I Could Have Been an Anti-vaxxer
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Stories
Contents
“I Could Have Been an Anti-vaxxer” by John Sumwalt
“Planted by the Water” by Peter Andrew Smith
I Could Have Been an Anti-vaxxer
by John Sumwalt
Luke 6:17-26
He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. (vv. 17-19)
Misinformation and lies about the Covid-19 vaccines abound on cable news, social media and in newspapers. Anti-vaxxers have been raising alarms about the dangers of vaccines for years. Their voices have become shriller in recent months.
What is most disconcerting is that many of those spreading misinformation are church leaders. One clergy person in Wisconsin recently passed on the blatantly untrue assertion that you can experience side-effects just from being around someone who has received one of the Covid vaccines. “False claims that the coronavirus vaccines can be passed — or ‘shed’ — from an immunized person to an unvaccinated woman and then somehow affect the woman’s reproductive system are whipping around social media. Top medical experts agree that it is impossible for a person to transmit the vaccines to people they happen to be near and for a woman to experience miscarriage, menstrual cycle changes, and other reproductive problems by being around a vaccinated person.”
“This is a conspiracy that has been created to weaken trust in a series of vaccines that have been demonstrated in clinical trials to be safe and effective,” said Dr. Christopher Zahn, vice-president for Practice Activities at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Calling the vaccines “our single best tool for confronting a global pandemic that has taken almost 600,000 lives in this country alone,” Zahn added that “such conspiracies and false narratives are dangerous and have nothing to do with science.”
Bruce Epperly, another colleague, writes that the fact that some Christian leaders “…are the most anti-vaccine says something about the quality of their religious faith. Their adherence to the big lies about vaccines… makes them virtually irrelevant to thinking persons. If they believe falsehoods like this, can anyone believe their faith statements or sermons? Commitment to falsehood in one place undermines the credibility of their message.”
Conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine cults are not new to this pandemic, or even to this century. “Two of the United Kingdom’s most prominent anti-vaccine organizations were launched in the last half of the 19th century in response to new laws requiring children be inoculated against smallpox,” according to Dr. Vincent Iannelli, a pediatrician who has written extensively about the topic. “Then as now, the anti-vaccine movement was often led by promoters of alternative medicine who claim vaccines don’t work, make you sick and contain poisonous chemicals than can cause cancer or birth defects. Other adherents simply seem to perceive mandatory vaccinations as an unjustified violation of their personal liberty.”
I am fully vaccinated, and not just for Covid-19. I have been jabbed, as the Brits say, with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. But like most baby boomers of my generation I have, over the years, also been vaccinated for smallpox, polio, tetanus, influenza, rubella, measles, whooping cough, and diphtheria, all diseases that have been controlled because of vaccines. I remember standing in line at the Richland Center High School Gymnasium along with hundreds of other grade school kids to get the oral polio vaccine in the early 1960s. That was a big deal then. We all knew someone who had been crippled by polio.
Still, I must confess that I thought long and hard about whether to risk getting a Covid vaccine because I have a compromised immune system from Lyme Disease. And I had a disappointing experience with the shingles vaccine several years ago. Two months after taking it I came down with shingles. It was a mild case. I did not have the excruciating pain that many report, but it left me weakened for months and I think more vulnerable to Lyme when I was bitten by a tick. Did the vaccine bring on or cause the shingles? I don’t know. Are my conclusions about what happened completely wrong? Possibly.
Full disclosure. Three days after the second Pfizer shot, I had a reaction that landed me in the emergency room. The scary symptoms went away after a few hours and none of the tests administered by our crack Richland Hospital ER team revealed anything of concern. I have had two more similar episodes since with lesser symptoms, but no more trips to the ER.
Would I do it again? Yes, with no hesitation. I decided that there was a much greater risk of dying or being disabled from Covid than of dying or being disabled by a vaccine. And, after being locked down for a year with only Zoom looks at our four grandchildren, I was willing to take a calculated, reasonable risk. After just two visits our two-year-old grandson comes running to greet me now with open arms yelling “Bapa!” It doesn’t get any better. Yes, I would do it again.
