As we journey out of lockdown, I've been reflecting on this. We've had some sort of restrictions since March 2020, which takes us to about 14 months, which is longer than 254 days and definitely longer than 66. Perhaps this different way of existing has now become a habit, and when things change, some of these habits will be hard to break.
Take going to IKEA for instance - I went on Friday, but I found it difficult to park. Not because there were no spaces - the car park is mahoosive - but because there weren't three spaces together so I could park in the centre space and still be far away from other cars. Social distancing has come to my parking habits. As someone who has always kept my distance from others (it's the family way), I've been surprised that the need to social distance over the last 14 months has become so much more of a behavioural habit that I am slightly freaked out by getting close to anyone. I am one of those people who suddenly shouts at the telly 'but you're not social distancing!'.
We're all going to be challenged in whatever the next few weeks and months bring because our habits have changed - our shopping habits (I've thankfully broken the online supermarket shopping habit, but it was tough), the way we are around other people, our worshipping habits (isn't it easier just to sit on your sofa even if it is lacking?), our everyday routines (who else rolls out of bed straight to their desk?)..... some of the habits might be worth keeping and nurturing, but many will have to be broken and changed as life changes again, and that'll be hard.
The effects of the pandemic on our habits is a small window into the habits that we have developed over our whole lives and the habits we have developed as a society as a whole. We have a whole load of bad habits that affect the way we treat others and approach issues of justice. At Baptist Assembly 2021 Sunday morning service, Shane Claiborne talked about how we have adjusted as a society to accept injustice as normal - as something that just happens because of the way things are. Whilst we might say that we believe in equity and justice for all, the reality is, that our whole way of living has adjusted to habits that present injustices as normal.
Shane talked about our need to readjust, to rethink the whys and the wherefores, to consider the habitual behaviours in society (I'm not sure he used quite those words, but bear with a bad listener) we accept as normal and seek to live in a more Jesus way.
You see, Jesus presented a vision for his Kingdom where those who we would not normally see as blessed are the blessed ones (see the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5). His kingdom is a kingdom of justice and joy, of love and of peace. If we accept that the rich - poor divide is just the way it is, or that foodbanks are always going to be around, or that racism or sexism is just the way it is..... if we accept that mantra of 'things or that person or that place is never going to change' then we miss the potential that Jesus sees in the world and the role we have to play in bringing transformation that points to, that shows signs of what the way of Jesus is.
In Ephesians 5:1-2 (Message Translation) it says this:
"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behaviour from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that"
As we break pandemic habits and form new ones we need to think about the other habits we need to break and the ones we need to take up, and as we do that we need to observe 'how Christ' and be a bit more like that. This is Jesus who left the extravagance of heaven to live on broken earth, to move into the house next door. This is Jesus who went and spent time with the people who nobody else would step near. This is Jesus who turned the world upside down, not by shaking it to get the broken pieces out, but by embedding himself within it, taking its brokenness upon him and becoming broken with it as he died on the cross. This is Jesus who cried 'it is finished' as he gave up himself so that new life might come and new ways might be formed.
This is Jesus, who in resurrection declared that it doesn't have to be this way and showed us the way of transformation.
And in a society that is adjusted to a normality or habitus of injustice, the call of 'how Christ loved' is a call to readjust our view and be people who are committed to developing habits that reflect his image far more brightly than the image of the broken world in which we dwell.
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