America is a dangerously lonely nation. That’s the

conclusion drawn by writer Ezra Klein in an essay

earlier this year, and he has the statistics to back the

claim. Fully one in three Americans feels lonely at

least once a week, and the numbers are far higher

for the young and the old, many of whom report

daily struggles with loneliness. Cultural changes

in recent years have exacerbated this reality. More

interaction mediated through screens. Less belonging

to organizations, teams, and clubs that meet regularly

in person. More time spent at home. Less time with

extended family, friends, and neighbors. Longer hours

working. Fewer hours serving or volunteering.

The epidemic of loneliness has far-reaching impact.

It threatens our individual health physically and

emotionally as Dr. Chaddock and our CenterPoint

therapists could attest. It also drives societal division.

How? Decreases in human interaction tend to make

us more fearful and less trusting of others. It is easier

to demonize difference from a distance. We tend to

move toward extremes when we do not interact soul

to soul and face to face. Polarization is magnified.

Pessimism proliferates. When we don’t talk to each

other, we cannot understand each other. And so, space

necessary for nuance shrinks. The search for shared

values is abandoned. Community collapses, and

we live in the wreckage. We are dangerously lonely.

Reading the essay, I kept thinking about the urgent

need to rebuild relationships at the most basic level. I

kept wondering where we might discover the capacity

to begin rebuilding.

When the Christian movement was still in its infancy,

ruptured relationships threatened to utterly destroy it.

The Apostle Paul, early on, recognized that the risks

within the Church, within these fledging Christian

communities, were just as great as outside pressure

and persecution. The risk of the Church collapsing from

inside was as great as the risks outside. And so, Paul

traveled all over the Roman world, visiting communities

of faith and writing letters to their members, preaching

the centrality of unity. Paul was insistent that in order to

be faithful, the Church must offer a distinctive definition

of what that word unity means. To illustrate this over

the course of his apostolic career, Paul develops a

metaphor for the Church. The Body of Christ. You are

the body of Christ. Diverse and essential parts of the

same living, breathing organism.

Paul writes in First Corinthians that there is one

sentence that no Christian is ever permitted to say

to another believer. There is one sentence that is

forbidden for followers of Jesus. Are you ready? That

one sentence is: I have no need of you. To say to

another member of Christ’s body, “I don’t need you,”

is as ludicrous as one part of the human body saying,

“I’ve got this. I can handle it all on my own.”

Perhaps this will save you some frustration or

resentment. You cannot handle this all on your own.

And the good news is, you were never meant to try.

Now we could lay the blame for our epidemic of

loneliness on many different culprits. The causes of our

discontent are legion. But here is one that we should

not ignore. It is the pernicious lie that interdependence

is weakness. It is a myopic focus on self-sufficiency

that swiftly shifts to self-righteousness. I can handle

this all on my own. I’ve got it. Tell me: when did trying

to understand someone else’s perspective become a

sign of deficient conviction? Yet another way of saying,

“I have no need of you.”

In a dangerously lonely time, what do we need? I have

an answer. It is rooted in scripture and confirmed by

experience. Here’s what we need: every single one of

us needs witnesses to our life. Regardless of our age

and stage, every one of us needs the kind of people

who show up for us. The kind of people who are there,

just there, in moments of celebration or sadness.

Those who are willing to set aside their own needs

long enough to listen to ours. And in turn, we need to

be such witnesses for each other. We need to show

up for one another. We need to listen to one another.

Perhaps the most faithful and countercultural decision

you can make—and every single one of us can make it,

and we can make it today, and we can reaffirm it every

day. The most faithful and countercultural decision you

can make is to become deeply invested in the life of

someone outside of your immediate family. To show

up for them. To be a witness to their lives. To honor the

promise we make every time we celebrate a baptism.

The good news is that there are countless ways to do

this, and every single one of them matters. Lives are

saved because people show up for each other.

Indeed, Paul says that the body of Christ is so deeply

interconnected that when one member of the body

suffers, all of us join in that suffering, and that when

one is honored in any way, all of us join in rejoicing.

