Our Life-Giving Interdependence

June 20, 2021 • Third Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, 12-14, 18-19, 25-27
Rev. Jeff Wells

[You can view the video recording of this message at Facebook.com/churchofthevillage/videos.]

Did you all know you are body parts? Wouldn’t it be fun to have that conversation? That part of the body are you? An eye? An ear? A foot? I love the way the apostle Paul uses this metaphor of “the body of Christ” to talk about the church. He makes clear that our collective body could not function effectively without its various parts and that all of the parts should be honored and valued for their particular role. No one part of the body is better or more valued than another. We are all interdependent. We work together and mutually care for one another in order that each individual part, as well as the body as a whole, may flourish. 

Beginning around the year 50 of the Common Era, Paul spent a year and a half in Corinth drawing together a large group of new followers of Jesus and trying to forge them into a cohesive community of faith. That was challenging from the start because the church was composed of both Jews and Gentiles – groups that had formerly despised each other. There were also big economic disparities in the body. These young Christians were just learning how to live together, to accept one another, and to care for each other.

Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church 3 or 4 years later when the body was experiencing a lot of conflict and many members were behaving quite badly. I suspect his message about working together as parts of one body was not well received by many in the congregation who were intent on guarding their own interests. 

It seems to me that we need to continually teach and embrace Paul’s message of mutual interdependence, especially in U.S. society in which that message grates hard against the predominant social ethos that tell us: Don’t depend on anyone else. Be self-reliant. Make it on your own. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. It is weak to be vulnerable and ask for help. Such rugged individualism is a dangerous illusion and leads away from our best possible lives, communities, and social relations – away from what God desires for us.

Yet, individualism and self-reliance are deeply ingrained in the American psyche. They are captured by Clint Eastwood riding into town, killing the bad guys, and then riding off to the next destination without ever making a real relationship, being vulnerable with anyone, or even genuinely caring about anyone. This myth does not reflect the true nature of human interrelatedness and it will not generate for us vibrant living.

Like Dr. King’s phrase about “the interrelated structure of reality,” Albert Einstein once expounded on our illusion of separateness. He said: 

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation.”

The truth is that none of us would be who we are or have gotten to where we are today without the help, support, care, and influence of thousands of people. Some of them we never knew – some lived before we were born. Others are in our lives now, but we fail to acknowledge their importance. Moreover, this interdependence extends to the complex social and ecological systems in which we live and breathe.

In earlier periods of human history, virtually all indigenous peoples understood that we humans live interdependently with other living beings. We are an integral part of the whole cosmos and all of it is interrelated and sacred. One of my favorite examples of this is that Native American hunters would ask forgiveness of the buffalo when they killed one, thanking them for providing food for their tribe. For most of us today, someone else – usually at a great distance from us – harvests our grains and vegetables and slaughters and processes our meat. That contributes to our illusion of separateness. In reality, interdependence is how the whole of the universe works, from food chains to the movement of planets and the creation of stars. 

Embracing our interdependence leads us to a deeper understanding of all that we are and everything we do. Our interdependence generates mutual care, service, study, prayer, meditation, work for justice, as well as our worship together. All of this is the working out in our common life of the interdependence that is at the core of the whole creation. 

I can share an example from my own life that illustrates a small slice of how this network of interdependence works itself out. In the late 1990s, I experienced a profound spiritual reawakening. As I recall the sequence of events and influences, first a friend recommended I read a book called The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. I loved that book so much that I read everything by Peck I could get my hands on. One of those books was called A Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. It is a blueprint for building community from small groups and organizations all the way up to the level of international relations. I was so intrigued I attended a weekend community building workshop put on by the Foundation for Community Encouragement that Peck and eleven others founded in 1984. One of the facilitators that weekend was Dr. Ron Thomas. I recognized and revealed during that workshop that I was feeling a desire for a deeper spiritual life. Afterward, Ron recommended I explore those feelings at a place called Christ Church in Manhattan, where the pastor, Rev. Stephen Bauman, was on the Board of the Foundation for Community Encouragement. I quickly became a member of Christ Church, where I built relationships with many persons in an expanding network of mutuality. Meanwhile, Ron Thomas also worked as a consultant and coach. When I got a promotion at work, I hired him to coach me on leadership skills. His first instructions were that I exercise regularly and meditate at least three times a week. In one of those early meditation sessions, I experienced a call to preach. I explored that call with Steve Bauman and Rev. Javier Viera and others. That ultimately led to my decision to pursue ordained ministry. So, you see, I didn’t become a pastor just because God put an idea into my head. I was led to the point where I could make a decision for myself by a network of friends, authors, mentors, pastors, fellow Christians, and assorted persons who played small to large roles in my journey. We know that God and a large network of persons played roles in each of their journeys. If we had time, we’d explore those complex networks of mutual interdependence that shaped Scott Peck, Steve Bauman, Ron Thomas and others. We would see very quickly how this completely undermines the illusion of individualism and separateness.   

Of course, Embracing our mutual interdependence can be hard because we sometimes disappoint or even hurt one another. Making ourselves vulnerable can be risky, yet the benefits outweigh the risk. The abundant life that Jesus promised – what we are calling “vibrant living” in this worship series – cannot arise in isolation from others, but only in community. True flourishing is possible only within networks of mutually interdependent relationships with other humans and within the complex social and ecological systems in which we exist. As Diane said to me last night, “What’s wrong with depending on persons who are generally dependable? Interdependence is not weakness. Vulnerability does not equal weakness. In fact, vulnerability is strength.”

Rugged individualism and the dangerous emphasis on the individual over the common good are completely antithetical to the teachings and practice of Jesus. The major thrust of the whole New Testament is putting the community first, giving ourselves for others, yielding to others, thinking of others as better than ourselves. 

Let’s bring the idea of mutual interdependence down to the level of our own community. The Church of the Village is a body composed of many interdependent parts. We are incomplete without each other. We cannot become the flourishing community God desires us to be without the gifts, contributions, the beautiful and varied spirit, and the quirky uniqueness of all of us. If we all practice that together, it leads to everyone loving, caring for, and serving the needs of everyone else, so that all of our needs are met, however imperfectly. If we are all promoting the good of others around us, then everyone is lifted up, including ourselves. Everyone has the opportunity to become their best possible selves and our community as a whole thrives. Just imagine if we could extend that way of living to the level of the entire world. 

Together in this body of Christ, we learn to ask people for help and to help others when they need us. We try to be mutually vulnerable. “We build bridges to each other's islands. We learn from each other, we encourage each other, we support each other, we care for each other, we have fun together, we build memories together and we help each other to grow.” [1]

God intends mutually interdependent community as our way of life. We are meant for mutual love, care, assistance, and service. Jesus taught that we are to give ourselves for others as they give themselves for us. In our life together in community, we are blessed to be able to embrace and live into our mutual interdependence, imperfectly moving toward the common good, the best possible outcomes, and the greatest flourishing for all.

Copyright © 2021 Jeff Wells
All rights reserved

1. https://www.christiantoday.com/article/why-do-we-prefer-independence-over-interdependence-its-making-us-all-sad/40321.htm