“We get it, you miss your friends and your normal life. The virus doesn’t care. Don’t be selfish. Stay home. If you can’t order it online or pick it up curbside, you don’t need it.”
It’s time we thought through that message.
Some people really can live that way. Everything they need is delivered to their doorstep, or they go drive by the store and pick up their purchase at the curb. But plainly, these people’s “unselfish” and “safe” lifestyle is dependent on another whole class of people who deliver their goodies to them — and those people definitely cannot work from home.
Question #1: Why should the delivery driver leave his house to deliver goodies to yours? Because your life is of incalculable value, and his is worth $12 an hour (until he gets sick and can’t work, that is)? Surely not.
In the end, though, this is what it comes down to: he does it because he can’t afford not to. And you stay home because you can afford to. Your safety comes at his expense — and you pay him for that. (So tip well, y’all.)
Question #2: If he needs to go out into the world in order to support himself, what do you think he should do for church? Is worship less important than work, or is it more important? He risks no more going to worship than he does going out to make the rent; why shouldn’t he?
So when you decide that it’s too risky to open the church doors…you are denying him the opportunity to worship, because gathering in person seems so risky to you. And remember, the delivery drivers, paramedics, nurses, mechanics, social workers, etc. never stopped working. If there’s such a severe risk that you’d put yourself under house arrest to avoid it, then how dare you demand that they take those risks without the opportunity to gather and draw strength from corporate worship? What gives you the right?
Full Contact Christianity 