Paul urges us to honor those who seem weaker and

support the ones who need it the most. Talk about

countercultural! We are taught and trained from a

young age to measure ourselves against each other.

And so, if someone else is honored, that means I am

not. When we succeed, it is at another’s expense.

There can only be one champion. Second place is

the first loser, and the weak just get in the way. I can

attest that this ceaseless drive is both exhausting

and ultimately unproductive because it ignores our

most basic needs and only serves to separate us from

shared experiences that make us human. Joy shared

is joy multiplied. Grief shared is grief divided. We need

each other.

This spring I am volunteering as one of the coaches for

a fourth and fifth grade track team. Now, for most of the

kids this is the first experience of competitive running,

and I use the term loosely because every kid who wants

to be a part of the team is welcome to join. There are

no tryouts and no required times. And what that means

is that we have, let us say, a broad spectrum of speed

and strength. At the meets, the runners are divided into

heats that can last well over two hours. And on the Clay

Center Elementary team, we have some very impressive

young athletes. But here is what has impressed me

far more. These kids, they instinctively adhere to the

Apostle Paul’s instructions.

When a runner, no matter their speed, posts a new

personal best, teammates and rivals lift them with

deafening cheers, high fives, and the kind of human

pile that only ten- and eleven-year-olds can execute

without injury. When a member struggles to get to the

finish line on his own, a swarm appears, flanking the

track on both sides to propel him forward. The shouts

are just as deafening. Keep going! You got this! You’re

almost there! Last week, when a runner fell at the

starting line, two competitors delayed their own race

to help him up, costing themselves several places in

the finish. When the emotion of the moment becomes

too much, the community steps in with grace and

compassion. After the last meet, another coach walked

over to me and said, “Don’t you wish the whole world

could be more like an elementary school track meet?”

It’s a worthy goal. And maybe it can. Afterall, it’s how

we were built.

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those

who weep. It’s built into who we are. We need each

other. One body. It is the truth we proclaim and the

sustaining power behind our life as a community,

that no one is extraneous, and no one can be left

behind if we are all to make it to the finish line. Like

the mosaic our community has been creating, it takes

every part of the body to make the picture whole. And

so, in dangerously lonely times, perhaps this truth

is the foundation for our rebuilding. A community

that embraces interdependence. People who find

their deepest joy in being witnesses to each other’s

lives. This is what the Church can provide in a time

that cries out for experiences of belonging and

communities of compassion.

Preacher Fred Craddock grew up in Oklahoma. Though

his mother was a faithful member of the local church

and took the three children each week, his father never

attended church. He would never attend church. In

fact, he complained every Sunday that lunch was late

when the rest of the family would come home from

services. Sometimes over the years, the pastor of the

church would call, and Craddock’s father would always

say the same thing. “I know what the church wants.

The church wants another name and another pledge.

The church doesn’t care about me. Just another name

on the rolls and another pledge in the plates. Another

name, another pledge. Right? Isn’t that the name of

their game? Another name, another pledge.” I have

no need of them. That’s what he always said, until one

time he didn’t say it. He was in the VA Hospital and

down to 73 pounds. They had put in a metal tube, and

X-rays burned him to pieces. So Fred, his son, flew

in to see him. His father couldn’t speak. He couldn’t

eat. He was near the end. When Fred walked into the

hospital room, he looked around. Potted plants and cut

flowers on every single windowsill. A stack of cards

twenty inches deep beside his bed. And even on that

tray where they would have put food if he could eat, on

that tray there was a vase of flowers. And all the plants

on the windowsills, and every vase of flowers, every

card in the stack, each beautiful blossom and heartfelt

word, came from people or groups in the church.

Craddock tells the rest of the story: “Dad saw me pick

up a card and read it. He could not speak, so he took

a Kleenex box and scribbled on the side of it. He wrote

a line from Shakespeare. If he had not written this line,

I would not tell you this story. My father wrote, ‘In this

harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.’

“I said, ‘What’s your story, Daddy?‘

“And, on that same Kleenex box, he wrote, ‘I was wrong.’”