Herd Immunity

He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" ~ Luke 4:22
The epidemic of avian flu is once again raging among wild and domesticated birds alike. This virus always kills the host bird and birds don’t have a strategy to combat it, so mass die-offs are inevitable without human intervention. The only natural defense a flock of birds has is to shun infected kin, so their natural tendency to gather works against their better interests. If we dare to project human characteristics onto our feathered kin, we might then pity their lack of understanding that their instinctual concern for each other is the very path to catastrophe.
It would be nice to think that our compassion would lead us to assist the afflicted birds, but sadly, we are not typically that noble. Our interventions tend to be rather self-serving, trying to save the fowl destined for our tables, or hoping to prevent crossover contamination that may impact humans. But it is fair to say that scenes of large-scale suffering often do evoke empathy.
Unfortunately, we have all too real evidence from our recent handling of the COVID pandemic to prove that we are often lacking in sufficient compassion for our human kin, let alone our more-than-human kin. Too much pandemic response exposed the foolishness of individual thinking. A significant portion of the population refused to care enough about the common good to accept the wisdom of seeking herd immunity, instead falling prey to a selfish herd mentality falsely believing that the welfare of others was not their problem.
When Jesus proclaimed in his inaugural sermon that he was on a mission to demonstrate that God’s day of favor had arrived in a preferential option for the poor, he was met with this same ugly tendency of a group to circle the wagons and attack the messenger. They even tried to silence him by means of a trip off of a cliff! He anticipated their response by suggesting that they would quote “doctor, heal yourself.” In other words, he expected them to want healing only for themselves when herd immunity was the true path to full health.
Prayer: Great Physician, lead us to the margins where we can not only find you, but find healing as we care for one another. Amen.
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