"How good and pleasant it is when brothers [and sisters]
live together in unity." A good thought...togetherness. That is
one of the reasons I enjoy the church. As we gather together for
worship, I am reminded that I am not alone. Not only that GOD is
with me, but that other PEOPLE are with me...YOU are with me. I
need that.
It is strange, you know. As important as it is to us, we do
not often celebrate togetherness. We gather at Thanksgiving time
and express our gratitude for so many things...for food, for
clothing, for shelter, for health, for sheer survival. We might
even give thanks for our families - I hope we do - but rarely do
we ever specifically give thanks for the fact that God has seen
to it that we are not alone, that we are more than individuals,
that we are a part of a group, a community. What makes our
silence strange is that so much of what and who we are is SHAPED
by others, the community of which we are a part.
But in spite of that, we Americans tend to ignore community.
Our heroes are the rugged individualists of society - the Lone
Rangers, the Daniel Boones, the Rambos, the hard-boiled private
eyes who go about their work wanting and needing no one. We even
try to separate individuals from the teams of which they are so
obviously a part, selecting "Most Valuable Players" in games
where just one player would be slaughtered without the work of
teammates. We prefer to think in terms of the individual rather
than any group.
Is that good? I do not think so. And for that matter,
neither do many others. A book came out some years ago called
Habits of the Heart(1) that now has become a classic. It was
written by some sociologists who wanted to look at our American
celebration of individualism to see where it was leading us. And
frankly, what they found in their research was disquieting.
Without going into detail, their conclusion was that all this
concern for the individual, a concern that tends to ignore the
community, is leading this nation to the place where, one day, we
could lose our precious freedom. The authors became convinced,
after some five years of digging, that the key to the survival of
our way of life will be how much or how little Americans will be
willing to stop being overwhelmingly concerned with our own
"private" lives and are willing to once again begin thinking of
those around us, to begin to think again of the "common good."
Obviously, such thinking is solidly Biblical. We have a
specific command from the Lord to love our neighbors in the same
way and to the same degree that we love ourselves. Rugged
individualism might be nice for novels or movies or television,
but in the world that the Lord presents as the ideal, individuals
appear only to have place as we relate to one another.
Think about what scripture has to say about our
interrelatedness. Back in Genesis, in the story of how all this
came to be, you will recall that God created something and
declared that it was good; God created something else and
declared that it was good; something else...good. Do you
remember the first time that the creation record says that
something was NOT good? Genesis 2:18: "It is not good that the
man should be alone." God never intended that we should be JUST
individuals - we are made for togetherness.
As you move further through the scriptures and see the
accounts of the ancient Israelites, again and again the picture
is one of relatedness - related by blood through Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob; related by tribe through the sons of Jacob; related by
faith through their allegiance to Yahweh. In fact, the picture
often is the nation thought of in terms of just one person - in
Isaiah, Israel is called the "suffering servant"; in Hosea, the
nation is shown as the unfaithful wife; in the historical books,
the good or evil deeds of the king are thought of as the good or
evil deeds of the nation. Israel was not thought of in terms of
the rugged individuals who made it up; instead the people were
thought of as coming together to such an extent that they
collectively became THE rugged individual - the nation of Israel.
"How good and pleasant it is when brothers [and sisters] live
together in unity."
The New Testament picture is equally clear. There is Jesus'
injunction to love our neighbor as ourself. There is the example
of close-knit fellowship among the apostles. There is the
witness of the early church that demonstrated such a bond of
togetherness that they were willing to pool their resources so
that no one would ever be in need. Then there is that remarkable
description of the church that Paul provides when he talks about
us as the BODY OF CHRIST - individual members, each with
different gifts, but all related by necessity since no one member
possesses ALL the gifts. The picture the Bible paints is one
that celebrates individual gifts but only insofar as they are put
to use for the common good.
One more point needs to be made before we look at what we
might do to maintain a proper sense of togetherness. As
Christians, we affirm that, no matter how rugged an individualist
we might be, the one thing we cannot do is save ourselves. Our
Christian confession is that we are totally dependent upon
someone else for our salvation - Jesus Christ. No individualists
need apply.
All right then. If individualism is potentially such a
problem, how do we begin to overcome it? First, we will REMEMBER
from whence we have come, the people and history that nurtured us
and brought us to where we are. That will mean looking at our
families, our communities, our nations, to learn from the rich
cultural resources which have shaped us. That means study, but
the reward will be that we will begin to realize our
connectedness with the world in some new ways. Albert Einstein
once said, "A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner
and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and
dead..."
Second, we will educate our children to look at themselves
in the same way, as related to more than just a tiny circle of
family and friends. That means we will not be content to train
them in school to be technically competent to handle some job.
This world is more than nuts and bolts, but for our children to
learn that, the education they receive will have to place more
emphasis on the liberal arts - language skills, literature,
history, music, drama. To teach them only specialized technical
competence says to them that the rest is unimportant, that the
only thing that matters in life is making a living. That is not
true. We do our children a disservice if we allow them to grow
up without the kind of broad-based education that will prepare
them to genuinely be a part of the world community.
