Social distancing has come even more to the fore in these Covid-19 days as some restrictions are being lifted throughout the UK although more so in England. We have been seeing images of crowded buses and trains in London which have caused some alarm. Thankfully our family Londoner is still working at home and still taking no chances.
Social distancing was practiced in Ancient Israel where there was suspected disease. If you have ever read the Law books in the Hebrew Bible you will come across provisions for quarantine when leprosy or other skin diseases are suspected. There is a less worthy social distancing in evidence in the Gospels. This was in relation to certain people who were deemed to be morally suspect. Some of the more devout were taken aback that Jesus openly kept company with tax collectors, prostitutes and others who would not be welcome in what was considered the best kind of gathering. One one occasion a Pharisee was scandalised when he saw a woman ‘who had lived a sinful life’ wiping her tears from Jesus’ feet with her hair, kissing his feet and pouring on perfume. (Luke 7: 36-50)
This woman was the kind of person who was not placed in quarantine but unless you wanted people talking you kept your distance. This still goes on. There is no doubt that perspective on people can be coloured by the company they keep. Jesus’ attitude, however, has rubbed off in many of His followers. Examples are numerous but I was thinking about a colleague the other day. He spent most of his ministry in Glasgow city-centre, often working with the homeless. He sometimes conducted funerals for men who for various reasons had long since lost touch with their families. At the age of 54 he was diagnosed with cancer and it was his wish that when the time came his ashes would be scattered in the same place as the homeless men who had become so much part of his life.
Social distancing can be more subtle. It’s possible to be uncomfortable with certain people because of their political or theological views and no matter how you try there is a distance. The novelist Nick Hornby has written about his early days and how as a grammar school boy there was always a barrier with his ‘Secondary Modern’ contemporaries. ‘Something separated us,’ he writes.
I’m not sure how prominently the theory of ‘elaborated code’ features in modern sociology but it always interested me. It had to do with verbal communication and how in certain words we use and the way we speak we send out signals to others who recognise us as ‘one of us.‘ This is done unconsciously by and large and need not be sinister but it explains how sometimes connections are made with some and social distance created with others.
There was social distancing in the Corinthian Church in the first century which was most apparent when believers came together for the Lord’s Supper. Paul saw this not only as a threat to true Christian fellowship but as an affront to the Gospel. His images of the Church - the body of Christ, the army of Christ, the Temple of Christ - allowed for no divisions along the lines of class, gender or nationality. At a personal level he repeatedly encouraged Christians to practice the ‘holy kiss’ as a sign of their closeness in Christ. Certainly this was direction for believers, those within the community of Christ. But Paul had before him the bigger picture in which God was working ‘to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.’ (Ephesians 1: 10) A vision of a society with no distancing of any kind, a vision which needs to shape our attitudes in the way we relate to one another.
It may be necessary for the time being to exercise social distancing for our own safety and that of others but this might be another of those ‘opportunities’ we hear so much about these days. To consider how in the best of times we keep others at a distance for less worthy reasons and pray for the inner change that will lead to the binding together of the Kingdom.
