Loving All Neighbors: Open

The idea of quarantine for the sick is actually a distinctly Christian and biblical perspective in history.

So get this, the idea of quarantine came from us. You're welcome. The sick were examined and then quarantined to protect the life and health and safety of the people of God.

One of the things you do not see in scripture is government shutting down families, abilities to feed themselves, businesses, commerce, and all the rest.

You do not see that sort of a thing in terms of a preemptive quarantine. These are real people who are hurting without jobs.

You understand that? Please hear me on this. Millions upon millions upon millions of people have had their lives destroyed in just the last week and we haven't even begun to smell it.

We haven't been bitten down yet. You understand dance studios, karate schools, gymnastics studios can't endure this.

You understand that? They can't endure this kind of a thing. Restaurants, travel, entertainment, people who are service providers can't endure this.

Real people who are really dependent upon that paycheck every week are already wondering today right now as I'm preaching this, they're wondering, how am

I going to feed my kids? How am I going to take care of my wife? Yes, I have five children and my husband's a contractor and he's lost a couple jobs from it and the homeowner's nervous to sign the contract to remodel their home because it's affecting their income so they don't know if they can pay for the remodel.

And then he also does cell towers and one of the schools was shut down and so he couldn't put the transmitter he needed for the cell tower because they refused to open the doors of the school.

Absolutely. I own a small business. I've been paying my people now for six weeks. I'm out of money.

This is my boss. I work for her and yeah, hardly any income, you know, since it started and I'm hurting.

I've got the, you know, bills piling up and no income.

Because you see, people can say only essential businesses should be open. All non -essential businesses should not be open.

And in the background are millions of people raising their hands saying, but my business is essential to me.

To me. My business is essential to my wife. My business is essential to my children.

My business is essential to my care for my aging parents. It's essential to me.

Well, we are a one -income family household. I'm a stay -at -home mother of two beautiful little girls and my husband is currently out of work and we want the state to open back up.

People are wondering how are they going to make it? And I want to just highlight the principle of love for neighbor has to be something that all of us, but especially your pastors have to consider when we're making decisions.

Is this loving my neighbor or is it showing a lack of passion for their wellbeing?

Yeah, my husband's in the aquatic industry. So, um, with all of the pool closures, um, he has had to take a pay cut and a cut in hours as well.

So it's either that or, or layoffs for the whole company. So everyone in the company had to take a pay cut and reduced hours or only as many hours as needed.

Um, or else everyone would have had to be laid off. I sell crystals and jewelry online.

I have a business called Cordial Traders Emporium and I do Facebook live sales as well as a on a website that we have.

And the last three or four weeks, I know these four or five of my customers have lost their job that used to be regular customers.

So I did notice the impact. I just had to work a little harder, but the longer this goes on, the more we're going to get impacted.

And what you don't know about me is I grew up in a communism behind the Iron Curtain. So watching this unfold, it's quite interesting to see in the land of the free.

Describe that you grew up behind the Iron Curtain, communism. What are you seeing here that's scaring you?

Um, it's just seeing the same, uh, the supply lines being impacted, the tyrannical overreach of the authorities in the name of whatever story they trying to sell.

Absolutely. And I grew up in that watching it. So it's very apparent to me. Sure. So we run a tourist business that brings people in to do corporate team building and leadership.

Since the travel restrictions, uh, we've personally lost about $30 ,000 in revenue and all future bookings have been canceled.

So, uh, you know, my staff hasn't worked since the, since the beginning of March and we haven't had a single reservation.

We're trying to keep our doors open by offering training at local firing ranges, but people are so scared of going out to the sunshine, even if they're socially distancing, that it's almost effectively shut down our entire revenue stream.

I'm actually in the childcare industry at, at this time, every daycare family that I've had in my program have either been laid off or now work from home.

And therefore it's affected all of the families that I've cared for. Don't take your liberties for granted.

The constitution is for all of us and, uh, please hold your representatives accountable.

This is what I see as one of the fundamental, most important aspects of the decision -making that we make and our leaders make.

Love for neighbor. Isn't it funny how that gets hijacked? It's love for neighbor that says that we should all be quarantined to our houses right now and we should shut down commerce and the economy.

It's love for neighbor. I want to say this, you're forgetting about an entire segment of neighbors, millions upon millions of them that are being destroyed right now.

You see, you've drawn a small circle around one segment of neighbors and you've forgotten about all these ones.

And love for neighbor as a principle, we should uphold for both aspects, protecting safety life, health, but also loving the neighbors who are going to suffer.