How do we love one another?

How do we love our neighbors?

As clergy, we have often been asked about vaccination. And we have been asked, as we make clergy visits to the sick and dying: Where is God in this process, in this pandemic? We have been asked this by caregivers as well.

In answering this as people of faith, we need to look to God’s clearest commandments: You shall love the Lord your God, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

No matter what God is doing or allowing to happen, it is our task, our duty, our sacred responsibility to love God and to love our neighbors.

How do we show that love?

At the very least, we act in ways that don’t injure our neighbors: We stop for red lights; we don’t throw our trash in our neighbors’ yards; we yield the right of way to ambulances and fire trucks. And in many other ways, we live in harmony.

How does this apply to vaccinations?

The facts seem clear: Where more people have been vaccinated, fewer people are horribly sickened and tragically dying. And where fewer people are vaccinated, hospitals and particularly intensive care units are more crowded, often beyond the ability of the healthcare system to respond either to the pandemic or to other desperate medical situations that routinely arise.

So it follows that being vaccinated, even in the presence of our fears or uncertainty, is truly an act of love for our neighbors and our community. We are vaccinated not only to diminish our chances of severe illness, but also — and even primarily — so that the more vulnerable among us, our elderly relatives or friends, our neighbors who have had transplants, and all of those who have diseases of health issues that truly preclude vaccination, all have less chance of catching a serious disease that we ourselves might carry.

Each and every one of us who have signed this letter has been vaccinated. Some of us have suffered minor side effects, but all these have been trivial — especially compared with the anguish we would feel at seeing our loved ones suffering … and the anguish we have seen in the hospital staff members who have been driven to the breaking point by the burden of caring for so, so many sick and dying patients.

So we all, each and every one, believe that being vaccinated has been an act of love.

We encourage everyone to live in love, love for God, love for our neighbors, love for ourselves. And being vaccinated is one way that we firmly believe this is done.

Rev. Leigh Benish, pastor, Hill United Presbyterian Church

Rev. Joseph Boomhower, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Chicora

Rev. Verna Call, pastor (retired)

Rev. B. T. Gilligan, pastor, Nixon United Methodist Church

Cantor Michal Gray-Schaffer, Congregation B’nai Abraham

Rev. Dr. Mary Kitchen, pastor (retired)

Allen Kitchen, ruling elder (PCUSA)

Rev. James L. Smith, pastor