Who is essential?

 Over many months of the pandemic, there has been much emphasis placed on who is an essential worker and the contribution they make to the life of our community. This has once again emerged as we start to experience fresh demands on our health care workers, the difficulty in ensuring that goods are distributed and that people are able to maintain the daily necessities in order to live. It is important that we acknowledge the important work that these people provide for the good of the community. Yet at the heart of life, all people should be considered essential not because of what they do but because of who they are. I believe it is important to recognize the contribution of each person in building a community. 

The importance of these considerations is that people are gifted by God for the good of the whole community. This has been brought into sharp focus during the last week when people start to notice how a person's value is determined by the perceived contribution they make to society rather than their fundamental worth. Thus we see debates focussing on whether a tennis player should enter the country rather than the more serious questions of the length of detention of those refugees who briefly shared the limelight. The question of how rapid antigen tests are distributed and whether they should be freely available to all people. Also, the response is necessary to ensure that society functions well for the good of all especially the most marginalized. 

It is possible that we can become focused on what we lack to live full and productive lives. Much as in the story of the wedding at Cana we can believe that we are running out of time and resources to sustain life. We start to celebrate small victories rather than the person who can transform water into wine! Sometimes it is even possible to believe that our best years are behind us. Yet in the midst of our daily need and the ordinary events of life that we are called to celebrate we become people who are prayerfully aware of a deeper need. It is important that we can recognize that in being attentive to the needs of daily life that we become aware of how God is creatively present. This is not by being distant from our need but by allowing us to be instruments of God's grace by entering into the mystery of those transforming moments. By allowing God to meet us in the ordinary events of life with thanksgiving. 

This is especially important when we can become aware of the tensions which strain our friendship with God and with each other. When we notice what is not working well rather than discovering how we all have a part to play for the good of the whole. Rather than focussing on scarcity, we are called to notice God's abundant grace which meets us in real-time. This may be the moment in our own history when God calls us to see our prayer drawing us closer together in the time of our greatest need. In this, we discover who is essential and how we are called to live for the good of all not just for ourselves.