I also decided that I have a moral obligation to the rest of the community to do whatever I can to stop this deadly disease. How would I ever forgive myself if I passed the virus on to a loved one or a neighbor and it caused their death? So, I decided to put aside my personal fear and trust the science.
A top ICU doctor in Tampa Bay, in the state of Florida where 50 to 70 people are dying every day from Covid-19, said, "People who are vaccinated don't die." He added, "You can't imagine what it's like to see a 35-year-old person or a 24-year-old mother gasping for their last breath.”
Jesus said, "...you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (Jn 8:32)
Don't listen to the purveyors of misinformation, even if they are standing in a pulpit holding a Bible. Trust God and study the facts.
* * *
Planted by the Water
by Peter Andrew Smith
Jeremiah 17:5-10
“What are you reading?” Harry asked as he came into the room.
David looked up from his phone. “The Bible.”
“No, seriously. You’re looking at your phone.”
David turned the screen around to show his roommate. “I have the Bible on my phone so I can read it anytime I have a few moments.”
“Huh. I didn’t know you could put it on your phone but now that you mention it, that makes sense.” Harry flopped down in a chair. “You read it every night too, don’t you?”
“I do before I pray, yes.” David thought for a moment. “I like to read it at other times too.”
“I know the Bible is long but with all that time you spend reading the Bible you must be getting close to finishing it.”
“I have read all the Bible.” David looked back at the screen. “I’m reading it again.”
“Why?”
David swiped to a new page. “Each time I read the Bible I discover something new.”
“Really?” Harry tilted his head to one side. “What do you mean, like words or stories you missed before?”
“Sometimes I do discover parts I didn’t read carefully but that isn’t what I mean. I find that when I’m in a different place in life sometimes I hear God speaking through familiar words in a new way.”
“Okay. That sounds cool.” Harry frowned. “What do you mean?”
David put his phone down. “I was reading through the prophet Jeremiah and the words talked about the difference there is between people who put their trust in God and people who put their trust in other people.”
“I bet he says to put your trust in God.”
“He does but he explains it like being a shrub in the desert when you trust in people. You never get rain or anything else. While he says that people who put their trust in God are like trees planted by the water, and they always have the strength to grow and flourish.”
Harry nodded. “I get it because even though there may not be rain, they always have water to draw from unlike the shrubs in the desert.”
“Exactly.” David paused. “It made me think of the family funeral I was at last week.”
“Yeah, your aunt died, didn’t she? You said that whole family was there, and the chapel was full.”
“It was and as well as family, she had lots of friends.
“That’s a sad time for sure.”
“It is. My uncle has a deep faith and while he cried a lot because he loved my aunt, but he also laughed and told lots of stories about her.”
“I met her.” Harry grinned. “She was a character.”
“She was.” David smiled. “We have lots of great memories of her.”
“I think I get it. So your uncle reminded you of the tree planted by the water. Even though it was a difficult situation losing his wife the fact is that he knows where to go for strength and hope.”
David nodded. “Exactly.”
“I’m not sure if I should ask but who was the shrub?”
“My cousin sat through the whole service stone faced.” David sighed. “No tears, no laughter, nothing. I talked to her a bit, and she was barely holding it together.”
“It is hard to lose your mother.” Harry shivered. “I can’t imagine anything worse.”
“Losing a loved one is a hard thing, but my cousin has nowhere that she can turn and she reminded me of that shrub in the desert. All alone in a difficult time.”
“That is rough.” Harry furrowed his brow. “She did have you and the rest of the family though, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. I mean I spent some time with her just listening and she even asked me why my uncle was having an easier time with my aunt’s death than her and I tried to explain but I don’t know if she really understood.”
“I think I do.” Harry tapped his chin. “So how would I get planted beside that water?”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t know if I believe like you do but I do think there is a God and I want to know more about Jesus.” Harry took a deep breath. “How would I do that?”
David held up his phone. “Read your Bible, come to church, pray.”
Harry thought for a moment. “I can do that. Can you send me that app?”
“Sure.” David tapped on his phone. “There are also apps that will read the Bible verses to you.”
“Awesome.” Harry pulled out his own phone and opened the link. “So, I could listen to the Bible when I go for my run?”
