We Are Martians

It seems a strange title, I know.

But as of the last few weeks, it feels like we are inhabiting a strange new planet, dark and desolate, and yet disconcertingly similar. When I wake up in the morning and look outside my window, the same two birch trees reflect the morning light. Magpies warble in connectivity as they hold, what my friend Michael calls, their vociferous Annual General Meeting outside my window. The wind still blows my chimes, haunting tones echoing through the garden. These are all the same and yet everything feels different.

This world seems to feel pinched or squeezed. The people I meet in the streets or at church look out across the roads or parking lots, across the crowded shopping stores with wariness. Each gaze wonders if another person is going to transmit not only the virus, but the fear associated with it and the mandatory isolation that occurs afterwards.

I see these people; I resonate, because I'm trying not to see every human as a vector transmitting disease... and then suddenly I remember:

Nothing much in the world has changed except perspective.

My eyes have been opened and there is no shutting them again.

I woke up this morning and looked at the birch trees, listened to both Magpie and chime and thought to myself, "I'm not trained for this." There is no class in seminary which trains pastors to shift, almost in realtime, the way the Church is meant to be and made to engage. For many pastors and worshiping communities, the landscape has shifted so drastically from large, building gathered worship to live stream discussion, from passing the peace to avoiding it like the... ummm… plague, this shift has created a sense of "Well, now what?" We've been worshiping indoors for so many years; we've been 'doing small groups' for so long, gathering in homes for a Bible study, a meal and some polite conversation; we've been weekend Christians for so long, how can it change almost overnight? How do we change with it?

It's almost like we've been put into an alternative universe or on another planet.

One of my favourite stories/movies is The Martian, novel by Andy Weir, movie starring Matt Damon. As the story goes, (Spoiler Alert) Damon, playing the role of Mark Watney, a botanist on part of a scientific team studying Mars, finds himself in the midst of a storm that no one saw coming. As the team is attempting to hurry back to salvation in their landing unit, Mark is caught outside. The full fury of the storm hits him and a piece of the communication dish pierces his suit through his stomach and he is left behind.

When he wakes up from the storm, he notices that he is isolated and alone. His sense of rescue is gone. And even though the landscape is entirely the same, his perspective is entirely different. Instead of being a scientist earthling, he is now a scared Martian.

The core decision that Mark Watney must make is: Do I throw in the towel, give up, because the storm sucker punched me when we weren't ready? Or, do I work through the process to figure out how to find salvation?

Thus, this contemporary dilemma of the Coronavirus and subsequent fear, has given the Christian Church the same two options. Does the Church throw in the towel and wait for a slow, inevitable death, or, does the Church recognise that the hard work of understanding salvation (work out with fear and trembling your own salvation - Philippians 2:12) and God's calling on the life of the Church and the lives of those who make up the Church.

I prefer the second option. Thus, we are all called to be 'Martians' stranded as strangers in a strange land (as Abraham was called) to work out in a different way how God's salvation can be communicated to a world reeling from the tectonic shift in the air we breathe.

These are the things that Mark Watney did first in the story/movie which I think are good metaphors for how we can move as the Church:

1.  Take stock of health.
2.  Take stock of assets, spiritual, human, financial, prayer, etc...
3.  Work out a procedure for diminishing suffering and prolonging strength
4.  Figure out a new way to communicate from a distance
5.  Overcome fear and give in to faith

These are the next five discourses I'd love to chat about with you. I look forward to being a Martian with you.