The idea of making a living brings us to a third point: we
will start looking at work with new eyes. We will begin to see
work more as a vocation than as simply a way to put eggs on the
table. Over and over, we hear the complaint that "They just
don't make things the way they used to." It is true. And do you
know why? It is because looking out for yourself has become more
important than looking out for anyone else. People must begin to
view their work in terms of the contribution it makes to the
common good, not just the contribution it makes to their bank
account.
The common good leads us to a fourth point. As a matter of
fact, it IS the fourth point. The COMMON good must take
precedence over the INDIVIDUAL good. That means we will take a
more serious look at how we handle the question of making sure
that everyone has what they need to live. Listen to what Habits
of the Heart has to say:
Both [the Old and the New] Testaments make it clear
that societies sharply divided between rich and poor
are not in accord with the will of God. Classic
republican theory from Aristotle to the American
founders rested on the assumption that free
institutions could survive in a society only if there
were rough equality of condition, that extremes of
wealth and poverty are incompatible with a republic.
Jefferson was appalled at the enormous wealth and
miserable poverty that he found in France and was
[hopeful] about our future as a free people only
because we lacked such extremes. Contemporary social
science has documented the consequences of poverty and
discrimination, so that most educated Americans know
that much of what makes our world and our neighborhoods
unsafe arises from economic and racial inequality.
Certainly most of the people to whom we talked would
rather live in a safe, neighborly world instead of the
one we have."(2)
Unfortunately, we know we have mixed attitudes about that -
we do not like shelling out and shelling out and shelling out for
welfare programs. But if the common good is important, we WILL
need to do something - money for job training and retraining,
money for child care, money for remedial education, money to take
care of those who are not physically able to support themselves.
We have no choice if the common good is genuinely important.
With the poet we will realize,
No man is an island;
No man stands alone;
Each mans joy is joy to me;
Each man's grief is my own.
There are other points that could be made in all this, but
let me make one final observation. If we are ever to truly begin
to think of ourselves as more than isolated individuals, as
genuinely interrelated, we will rethink some of our goals. It is
axiomatic in our society that we should set our goals as high as
possible, that our quest should aim to be NUMERO UNO. The chant
arises, not only from football stadiums and basketball courts,
but from the depths of our hearts as well: "WE'RE NUMBER
ONE...WE'RE NUMBER ONE!" The problem is that, according to
scripture, for life in God's kingdom, that is exactly backwards.
Remember what Jesus said? "The last shall be first and the first
shall be last."(3) If we are to ever to think in terms of
relatedness and to celebrate and give thanks for togetherness, we
will stop making our goal in life that of being NUMBER ONE.
An old story. It seems an anthropologist, a man whose life
work was spent in the study of human social and cultural
development, died and came up to the pearly gates. But being the
scientist that he was, before accepting St. Peter's invitation to
come in, he made a special request - he wanted to go down to Hell
to have a look-see. The privilege was granted, and when the
ebony doors were opened, he was amazed at what he encountered.
Inside he saw a vast banquet table laden with every imaginable
good thing to eat and drink, but the people around it all looked
like cadavers - emaciated and starving. Their arms were bound in
front of them, straight and stiff in splints, with the result
that no one could get his hand to his mouth. It was a ghastly
and unbearable sight, so the man hurried back to St. Peter ready
at last to make his entrance.
In a moment, the pearly gates were opened to him, but the
sight that he saw took him by surprise. Once again, he was
confronted with a banquet table laden with all manner of good
things, and around it once again were people whose arms had been
stiffened with splints. But here the people were happy and
well-fed. "I don't understand," said the man. "The
circumstances seem the same, but there is such a difference."
"It is all really quite simple," said St. Peter, "you don't
feed yourSELF with arms like that, but you CAN feed your
neighbor. Up here, you see, we have learned to feed each OTHER."
Togetherness. "How good and pleasant it is when brothers
[and sisters] live together in unity."
This Thursday, most of us will sit down at tables heavily
laden with all manner of good things. And no doubt, before we
eat, we will bow our heads to give thanks for the bounty God has
provided. We will give thanks for the food and clothing and
shelter and general well-being. We will thank God for the
families and friends with whom we gather. But perhaps, we might
remember to offer thanks for one thing more - togetherness...not
just the togetherness we share with relatives, but the
togetherness we share with all humanity, and the togetherness
offered to us in Jesus, the one scripture says sticks closer to
us than a brother.
When times are hard and life gets us down, we are not alone;
we have each other and we have Jesus. When sadness and grief are
overwhelming, we are not alone; we have each other and we have
Jesus. When the pain is great and almost unbearable, we are not
alone; we have each other and we have Jesus. When we are finally
beaten so far down that we can hardly remember up, we are not
alone; we have each other and Jesus. When we come to the end of
our road and life's brief day is done, thank God, we are not
alone, we still have each other, and we have Jesus! "How good
and pleasant it is when brothers [and sisters]...red, and yellow,
black and white - brothers and sisters of every skin and tongue
and tribe...how good and pleasant it is when brothers [and
sisters] live together in unity." Thank God, we are not alone.
Amen!
1. Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, Steven M.
Tipton, Habits of the Heart, (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985)
2. Habits, p. 287
3. Matthew 19:30; 20:16; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30
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