Leading Like Christians in a Climate of Fear

It’s interesting that as we go through this season of nonstop news about COVID-19, we celebrated the feast day of Gregory the Great on March 12, who was appointed pope in AD 590, after his predecessor, Pelagius II, had died of the plague. Gregory inherited, pestilence, famine and war. And in that context in the sixth century, he became the leader of God’s church.

Gregory the Great was an astonishing leader. And he basically led out of three very clear priorities. The first has to do with how, in the midst of the time of such extraordinary calamity, we make sure that, both in society and in the church, we take care of the least of these. Because of course in a climate of fear, where people feel uncertain and terrified about the future, their knee-jerk reaction is entirely oriented around self-protection.

Three Priorities of Gregory’s Time

1. Caring about those in need: A part of what Gregory held up again and again and again was, “But what about those who don’t have the help that we do?” In fact, he opened up the papal granaries in Sicily specifically to serve those who had need. These held food that, in fact, had been stored for the huge papal household. But what did Gregory do with it? He gave it away to the people who were in need. 

Gregory was known for taking seriously his call as the pope to be a servant of the servants of God. And that’s how he led, by caring about those who were in need.

2. Evangelism and mission: Again, the whole focus in the midst of all of that war and calamity was self-protection. But for Gregory, it was, “No, we have to go take the gospel, even to England.” This came in the midst of a time when there may have been people counseling him to reinforce whatever they had, to make sure they were taking care of each other first. 

But that was not Gregory’s priority. Instead, he emphasized reaching out with the good news of the gospel.

3. Worship: Gregory the Great’s third priority in this time of great need was the ordering of the church’s liturgical life. He knew intuitively as well as from the teaching of Scripture that it’s worship that reminds us about who God is and who we are. We think both of the Gregorian chant, which was collected and codified during his papacy, and of the foundational text in our epistle lesson, Colossians 1:27, which says the hope of glory is Christ in you. 

Two Life-Lessons for Our Time

1. Living out the nature of Christ: In other words, God has given us the very nature of his Son. And that gives us the grace and the power to be able to use our language, step up, lead, take huge risks when necessary. It gives us the grace to find a way to lead people forward and call them to be their very best in the midst of an incredibly calamitous and profoundly fearful time. 

As I think about how we as a diocese respond to the things that are going on around us, a part of my profound concern is to make sure that we lead like Christians, that we lead in a way that speaks clearly about the overcoming power of what God has planted in our lives. I want to make sure that, as a result, we set a pace, even for the world, of courage, of generosity, of risk-taking for the sake of the gospel. I want us to lead this way rather than knee-jerk reacting into a place of self-protection that really doesn’t care, or, in fact, is so overcome by fear that we don’t have room to care about what’s going on in the world around us. 

And so when I think about Gregory and his call to lead, there’s a reason he’s called (as one of only two popes who received this designation) “the Great.” It has everything to do with the pace he set as a leader, as a servant of the servants of God, caring for the poor, reaching out in evangelism in a time where many people would say, “No, the Lombards are coming; we need to batten down the hatches.”

Gregory’s actions reveal that his priorities were more like this: “No, we need to actually be sending out missionaries, and then tuning the church’s worship in a way that will better help them access as the visible reminder of God in their mix all that has already been given to them in Jesus Christ.” 

2. Living by Christ’s power and presence: You see, what is it that casts out fear? Perfect love (see 1 John 4:18). That’s another word for Jesus. And therefore to know who we are in Christ Jesus gives us the capacity to live by his power. To live out of the Christ in you that God has planted within by his Holy Spirit. We don’t have to wait for that to come; it’s here. As children of God, Christ is within us.

And therefore the challenge, the call, the invitation, and in fact even the joy is to live out of that place of the presence of Christ within us, particularly among the people who do not know how to access that, even though they might call themselves Christians, and also among the world, who’s nervously wondering what we will do and how we will act in the midst of this extraordinary climate of calamity and fear. 

It’s not a question of undercutting the danger of the virus as a way of calming our nerves. That’s actually dishonest. Instead, it’s about lifting up what we have received in Christ Jesus and inviting people to live out of the incredible generosity that God continues to pour into us. 

We live this way not so we can feel better, but so we can be a channel and open the storehouse of grain he has placed within us to serve those who are in need. 

How do you think we can “lead like Christians” during the coronavirus pandemic? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer. 

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on March 12, 2020, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.)

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.