When the present pandemic began to take hold, a passage from the writings of Martin Luther went the rounds on the internet. With his usual combination of down-to-earth wisdom and practical piety, Luther insisted that preachers and pastors should remain at their posts. As good shepherds, they should be prepared to lay down their lives for their sheep: “If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me,” he wrote in a letter to a pastor friend. “I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely.”
