Religious folks over the millennia have often felt the need to separate themselves from the world and its foibles, whether it be to hold up in a monastery, to form separate communities, or even to trek across mountains, prairie, and ocean for a completely new start in an untamed land.
I understand the sentiment. I confess to having such thoughts in my melancholy moments. After being bombarded with several days worth of distressing news stories, I have blurted out more than once a desire to move to Honduras or other such climes, and while the events of the past few weeks have changed my fantasy destination, the desire to tell the world where to get off is a very real one.
In 1527 the plague inflicted the German city of Wittenberg. Wittenberg is otherwise famous as the site where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church door. Luther was in the city at the time of this plague while many of the residents were leaving the city for healthier locations. The question naturally arose, what is the duty of the Christian in such a time as this?
Luther gave his answer in his treatise Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague. Wrote Luther, “This I know, that if it were Christ or his mother who were laid low by illness everybody would be so solicitous and would gladly become a servant or helper. Everyone would want to be bold or fearless; nobody would flee but everyone would come running ... If you wish to serve Christ and to wait on him, very well; you have a sick neighbor close at hand. Go to him and serve him, and you will surely find Christ in him.”
Martin Luther in essence was saying what many Christian teachers have said for many years: It’s time for the church to be the church. This is an ailing world, and times such as this require a cadre of committed people who have their wits about them and are motivated by nothing less than a willingness to serve.
The world is hurting and it needs us. Perhaps, as with Esther, we have been brought to the kingdom for such a time as this.
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