Don't Hit the Panic Button Yet

The other day, I unlocked my front door and opened it to step inside and immediately, my little black cat, Pippin darted outside.

Now Pippin is not an outdoor cat.  It’s not that he wants to go outside that badly; it’s that he just hates closed doors and feels compelled to check out whatever’s on the other side—like I’m holding out on him.

Fortunately, he hasn’t learned to run from me yet, so I quickly snatched him up, trying to juggle both him and my keys to get him back in the condo.

And just then, someone’s car alarm went off.

So now I’m not holding a cat, I’m holding Edward Scissorclaws, this exploding, terrorized mass of fur and claws.

Finally, I’m able to toss him into the entryway and slam the door closed behind him.

He’s inside.

I’m still outside. 

Why am I still outside?

Because that car alarm is still going off and as I make my way down the stairs to check, I can see that … yep, it’s my car.

When I was wrestling with Pippin, I had accidentally hit the panic button on the key fob.

It’s funny, but we seem to be living in a world right now where everyone—everyone—has hit the panic button.

This pandemic, the weeks of self-quarantine, the 24/7 news coverage—all of it has made us a bit crazy.

I mean we’re hoarding toilet paper.

I went to Target last week and the one thing I really love about Target these days is that they put all their toilet paper and paper towels and water right up there by the front entrance so that it’s not like Black Friday with customers racing each other to the far aisles in the back of the store.

On this particular day, I was shocked to see three containers of Clorox wipes sitting on top of the paper towels.  I quickly grabbed one, not because I needed one, but because wipes are almost impossible to find, and I figured I would offer the container to a friend in need.

Five minutes later, I walked down the cereal aisle and saw a woman asking an employee if there were any wipes available.  The woman did not have a cart.  She was wearing a mask and gloves and looked like—honestly, she looked like all of us right now—frazzled and frantic and probably in need of a haircut.

She looked at me and saw the wipes in my cart and asked me where I had found them.

I stared back at her and said, “Hey, I don’t really need mine.  If you need them, please take them.”

Her eyebrows shot up—we live in a world right now where, thanks to masks, we only have the eyes to fill us in on any non-verbal communication—and she said to me, “Really?”

I nodded.  “Yeah, if you need them, take them,” and I took a step back so she could take them from my cart without violating any social distancing.

She was stunned, but she took them and headed back to the front of the store, but she had only taken a few steps when she turned back around and said, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” I said.

We are all so fragile right now.

Our worlds have been turned upside-down.

Everything we once took for granted—from the small stuff, like toilet paper, to the larger things like our health and our jobs, our homes and being able to feed our families—we can’t count on any of these things. 

Nothing is guaranteed.

But here’s the thing, nothing has ever been guaranteed.  This is not new information.

Tomorrow has never been promised to us.

Life is impermanent.  All these things we treasure—they do not last.

There is a poem by Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins called “Spring and Fall” that addresses this. It reads:

Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

Let me see if I can give you a rough translation.  The speaker here finds a small child crying over the leaves that are falling off the tree in autumn.  He then tells the child, Margaret, that she is crying because the falling leaves have revealed something important to her.  Nothing lives forever.  He tells her that as she gets older, it will matter less to her, but that for now, she is not crying over the leaves, she’s crying because now she knows that all things die, including herself.

Our psalm for today, Psalm 102, also addresses the impermanence of life.  In verse 3, “My days pass away like smoke,” and later in verse 11, “My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass.”

The speaker here is despondent, heartbroken and suffering and keenly aware of his own mortality.

But then the psalm shifts tone and in verse 12 says, “But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever; your name endures to all generations.”

Nothing last forever … except … God.

He is enthroned forever.

His name endures for all generations.

Though we may die, God lives.

God is our constant—though the rest of world may be spinning away in chaos, God is our rock.  He is unchanging.  He is our anchor in the storm.

In today’s reading from John, we hear several lines that should be very well known to us even if we have never read the Bible.  Surely John 8:32 sounds familiar to you.  It reads, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

Truth, much like toilet paper, seems to be in short supply these days.  A five second scroll through Facebook will show you that.

But the truth that Jesus refers to here is a different kind of truth.

What is this truth?

Well, it’s not a “what,” it’s actually a “who.”

Who is truth?

Read the verse again and then simply replace “truth” with “Jesus.” 

You will know Jesus and Jesus will make you free.

Jesus actually says these words just a few verses later in verse 36, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Jesus is the truth.

He is the only truth we need.

He is the only truth we can count on.

Again, in a world where everyone has pressed the panic button and there are 7.5 billion alarms screaming at us, it is Jesus, it is God, we must turn to.

He is permanent.  His love for us is permanent.  His love for us will never change.  He is our hope.  His is the hand that reaches out and pulls us closer to Him, to offer shade from the sun and cover in the storm.

Nothing in this world lasts forever.

Except God and His love for us.

Amen.