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    Hope Beyond Pandemic
    Hope Beyond Pandemic
    Hope Beyond Pandemic
    Ebook90 pages44 minutes

    Hope Beyond Pandemic

    By Bruce G Epperly

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Our lives have been disrupted by a pandemic, but at some point we will find a new normal. What will we do then? Better, what should we do then?

    Bruce Epperly has been writing while living through this time as a pastor, teacher, author, and grandparent. He provided some lessons for a hopeful, fulfilling life during the pandemic in his book Faith in a Time of Pandemic. In this book, he goes beyond that time to look at what these experiences should challenge us to do. How can we live better in the world.

    Fearlessly but gently he takes on issues of injustice, intolerance, inequality in society and discusses how the interdependence we have found during this time needs to be lived out in our society as a whole. His solutions are spiritual, social, and yes, political.

    Each chapter of the book includes a section titled “Hopeful Activism,” with suggestions on what to do about the issues discussed, a section on spirituality, and a prayer—one that is challenging to pray!

    This book is suitable for individual reading, but it will find its greatest value as a small group or churchwide study, or perhaps as a hopeful, forward looking study to do together online while we continue in social distancing.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEnergion Publications
    Release dateJul 6, 2020
    ISBN9781631995309
    Hope Beyond Pandemic
    Author

    Bruce G Epperly

    Bruce G. Epperly is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ. He has written more than 20 books in the areas of theology, spirituality, ministerial excellence, spiritual formation, and healing and wholeness. Recognized as a leader in lay and pastoral faith formation, he served as Director of Continuing Education and Professor of Practical Theology at Lancaster Theological Seminary (2003-2010). Prior to that, he was Director of the Protestant Ministry and Adjunct Professor in Theology, Spirituality, and Medicine at Georgetown University and Medical School (1982-1999), and Acting Associate Dean, Assistant to the President for On-line Programs, and Adjunct Professor in Theology, Spirituality, and Pastoral Care at Wesley Theological Seminary (2000-2003). He has also served as an interim minister in Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ congregations as well as pastor of Disciples United Community Church (Dis

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      Book preview

      Hope Beyond Pandemic - Bruce G Epperly

      9781631995293_fc.jpg

      Hope Beyond Pandemic

      Bruce G. Epperly

      Energion Publications

      Gonzalez, Florida

      2020

      Copyright © Bruce Epperly 2020

      Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

      ISBN: 978-1-63199-529-3

      eISBN: 978-1-63199-530-9

      Library of Congress Control Number:

      Energion Publications

      PO Box 841

      Gonzalez, FL 32560

      https://energion.com

      [email protected]

      Table of Contents

      Discerning A Way Where There Is No Way 1

      1 Repentance 9

      2 Gratitude 21

      3 Community 27

      4 Compassion 33

      5 Justice 39

      6 Prophetic Healing 49

      7 Peace 57

      8 Hope — Church Beyond Pandemic 63

      Discerning A Way Where There Is

      No Way

      We see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; then I will know fully even as I have been fully known. Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13)

      This afternoon as I look out my study window at the woods beyond our house, the world I see is filled with beauty. The Cape Cod sky is blue and the day is sunny. Later, after a day of writing and homeschooling, I plan to take a long walk with my grandchildren and our Golden Doodle on an empty beach near my home. On this glorious Cape Cod afternoon, for a few minutes, I can live in denial of the world around me. It is almost impossible to believe that as individuals and as a nation, virtually everything we are doing this Spring and into the Summer revolves around the Coronavirus pandemic. A virus, invisible to the naked eye, has shut down first world nations, shuttered restaurants and schools, and halted national and local economies. While politicians promise America’s reopening and a resurgence of the economy, most of us recognize that life will never be the same again. I yearn to get back to normal, to the way things were on Ash Wednesday or New Year’s Day. I dream of going to dinner and movie with my wife, museums and ball games with my grandchildren, shaking hands and embracing friends at church, potluck dinners, and in-person classes and study groups. I look forward to walking on the beach or my neighborhood without my face mask and in the company of good friends. Deep down, I know that there is no turning back, no return to the normal we once took for granted and the future we planned for ourselves, our families, and our congregations.

      As we journey through the wilderness of pandemic eyes fixed on far horizons of hope, there is no clear road map ahead and no bright star guiding us to the promised land. The new normal for which we pray will be quite different than what we experienced in the weeks before mid-March 2020 when many of us closed our congregation’s doors, suspended hospital and home visitation, and moved to online worship and programming. We are in the middle of an apocalypse, the collapse of the old order and the end of business as usual.

      The times are apocalyptic, but not as the feckless Second Coming preachers proclaim. There will be no divine rescue operation, separating the sheep and the goats, and providing escape for those who presume themselves among the saved. God will not deliver North America from the impact of the Coronavirus. The apocalypse we are going through is catastrophic, especially among the poor and vulnerable. There is no going back in time for a do over or reclaiming what has been destroyed. Still, we hope for a better tomorrow and some of us pray that within the destruction we are experiencing, seeds of transformation and global healing will emerge, like new growth following a forest fire. But there is no guarantee that many of the institutions and traditions that have defined our lives will survive.

      As I ponder the meaning of these apocalyptic times, I believe the apocalypse we are going through is not a divinely planned catastrophe or judgment on the sins of the nation, but a revealing of where we stand in relationship to God, one another, and the planet. This revealing challenging our previously-held beliefs about our personal and global future can lead to repentance and transformed values if we discern the deeper challenges embedded in this time of personal, national, and global upheaval.

      As I reflect on the future of our planet, nation, communities, and congregations, I feel much like Dante, who begins Canto One of The Divine Comedy with the confession, In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Right now, the way ahead is dark and uncertain with few social and political guideposts. Yet, as I write these words, we are in the middle of Easter season with Pentecost on the horizon. We can identify with the amazement of the woman who come desperate to Jesus’ tomb, asking one another, Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? and then discover that the tomb is empty and Christ is risen (Mark 16:3). We can yearn for the spiritual resuscitation and empowerment that emerged when Jesus’ followers, anxiously sheltering in place in an upper room, suddenly experienced the Risen Jesus, promising peace, breathing on them, filling them with God’s Spirit, enabling them to exhale once more, and then inspiring them to go out into the streets with good news of Life conquering death. We can also feel the amazement of the women and men, worshipping together behind closed doors, when the Holy Spirit

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