You, Me, and Us
A ONE Church Eastertide Devotional
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load. (Galatians 6.2-5)
"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community." (William James)
The individual and the community. Managing the two has been a central human concern since the beginning of time. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain asked God. And his question has resounded through history, right up to and through the loneliness epidemic in our land.
At this point in this devotional, you probably suppose that the dice are loaded -- that your author will proceed now to lambaste Cain's implied message that his brother’s not his business. You likely expect that we're headed for a “community, community, community” pep rally. But that's not where the Bible takes us. Nor does it take us to “individual, individual, individual.” To quote Yogi Berra, the winningest baseball player of all time, on the issue of whether individual or community is more important, the Bible “feels very strongly both ways.”
Exhibit A for today is Galatians 6. There, in a space of one paragraph the apostle Paul makes two strongly contradictory statements:
Community. "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."
Individual. "Each one should test their own actions...for each one should carry their own load."
Let’s begin by admitting that this is a confusing back-to-back. We’d imagine that Paul either thinks that we should carry each other’s bags or he thinks that we should tote our own. But he seems to want to have and eat his cake at once. Hmmm. I love a good challenge, don't you? If we slow the scene down, two options show up:
Paul is just terribly confused and doesn’t remember what he wrote two sentences before. (Not likely.)
Paul is working on a profound existential tension between personal and communal responsibility. (Seems more likely.)
What IS the relationship between personal and community responsibility? The great early 20th century social scientist William James tried his hand at capturing one piece of this formula. James wrote, “The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.” Sebastian Junger highlights the constructive tension in his book, Tribe - On Homecoming and Belonging. There he speaks to our current polarized ways: “The most alarming rhetoric comes out of the dispute between liberals and conservatives, and it’s a dangerous waste of time because they’re both right.”
Junger illustrates his claim with one of the great examples of our current conflict: the Left-Right difference on welfare and entitlement programs. Junger says,
"American conservatives are evolutionarily correct to worry about the able-bodied and able-minded who would choose not to work in favor of living off the dole. "
"American liberals are evolutionarily correct to represent the needs of the vulnerable."
The constructive tension between individual and community is built into our DNA and it is built into the wisdom of our governing system. That makes it no surprise that in the community of God’s people, the Bible has a similar both/and. Paul DOES flash both individual and communal responsibility here. It's not an either/or.
Individual Responsibility. In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul says, “The one who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat.”
Community Responsibility. In Matthew 25, Jesus says that the proper response to “…hungry…thirsty…naked…sick…in prison” people is for the rest of us to figure out how to make sure they have food, water, clothes, health, and company.
The Bible is at pains to say that both individual and communal responsibility are crucial elements in a healthy community.
So what's the message for us? The answer to this question is not simple. Sometimes humanity swerves so far toward the communal that proper individual responsibility gets lost; other times we veer way over to individualism and the community role gets lost or shrunken beyond recognition.
I've said many times in this space that I believe American individualism has become corrosive to our attempts at the Bible’s vision of flourish. I think we've swerved too far in that direction. Loneliness is at all-time highs. Depression is on the rise. Trust is on the decline. But the answer to this is not to put community on its own in first place. We do not need to become a 300 million member kibbutz. We need a corrective, not a replacement. The church could be a huge help by living the tension more constructively.
Friends, I'm not sure what is on your schedule today or this week or this month or beyond, but I know it will involve you in this tension. Both our everyday lives and our political issues put us in the middle of it all the time. As we navigate that space, Paul's telling us that it's not a bad idea to "bear one another's burdens" while we "carry our own load."
Have a thoroughly thrilling Thursday.
Prayer -- God of the one and God of the many, build in us the kind of flourishing community that knows the importance of individual ingenuity, and the kind of individual flourish that leavens robust community. Help us we pray, in Jesus. Amen.