Jesus wondering who on earth Governor Hochul is listening to.
Sorry about there being no podcast and links yesterday. We meant to, but then we just didn’t. Here is the sermon that I would have linked….and speaking of sermons, I’m sure a lot of you have seen this exceptional piece of theological reasoning. It looks like we’re on the way to a pretty epically satisfying ratio, it’s like There IS A God! And I, for one, could not be more thankful.
So anyway, because we were Johnny on the Spot (and by “we” I obviously only mean myself) when Mr. Trump waded into the realm of what makes a good and bad Christian (I’m not going to go find the links because I only have three seconds to write this whole blog post), and claimed not to have to repent of any of his sins because he didn’t have any, I feel like I am literally here for such a time as this. Let’s just go through this gem, shall we? The transcript and someone else’s fisk is here (as I said, I don’t have any time at all for anything and couldn’t find one without a lot of commentary already):
God let you survive this pandemic because he wants you to do great things someday. He let you live through this when so many other people did not and that is also your responsibility. But how do we keep more people alive? We are not through this pandemic. I wished we were but I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what – God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers – he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. Thank you. And I wear my ‘vaccinated’ necklace all the time to say I’m vaccinated. All of you, yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. You know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another and how do you show that love but to care about each other enough to say, please get the vaccine because I love you and I want you to live, I want our kids to be safe when they’re in schools, I want to be safe when you go to a doctor’s office or to a hospital and are treated by somebody, you don’t want to get the virus from them. You’re already sick or you wouldn’t be there. We have to solve this, my friends. I need every one of you. I need you to let them know that this is how we can fight this pandemic, come back to normal and then start talking about the real issues that we have to – fighting systemic racial injustice which exists today and if there is a denier I will take you on every day because I’ve seen it, I know it exists and we’re not going to have a blind eye to this ever again any longer under my watch. That is my commitment to you.
Goodness, there is so much in there. It’s hard to know even where to start. I guess first off I’m really glad that she, like so many, is praying and stuff. I appreciate that a lot as someone who does pray and who believes that prayer is literally a thing. If the purpose of the pandemic was to teach people to pray, I guess I can be ok with that. Maybe it was one of those “severe mercies” that God likes to ladle out over humanity every now and then to let them know they aren’t quite as strong and wonderful as they thought they were.
But that’s pretty much it. First of all, I’d like to know when and where God vouchsafed to the Governor why he in fact did let some people survive but let a lot of others go down in sorrow to Sheol. Does she have a text for that? Maybe she does. She has clearly read the Bible a tiny bit more than Mr. Trump ever did (his can be seen in the Bible Museum…I hope he had a second copy to actually read but I don’t know). So anyway, as an Anglican and a Christian, I really hate it when people apparently know what God is saying–like how people knew that Mr. Trump was the new Cyrus. I really hated that. And I really don’t like it that apparently, Governor Hochul is hearing special words from someone about why some people are surviving and others aren’t.
Second, for realz, I don’t know if the vaccine is a gift from God yet…that remains to be seen. We’ll know in a few decades what kind of gift it was. I was happy to go out and get it when it became available to my age group because this world is not my home. I would absolutely not say that I got it because I am “one of the smart ones.” It may be, and only time, as I said, will tell, that I was one of the stupidest ones. I Don’t Know, and neither does Governor Hochul.
I mean, gratitude is the best attitude for totes real. I am grateful for all the scientists and doctors who have slaved over this catastrophe trying to make it all ok. Our own family doctor the most of all, who worked on the covid floor of our local hospital and who was a voice of calm reason in the miasma of fear. And I’m grateful for people who kept working all the time…and I do just find it curious that so many of those people, people who worked in hospitals all the time, are, some of them, very afraid of the jab. I mean…is demonizing all of them and calling them “stupid” really the best way out of this impossibly long time?
Third, (are we on three?) No One Should Listen To God In Their Hearts. The voice of God is only to be heard in the scriptures. What you have to do–and this is so much harder, of course, than figuring out what you want to do and then blaming God–is to read the Bible a lot, pray desperately and ask for wisdom, and then do what is rational and good based on the evidence. So that process, of biblical wisdom, did lead a lot of people to get the jab (like me, in fact). But then the same process led a lot of other people to decide that getting it was deeply unwise and bad. How could this possibly happen? Because the Spirit works through the scriptures and the conscience and doesn’t give all the information, but asks the believer to trust in God, and promises to look after the consequences. So people are going to come out in different places and it is super unhelpful for the Governor, as I said, to come in and pretend that God has spoken to her. Not Helpful.
Fourth, if you want to wear a vax necklace, that’s great. I mean, as I walk by you on the street, I will chuckle to myself because the necklace is telling me more about you than you probably wanted me to know. But, for now, it’s a free country, wear whatever kind of necklace you want.
Fifth, you know, instead of trying to accumulate “apostles” to yourself about covid, it would be a lot more helpful if you would trust the public with all the information and let them make up their own minds. Having the Bible and the Holy Spirit, I do not need Governor Hochul as a member of the Trinity to interpret said scriptures for me.
And now, unhappily, my blogging second is over and I have to go on with the day. Gosh, there is still so much to say! What a tragedy this is. Maybe you all could be apostles and go out and tweet a lot about your feelings and stuff. Let’s all send apostles! It’s what God wants.