“You certainly can my friend.” David smiled. “You certainly can.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 13, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“I Could Have Been an Anti-vaxxer” by John Sumwalt
“Planted by the Water” by Peter Andrew Smith
I Could Have Been an Anti-vaxxer
by John Sumwalt
Luke 6:17-26
He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. (vv. 17-19)
Misinformation and lies about the Covid-19 vaccines abound on cable news, social media and in newspapers. Anti-vaxxers have been raising alarms about the dangers of vaccines for years. Their voices have become shriller in recent months.
What is most disconcerting is that many of those spreading misinformation are church leaders. One clergy person in Wisconsin recently passed on the blatantly untrue assertion that you can experience side-effects just from being around someone who has received one of the Covid vaccines. “False claims that the coronavirus vaccines can be passed — or ‘shed’ — from an immunized person to an unvaccinated woman and then somehow affect the woman’s reproductive system are whipping around social media. Top medical experts agree that it is impossible for a person to transmit the vaccines to people they happen to be near and for a woman to experience miscarriage, menstrual cycle changes, and other reproductive problems by being around a vaccinated person.”
“This is a conspiracy that has been created to weaken trust in a series of vaccines that have been demonstrated in clinical trials to be safe and effective,” said Dr. Christopher Zahn, vice-president for Practice Activities at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Calling the vaccines “our single best tool for confronting a global pandemic that has taken almost 600,000 lives in this country alone,” Zahn added that “such conspiracies and false narratives are dangerous and have nothing to do with science.”
Bruce Epperly, another colleague, writes that the fact that some Christian leaders “…are the most anti-vaccine says something about the quality of their religious faith. Their adherence to the big lies about vaccines… makes them virtually irrelevant to thinking persons. If they believe falsehoods like this, can anyone believe their faith statements or sermons? Commitment to falsehood in one place undermines the credibility of their message.”
Conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine cults are not new to this pandemic, or even to this century. “Two of the United Kingdom’s most prominent anti-vaccine organizations were launched in the last half of the 19th century in response to new laws requiring children be inoculated against smallpox,” according to Dr. Vincent Iannelli, a pediatrician who has written extensively about the topic. “Then as now, the anti-vaccine movement was often led by promoters of alternative medicine who claim vaccines don’t work, make you sick and contain poisonous chemicals than can cause cancer or birth defects. Other adherents simply seem to perceive mandatory vaccinations as an unjustified violation of their personal liberty.”
I am fully vaccinated, and not just for Covid-19. I have been jabbed, as the Brits say, with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. But like most baby boomers of my generation I have, over the years, also been vaccinated for smallpox, polio, tetanus, influenza, rubella, measles, whooping cough, and diphtheria, all diseases that have been controlled because of vaccines. I remember standing in line at the Richland Center High School Gymnasium along with hundreds of other grade school kids to get the oral polio vaccine in the early 1960s. That was a big deal then. We all knew someone who had been crippled by polio.
Still, I must confess that I thought long and hard about whether to risk getting a Covid vaccine because I have a compromised immune system from Lyme Disease. And I had a disappointing experience with the shingles vaccine several years ago. Two months after taking it I came down with shingles. It was a mild case. I did not have the excruciating pain that many report, but it left me weakened for months and I think more vulnerable to Lyme when I was bitten by a tick. Did the vaccine bring on or cause the shingles? I don’t know. Are my conclusions about what happened completely wrong? Possibly.
Full disclosure. Three days after the second Pfizer shot, I had a reaction that landed me in the emergency room. The scary symptoms went away after a few hours and none of the tests administered by our crack Richland Hospital ER team revealed anything of concern. I have had two more similar episodes since with lesser symptoms, but no more trips to the ER.
Would I do it again? Yes, with no hesitation. I decided that there was a much greater risk of dying or being disabled from Covid than of dying or being disabled by a vaccine. And, after being locked down for a year with only Zoom looks at our four grandchildren, I was willing to take a calculated, reasonable risk. After just two visits our two-year-old grandson comes running to greet me now with open arms yelling “Bapa!” It doesn’t get any better. Yes, I would do it again.
