly bound by love

Throughout the whole wide earth.

 

2 In him shall true hearts ev'rywhere

Their high communion find;

His service is the golden cord

Close binding humankind.

 

3 Join hands, disciples in the faith,

Whate'er your race may be!

Who serve each other in Christ's love

Are surely kin to me.

 

4 In Christ now meet both east and west,

In him meet south and north,

All Christly souls are one in him

Throughout the whole wide earth.