Welcome to this Sunday’s scripture readings. You picked a good Sunday to pay attention. Finally, three readings that hit at the core of our human lives. Especially when those lives are lived in the face of Jesus Christ.

Ezekiel: If you know a friend of your is up to no good and say nothing. Your friend will die of guilt but (and here’s the good part), you’ll be help responsible for keeping your mouth shut.

St. Paul says for us to “put on Christ.” Well, try those britches on for size!

Another Paul: “The one who loves has fulfilled the law.” Weird. The often called cold of the law is satisfied by the wishy washy virtue of love. And that’s not all from our buddy, Paul. He says, “Love does no evil to the neighbor.” So, please return the tool you borrowed two years ago. Is that asking too much? 

We are in this together. This beautiful, scary journey of life. Our virus has signs like that all over the place. However, I can tell a Democrat from a Republican without ever asking them. I deliberately called the virus “ours” because it’s not mine and you sure don’t want it all by yourself. It is ours. We can all hang out a medical shingle with our acquired medical knowledge of six months about this terrible virus. All the information - full of fact and faction, speculation, promises and hope. And, how a world wide deadly virus became divisive is beyond me. 

But like most things, it begins with you, not me. (Just kidding.) It begins and continues throughout our lives with, in, and through you and me. It’s good that you’re sitting down because here it comes. I’m responsible for your life. I am accountable for both mine and your life. I have no one to blame. 

We proudly declare ourselves to be the “Body of Christ” one day a week and spend the other six trying to figure out who to “stick it to.” Cleverly done, by the way, always behind the person’s back. Pious on Sundays and pompous those other days. 

We are in this life together. We believe ourselves to be social animals but constantly seem to find a way to separate us; whether racially, economically, socially, gender[ly], age-wise (the eighty-year old tells me that I’m the young kid,) yeah, right. (I know you’re very old, please don’t compare.)

We are in this together. I’m responsible for people I know and even people I do not know. I think that’s also called the “Body of Christ.” As much as I like to think that Christ died for only me…

That unique, one-of-a-kind snowflake that your mother told you that you are, melted the first time you went to the bathroom on your own. And, then it melded you into the human community that  calls us all to unify every, single day.

I didn’t forget today’s gospel. Jesus said to them and he says again and again to each of us who are really part of a whole, “if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.”

How? By wearing the face of Jesus Christ outside your mask. Depending on the merciful presence of God in our minds along with outstretched arms and sturdy legs.

Because, “We are in this…