I also decided that I have a moral obligation to the rest of the community to do whatever I can to stop this deadly disease. How would I ever forgive myself if I passed the virus on to a loved one or a neighbor and it caused their death? So, I decided to put aside my personal fear and trust the science.
A top ICU doctor in Tampa Bay, in the state of Florida where 50 to 70 people are dying every day from Covid-19, said, "People who are vaccinated don't die." He added, "You can't imagine what it's like to see a 35-year-old person or a 24-year-old mother gasping for their last breath.”
Jesus said, "...you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (Jn 8:32)
Don't listen to the purveyors of misinformation, even if they are standing in a pulpit holding a Bible. Trust God and study the facts.
* * *
Planted by the Water
by Peter Andrew Smith
Jeremiah 17:5-10
“What are you reading?” Harry asked as he came into the room.
David looked up from his phone. “The Bible.”
“No, seriously. You’re looking at your phone.”
David turned the screen around to show his roommate. “I have the Bible on my phone so I can read it anytime I have a few moments.”
“Huh. I didn’t know you could put it on your phone but now that you mention it, that makes sense.” Harry flopped down in a chair. “You read it every night too, don’t you?”
“I do before I pray, yes.” David thought for a moment. “I like to read it at other times too.”
“I know the Bible is long but with all that time you spend reading the Bible you must be getting close to finishing it.”
“I have read all the Bible.” David looked back at the screen. “I’m reading it again.”
“Why?”
David swiped to a new page. “Each time I read the Bible I discover something new.”
“Really?” Harry tilted his head to one side. “What do you mean, like words or stories you missed before?”
“Sometimes I do discover parts I didn’t read carefully but that isn’t what I mean. I find that when I’m in a different place in life sometimes I hear God speaking through familiar words in a new way.”
“Okay. That sounds cool.” Harry frowned. “What do you mean?”
David put his phone down. “I was reading through the prophet Jeremiah and the words talked about the difference there is between people who put their trust in God and people who put their trust in other people.”
“I bet he says to put your trust in God.”
“He does but he explains it like being a shrub in the desert when you trust in people. You never get rain or anything else. While he says that people who put their trust in God are like trees planted by the water, and they always have the strength to grow and flourish.”
Harry nodded. “I get it because even though there may not be rain, they always have water to draw from unlike the shrubs in the desert.”
“Exactly.” David paused. “It made me think of the family funeral I was at last week.”
“Yeah, your aunt died, didn’t she? You said that whole family was there, and the chapel was full.”
“It was and as well as family, she had lots of friends.
“That’s a sad time for sure.”
“It is. My uncle has a deep faith and while he cried a lot because he loved my aunt, but he also laughed and told lots of stories about her.”
“I met her.” Harry grinned. “She was a character.”
“She was.” David smiled. “We have lots of great memories of her.”
“I think I get it. So your uncle reminded you of the tree planted by the water. Even though it was a difficult situation losing his wife the fact is that he knows where to go for strength and hope.”
David nodded. “Exactly.”
“I’m not sure if I should ask but who was the shrub?”
“My cousin sat through the whole service stone faced.” David sighed. “No tears, no laughter, nothing. I talked to her a bit, and she was barely holding it together.”
“It is hard to lose your mother.” Harry shivered. “I can’t imagine anything worse.”
“Losing a loved one is a hard thing, but my cousin has nowhere that she can turn and she reminded me of that shrub in the desert. All alone in a difficult time.”
“That is rough.” Harry furrowed his brow. “She did have you and the rest of the family though, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. I mean I spent some time with her just listening and she even asked me why my uncle was having an easier time with my aunt’s death than her and I tried to explain but I don’t know if she really understood.”
“I think I do.” Harry tapped his chin. “So how would I get planted beside that water?”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t know if I believe like you do but I do think there is a God and I want to know more about Jesus.” Harry took a deep breath. “How would I do that?”
David held up his phone. “Read your Bible, come to church, pray.”
Harry thought for a moment. “I can do that. Can you send me that app?”
“Sure.” David tapped on his phone. “There are also apps that will read the Bible verses to you.”
“Awesome.” Harry pulled out his own phone and opened the link. “So, I could listen to the Bible when I go for my run?”
“You certainly can my friend.” David smiled. “You certainly can.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 13, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
