By Rev. Brandee Jasmine Mimitzraiem, 5^th Episcopal District

The response of the Church to any crisis, to any situation that impacts its people, demonstrates who the Church is. Who are we saying we are?

In 1793, yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia. At that time, it was the capital of the United States. The President and all of the leaders of the infant nation lived and ruled from Philadelphia. And a deadly virus spread through the population. The leaders left town, in a panic, to prevent their own deaths. They didn’t consider the impact of that on the populace.
It was (incorrectly) believed that Black people–the free and the enslaved–couldn’t catch yellow fever it wouldn’t die if they did.
During this epidemic that decimated the population of Philadelphia (including the Black community), there was a fledgling church, new, still forming. That infant AME Church became the doctors, nurses, caretakers, morticians of the city. During a health crisis, the church not only stayed open but showed out and took care of the people in the city. (The nation’s leaders’ response when they returned was abusive and abysmal.) That’s who the Church was.

And today?

Who are we, the Church, today?
I suggest that how churches are responding to this crisis is a result of ecclesiological crisis years in the making. The Church has long since ceased to be relevant to society and we are now demonstrating why. More than that, we are demonstrating that we have no desire to be anything more than a club that exists for the sake of existing.

It’s insufficient.
The Church is the Body of Christ wherein people–without asterisks–can feel the warmth of God’s presence and know that they are safe. In the Church, we are spiritually safe. We are physically safe. We are intellectually safe. We are emotionally safe. We are sexually safe. (If we are not, it is not the Church. It is not the Body of Christ, but some other body and it needs to carry another name.) We are safe within The Church so that we can carry out the work of the Church. The work of the Church isn’t paying bills. It isn’t holding elections. It isn’t planning events. It isn’t planning for its survival. The work of the Church is caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, providing shelter and a safe place for those who need one.

So, what is the Church in a 21st Century Health crisis that is predicated upon a political crisis and is creating social and mental health crises?
Certainly not closed.

The recommendations are for the sick to stay home. The recommendations are to stay distant from your neighbor. The most vulnerable and easiest to be infected to stay safe when we follow the recommendations. Stay your arm length and their arm’s length away from people. Don’t go where you cannot be safe. The recommendation is to go where you can be safe; to go where it is essential to go. The essential places aren’t safe – and never have been.

Our schools have been overcrowded. The children do not have room to stay 6’ away from each other.
Our college classrooms … same.
Hospitals and doctors’ offices … same.
Our workplaces went to cramming as many people in as little space as possible for the sake of profit. Few workplaces keep people at a safe distance from other people.
Grocery stores: still open, folk still working.
Restaurants: same.
Fast food: same.
No mandatory sick leave.

If the place where people should be able to go when they need a safe place is closed, what’s left?
Let me ask that better.
If children are hungry because schools are closed, the school was their only source of food, and the place whose directive is to feed the hungry is closed, why exist?
If people are afraid and panicking because the nation’s leaders have abandoned them to their fate and the place whose function it is to comfort the people is closed, why exist?
If people are in need and the place whose mission – by scriptural mandate – is to take care of the needy, provide for the sick, care for the downtrodden, provide for those without shelter, care for the orphan and the widow and do justice and be humble and acknowledge your mortality and … is closed? Not just pretending to do the work centered on self-congratulatory worship meetings that are fundraisers in disguise but closed and incapable of fulfilling its reason to exist? Why exist? Why ever open back up?

Why does the church exist at all if the church responds in fear and not with faith?
What’s faith?
Faith isn’t “I’mma not get sick.” That’s ‘theofoolishment’
Faith responses are trusting God by using our common sense and intuition.
Commonsense is the ability to reason, logic, and think. God gave us that. God gave it to some folk in greater abundance. We call them scientists. Commonsense is listening to science: wash your hands. Not just after you urinate. Wash your hands after you touch any common object (door handles, stair rails, the steering wheel in your car, etc.). Wash your hands before you touch your face. Wash your hands after you touch your face, your ear, your genitals. Wash your hands after you touch other folks’ hands. Wash your hands. Clean what you put in your hands as often as you wash your hands. That cell phone you ain’t never wiped down is carrying pathogens. Clorox and Lysol and everybody else makes wipes. Use one on your phone before you wash your hands so that your phone will be clean enough to pick up after your hands are clean.
Those outdoor clothes? Take ‘em off when you get home. Don’t put dirty clothes back on.

Intuition isn’t a new age thing. It’s the spirit of God speaking to your soul about your body. Listen to it.
Listen to your body say rest. Listen to your body say “you’re not actually well enough to fight off the things that are out there. Stay home.” Listen to your intuition. Use common sense.

Be safe. Go where you feel safe.

When safe places close, the world ain’t safe… and the people are lost. The Bible says “woe to the shepherds who lose the sheep and let the flock scatter.”

Even if we can’t have traditional worship, my church ain’t closing. It’s a safe place. That’s the only reason we exist.

Rev. Brandee Jasmine Mimitzraiem is the pastor of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Lincoln, Nebraska.