Admit it. There’s something deeply satisfying about being isolated. Like a warm quilt that covers us when we are chilled, isolation provides comfort and security.
The mountains that we call home provide shelter from storms that develop downstream. The deep and seemingly endless forests provide us cover from threat. The repeating ridge lines remind us that we are safe from waves that crash on other lands. Our mountains are not crawling with people. Densely populated communities, and their problems are far away. We live in a region that is guarded by intimidating cliffs and towering heights. Ours is a veritable 21st century Brigadoon.
Be honest. We like it this way.
To compound matters, our most-recent season has found us seeking even greater isolation. We’ve rightly been told that we must isolate ourselves from one another to safeguard ourselves from a deadly virus. To be physically isolated, we now know, means to be protected from illness. To be physically distant, we have begun to believe, enables us to avoid pain and loss. If left unchecked, these well-intentioned directives from health professionals and scientists will only strengthen and validate our natural impulse to withdraw.
Isolation, however, is not our calling. As people of faith in Jesus Christ, we are called to connectivity, not separation. While seductive in its illusion of safety, we do not love well from a distance. Physical distancing wisdom notwithstanding, being disconnected from one another emotionally and spiritually should not be our status quo.
For those who choose to eavesdrop on the Apostle Paul’s words to the church in Corinth, we learn that God desires engagement and mutual appreciation and respect. In Jesus, he tells us, we belong to one Body. Although we are different and unique from one another, we are one in our baptism and one in the Spirit. “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you (1 Corinthians 12:18-21).”
The Body of Christ, therefore, is wired for connectivity. Our shared identity is one of knowing and of being known. Like any system made up of different parts, God has arranged us so “that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it (1 Corinthians 12:24-26.”
When one member suffers, we all suffer. If one member is honored, all have reason to rejoice. Because we belong to one body, we should not (and cannot!) withdraw ourselves from one another.
As members of this one Body of Christ, it is antithetical to our calling as followers of Jesus to retreat into isolation from one another. We must resist the temptation to pull back when others are hurting. We do not have the option of washing our hands of that which stains and poisons other members of the Body. Loving our neighbor means seeing them, drawing close to them, loving them.
To be connected as brothers and sisters at this time means engagement. It means listening for understanding. It means practicing empathy. It means being in solidarity with all who suffer. It means recognizing broken and toxic systems and advocating righteousness and not defensiveness. It means caring enough about one another that we actively work to make things right for any and for all.
This requires Christ-like attributes that we should rediscover. The Body of Christ, out of a desire to be obedient to Jesus, should strive for truth-telling and repentance. Confession for both our sins of commission and omission are critically important as we strive for the justice that God expects of those who choose to walk with Him.
Faithful followers of Jesus do not retreat to the bulwarks of our preferred or inherited ideologies. Members of the Body of Christ do not stand idle while others are experiencing abuse or are suffering oppression. The Kingdom of God does not rest in our efforts to be called “peace-making sons and daughters of God” until God’s Kingdom has fully come (Matthew 5:9). And if our newsfeeds and the state of our collective psyches and souls are any indication, we are not there yet.
So we choose engagement over isolation. We choose humility over pride. We practice dialogue with flesh-and-blood individuals rather than ‘likes, shares, and reposts.’ Connectivity is risky and results in sacrifice. Jesus, whom we follow and whom we worship, teaches us this. Entrenchment into our tribes will not bring us peace, and isolation will not promise us security. For where one hurts, we all hurt.
We have a choice, therefore.
We can choose to respond to others’ pain by looking the other way. This is the way of the priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan.
We can choose to respond to others’ pain by blaming those who are victims. This is the way of the hypocrites. This is the way that Jesus condemns in his judgment of the religious authority in Matthew 23.
Or, we can choose to respond to the injustices and sorrows in our world by actively working to emphasize the “weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith (Jesus, in Matthew 23:23).”
Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Psalm 121 speaks a word of challenge to me when I look at the protection and serenity of our highland vistas. “I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from God who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.”
May God’s strength, therefore, enable us to renew our commitment to one another—both near and far—as we strive to “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.”