Let me start by saying, this post is an “insider post.” I’m writing to a particular audience here. This one is for my fellow brothers and sisters – of a different mother, but the same Father. If you are a pagan, or an atheist, or a Muslim, or a whatever-else-you-want-to-be, you’re welcome to listen in – that’s not a problem – but remember that you’re merely eavesdropping. This post is not for you. It’s for those who claim the name of Christ.
So, dear Siblings of mine, there is a burning question I need to ask you… “What have we become??”
I’m talking about Ebola – or our response to it, or not. And trust me, this is not a fundraising ploy, or a treatise on whether a certain “Disabling the Power of Ebola” campaign is going well or not. It’s not about that at all. It’s about what I’m seeing, and what I’m hearing, and what I’m feeling – among the family – with regard to the Ebola crisis. As the crisis escalates, and escalating it is, I get that we’re scared. That makes sense (sort of). I mean it makes sense if you were planning your vacation 
to one of the beautiful resort beaches of Sierra Leone, and now you’re going to go on that vacation anyway, but you’re afraid you’ll get Ebola at the beach. THAT would make sense. It makes some sense if you are a first responder, or a nurse, at a big city hospital with a large population of Liberian or Sierra Leonean immigrants, and you wonder if one day someone is going to walk in, one week off a plane journey from across the pond, and turn your world upside down. But for the rest of you… well, I’m not sure you have a good case for your fear.
Why? Because, here’s your reality: you go to work in your sterile offices with automatic hand sanitizer dispensers plastered on the wall every 8 feet, you live in isolation in a house with a roof, an air-conditioner or heater (whichever you prefer on any given day to keep your environment ideal), electricity, a full kitchen, a refrigerator, and a toilet with running water, you drive yourself and your children to and from wherever you want to go in your very own private car, and if you do start feeling sick – at all – for any reason – you have a plethora of options: you can treat yourself with a variety of herbs and essential oils, if that is your thing, you can type in your symptoms at WebMD and diagnose yourself, you can open up your cupboard and find a variety of drugs at your disposal, or if you’ve run out, you can run to the nearest corner and find a drugstore which will have at your fingertips countless numbers of symptom-treating medications, OR, if all else fails, you can drive yourself into the nearest urgent care or emergency room and get seen and treated in something under 4 hours (on a good day).
But that is not the reality for people who REALLY DO have to worry about getting Ebola. That is not their reality at all! I’ll spare you all the details, for the sake of time and to get to my main point, but juxtapose the above paragraph into anything opposing, and you have a start.
Does your hospital look like this? If it did, would you go there?
Here’s my problem though. In the midst of this obvious disparity, we are trapped in a naval-gazing, finger-pointing position. Here are some actual comments regarding this outbreak, “Ban all flights from Africa.” “Keep them and their viruses out of our country!” “Why are those fools heading to Africa to help in something that could kill them?!? Don’t bring that back here!” (I’ve eliminated the accompanying colorful language…)
In our abject fear, we lose all reason and compassion. I recently had a reporter refuse to shake my hand during an interview about Ebola (and THEY called ME). My daughter has been repeatedly harassed at school for having a simple cold, or blamed for other kids getting sick (she didn’t even GO to Africa recently). I’m not telling you those things because I want you to feel sorry for me, or as a complaint for my life right now. (I KNOW I have it good – I was just in Sierra Leone recently. You don’t get a much more vivid reminder than that!) I’m telling you because it is a symptom of a much larger problem. Ebola presents with a fever, sore throat, and muscle aches. Had any of those recently? But under those fairly common symptoms lurks a deadly threat. Likewise, these little behaviors we are exhibiting which are caused by fear seem small, but under them lurks a deadly threat as well. And it may be more deadly than you think…
Why SHOULD you care? I mean, it isn’t your problem, right? It’s REALLY far away, and surely they did something to bring this upon themselves. Or not, but still…
I’ll give you 2 reasons. The first one probably shouldn’t be a primary motivating factor, but it plays. The second one will be in the form of a story.
Do you want to know who is out in the field helping with the Ebola crisis right now? It’s THEM! It’s not the fam, folks. It’s really nice, but very eternally lost, good people. That should give us pause. For one – there is an intense spiritual battle going on out there! Satan is killing off thousands of people, and most of them are as lost as a goose in the woods! They are going to die without Christ. Christians should be out there helping – spiritually and physically. Secondly – why are they out there and we’re not? (That’s not to say all of “us” aren’t. There are some Christians out there working their tails off to help in this crisis – but they aren’t the majority.) Does that even make sense? If these folks make a small mistake and contract Ebola, they have a 50/50 chance of a ticket straight to hell. Us? We have a 50/50 chance of landing right in front of the Father.
Which brings me to my second point. but let me tell you a story…
A really good king had gone away on a long journey, but he had put trusted stewards in charge of his kingdom. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Just take care of my people. Be sure the hungry have food, make sure no one is neglected. And, you know how I feel about oppression. Don’t let me find that in my kingdom! Keep the infrastructure running well. There’s plenty of money. I don’t want the sick to struggle for care.”
While he was gone, a horrible scourge came through the kingdom. Peasants began dying left and right. It was a terrible and fearful time. There seemed to be no end to the terror in those days. Whole families died within days. Children found themselves orphaned, farmers were too weak to work the fields and the crops wasted leaving the country hungry. Jobs were lost, so even those who didn’t depend on the land were out of food. Poverty ravaged the kingdom, leaving the stewards baffled at a response. This crisis was so enormous! What could possibly be done? Strategy meetings were held. Programs were implemented. Temporary hospitals were erected to try to contain the vast numbers of the sick. This went on for months, dragging into years. The population of the kingdom was decimated. Some of the stewards were affected as well, but others managed to avoid the horrible plague.
Some time later, the king sent his son back to the kingdom. He had the full authority of his father, and came to assess how things were going and settle accounts. He gathered all the stewards in the throne room and started going through a logbook. He started separating them into two groups. “You – over here. You, please go that way. No, the other side, please.” There was some confusion in the ranks. They tried to make out a pattern as to how he was dividing them. District? No… Race? No… Rank? No again… There just didn’t seem to be much of a pattern at all. The only thing they did notice was that one group was considerably larger than the other. The stewards were confused.
When the prince was done, he looked at the perplexed, and relatively small, group of stewards on his right and said, “You are never going to believe the positions my father has for you! He’s got incredible rewards for you as rulers in his kingdom. Well done! Thank you for your service!”
“For the rest of you,” he said, turning to those on his left, “you are banished from the kingdom forever! You will suffer greatly, as you have caused others to suffer. Your punishment will never end.”
The murmurs in the throne room rose to a din as gasps and exclamations filled the room. Finally, a voice rose over the rest, “Sir, forgive me… but why? What have we done that has angered the king so??”
“Remember the scourge?” the prince asked. “Remember the child crying in pain that you wouldn’t touch, for fear you would catch what he had? Remember the woman who begged you for a drink, dehydrated as she was from vomiting – but you refused to go near her in your revulsion? Remember the peasant who knocked at your door asking for a few resources to feed his starving children, but you said the funds were allocated for other purposes? Remember when your sister was in quarantine, but you wouldn’t go visit her, because you didn’t want to bring the scourge home? Or that naked little girl lying in the street without anyone to care, that you stepped around? Remember when the man wanted to come to your district with his family to escape the scourge ravaging his own, but you made laws to keep affected people in their place?”
“Those. Were. Me. All of them. You did that to ME.”
“But Sir, we didn’t know…”
Ahhh – but now you do.
Do you see the deadly threat lurking beneath the fear??