It was just four Sundays ago that we reached the hard decision to close the church to public worship, and hold all our worship online.
I can’t count how many charts and graphs I have seen in these four weeks. I’d be very surprised if you haven’t seen a few too.
Those charts and graphs usually describe the rate of infection of the coronavirus, sometimes the amount of testing that’s been done in a given place, and sometimes the number of people who have been admitted to hospitals, sometimes even the number of people who are recovering from the virus, and of course there are the charts that describe the mortality rate: the number of people who have died from the virus. All of these charts depict curves, and the most fundamental curve, the one we have been fixated on as a nation, is the curve that shows the rate of infection. Actually, it’s a chart that shows two curves - or two potential curves. One is steep and tall, and the other is gradual and flat. And we all know that our collective goal has been to flatten the curve.
So much of life can be described as a curve - often a bell curve, like the one we have seen in the charts and graphs. You don’t believe this when you are young, because you are nearly always on the upswing of the curve. But the older you get, when you know that you can (and should) plot yourself on the down-side of the bell curve, you begin to see the inescapable insistence of the power of the curve.
The logic behind the campaign to flatten the curve in the face of the coronavirus has been inescapable, too. But that logic brings with it a great cost, since the only way to flatten the curve is to adopt a kind of suspended animation. Except that now, after only a month of social distancing, it’s become clear that on the other side of the flattened curve things won’t just pick up where they left off. Because there are other charts and other graphs, too, somewhere, that show the effects of that sickness, the challenge of recovery, the reality of grief, the soaring rate of unemployment, the devastating economic losses.
All the same, like many of you, I have been convinced of the value of flattening the curve. I wear my mask when I go out to walk the dogs, and I remind people I see that most dog leashes are six feet long, so we know exactly how far apart to keep from each other.
So far I have not seen a chart or a graph (now do I believe that one could exist) that illustrates effects of an Easter morning whose only anthem is “Flatten the Curve.”
In four short weeks so much of our lives has been shaped by that chorus, that we could almost wonder if there is anything else to sing about this morning.
And when I look around and see the six faces that have been the only six faces in church for these weeks, and hear the same six voices, I have to wonder whether or not we could ever sing an Easter anthem with the the strength with which those anthems were once sung in this church, and whether they will ever be sung in strong voices again.
I hear the Easter Gospel this morning, and I have to wonder what would have happened if Mary Magdalene had seen the stone rolled away, and run back to Peter and said to him breathlessly, “Peter, I think Jesus may really be flattening the curve!” Or if after her encounter with the risen Christ, she had gone back to the disciples and exclaimed, “I have seen the Lord,” and then gone on to tell them that he explained how by his death and resurrection he was flattening the curve.
I don’t think we’d have come this far if the best we could hope for is flattening the curve. You understand, I’m not talking about the virus, I’m talking about our capacity for hope.
I’m wondering how deeply the experience we are going through is shaping our hopes, our vision, our faith.
Because sometime if a paradigm works in one area of our lives, we just apply that same paradigm to other areas of our life too, even if it is an insufficient paradigm.
And one thing we know about the coronavirus is that it doesn’t actually attack our souls - it just feels that way sometimes.
And on Easter morning, it seems like we should be able to claim with certainty that Jesus did not rise from the grave in order to flatten some curve.
Jesus doesn’t want us to just not be sick; he wants us to thrive.
He doesn’t want us to merely not be sad; he wants us to rejoice.
He doesn’t want us to only not be hungry; he wants us to have plenty.
He doesn’t want us to not be thirsty; he wants us to be drenched.
He doesn’t want us to simply not be separated from one another; he wants us to share communion with one another and with him.
He doesn’t want us to only not be dead; he wants us to live!
Indications are that where strict social distancing is in effect the curve of coronavirus infection is indeed flattening, so by all means, let’s stick with it.
But since so much of our lives can be defined by curves on chart or a graph, let’s not learn the lesson of flattening the curve too well when it comes to our faith.
When you flatten the curve of injustice, for instance, you get less injustice, but you might not get more justice.
When you flatten the curve, you might get less violence, but you still don’t have peace.
When you flatten the curve, you might sin less, and you might even get forgiveness, but you still don’t have reconciliation.
When you flatten the curve you might get less hatred and bigotry, but you still don’t have love.
When you flatten the curve, you might lower your anxiety, but you still don’t have hope.
God did not send his Son to be incarnate in the world, to sacrifice himself for us, and to rise from the grave in order to flatten the curve.
Christ came into the world to invert the curve: to bring health and well-being where there is sickness, to bring light where there is darkness, to bring peace where there is war, to bring forgiveness where there is discord, to bring justice where there is none, and to bring life where there has been only death.
Christ came into the world to invert the curves that lead only to sickness, darkness, anxiety, worry, fear and death. He came to invert the curve, and he has done it. And it is beautiful.
Notes for a sermon by Fr. Sean Mullen
Easter Day 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia
