Reverend Jones: COVID reminds we are all the same

COVID reminds us that we are all the same in God’s sight, for it spares no one.

These were the words shared by Reverend Allan Jones, priest-in-charge of the St. John’s Parish Church yesterday, which was recognised as the sixth Sunday of Easter.

Speaking under the theme “Love in Action” Reverend Jones while delivering his online sermon encouraged Barbadians to live in love with each other . “To care for, and to share with each other for our very survival as a nation, a people and a world.”

Reverend Jones said the pandemic is calling for greater generosity. “COVID calls on all of us but especially believers who have more to share with those who do not have. and to do in loving obedience to God. Because God created an inter-dependent world in which we all must depend upon each other for our survival.”

“Now this is also the same message of Rogation Sunday which we observe in the church today, for all of God’s creation is dependent upon each other and it is through the combination of God, the work of human hand and the land that we are able to sustain ourselves. It is because we recognise this, that today we ask for God’s blessings for a bountiful harvest. and we ask God to help us not to forget how much we need Him and each other to live in this world.

He said persons today are very much like the confused and fearful disciples who first heard this invitation to love Jesus.

“For we are living in a period of great restraint on our freedom of movement and for us believers , our freedom to worship. We are living in a period also of great uncertainty as to when our church lives in particular, shall return to the normal we once knew. And this situation seems to have no immediate end, it might go on for a long time.”

“In the midst of this however, we hear Jesus saying to us, let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me.”

By this he said persons will begin to see some of the positive lessons which COVID 19 is bringing to the fore. “For it teaches us that we are all God’s children. And our relationships with God and each other are the real essential and important elements of this life.”

“The material things of this life, the rituals that we uphold, our traditions and practices, these all have their place. but they are meant to assist the relationship we have with each other and not to replace them. As sadly they have done. And they may continue to do if we do not take stock of how we are progressing in our lives,” he said. (JH)