United in our Humanity, United in Christ

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

In his essay, Health is Membership, Wendell Berry talks about a hospital scene involving his brother, John, who had a heart attack with his wife, Carol, at his bedside along with a nurse tending to his care. Sitting in the ICU, Carol was distraught, as you might imagine. Berry recounts the scene like this: “Wanting to reassure her, the nurse said, ‘Nothing is happening to him that doesn't happen to everybody.’ And Carol replied, ‘I'm not everybody's wife.’”

            What Carol is articulating is the pesky scandal of the particular, which reminds us that generalities don’t work in the face of the specific, singular pains we feel. One of our immense trials with Covid-19 is this tension between what is happening to “everybody” and what is happening to those nearest and dearest to us. It’s little comfort if relatively few die if one of those relatively few is the one I love, but it all can feel like a roll of the dice. Some people—most people—will come out unscathed and say, “That wasn’t so bad!” while others will not come out at all.

            I’m a bit of statistics junkie, and there are a lot of statistics out there. There is also a lot of meaning-making around those statistics. We are meaning-making creatures, who are trying to make sense of a new and foreign reality. So, we latch on to stories that make sense to us, since everything is so new and the statistics can show pretty much anything. We need some coherence in our lives right now, so it’s only natural to believe whatever helps us get through.

            1 Corinthians begins by reminding us of the dangers of being split into rival groups in a time of crisis. We are united not by the vagaries of our suspicions about systems; we are united not by our political leanings; we are united not by our beliefs in what we should be doing for the economy or for health care. We are united in Christ. Full stop. And if your next thought is “Yeah, but…” then you are human, because we accept that promise of Christian unity as some kind of platitude when it is, in fact, that thing that matters. The scandal of the particular is that Jesus Christ died and rose, which makes the Christian faith not a set of axioms which can be interpreted in light of whatever stories we tell ourselves and whatever made-up theories we believe. Christians are united not in principles but in a person.

            This scandal of particularity plays itself out most dramatically in how we make decisions. Do we consider the numbers? Do we consider the big picture? Somebody should, we imagine, but what is the Christian’s role in the big picture? A few weeks ago, I had somebody lecture me on the value of a human being—that the definition of “value” was how much a person contributed to the economy. In this way, we reduce people to machines and we make decisions about economies based on that big picture that cannot concern itself with particulars. After all, particulars are what make people emotional, as if all of our emotions are signs of weakness.

            The big picture is important to keep in mind, but we are still singular people. And the Christian community (what we typically call the church) is this backwards group that believes that you leave the 99 sheep behind who are well and good to go looking for the one that is missing. The Christian community believes in seeking out those whose value is least according to the economic models, and instead we value them most highly of all. To me, that means that the church is always opposed to large-scale economic modeling. We are always fighting against the tides that reduce human beings to statistics. But it’s hard when we aren’t united.

In Paul’s day, it was factions that split between following him and a guy named Apollos. Today, it might be the ELCA and the Missouri Synod, or the ELCA and LCMC, or it might be Catholics and Protestants, or, more likely, it is factions within individual congregations. In every case, we create factions around shared values, but our values cannot trump our care for others. We are human beings, first and foremost.

            I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, because there are a lot of statistics flying around. Some are being used to suggest that this whole pandemic isn’t such a big deal; others are being used to suggest this pandemic is the worst moment in human history. Depending on your proclivity for either story, you probably assume that it is either overblown, understated, or that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but there is a problem with all of these interpretations, including those of you who love to sit in the middle and see both sides. The problem is that the interpretations don’t matter if you are the one who loses somebody you love. It literally does not matter if the rest of the world is spared if you lose your life, or the life of your spouse, or child, or whoever means the most to you. That is the scandal of the particular.

            For doctors and nurses working on Covid-19 cases right now, they are seeing that particular in action, and the larger narrative being spun around the virus must feel profane to them. But the politicians and the economists will tell you—perhaps in not so many words—that the doctors and nurses are biased and emotional because they are on the front lines. Nevertheless, the Christian Church is called not to systems but to people, and so we are called to the least, the last, and the lowly regardless of whether it is economically justified. We are called to bedsides, even if the world out there is suggesting everything is overblown, nevertheless we are obligated to care for the most vulnerable, because that is what unites us.

People! People are what unite us.

            Never forget that in the news cycle that is obsessed with systems and statistics. It is people who unite us. Each human being is scandalously particular in our experiences. Each of us is the lost sheep, whom God leaves the 99 to find.

            As a church, we need to proclaim today our love of people—particular people. We need to care about abstractions less and people more, and we need to recognize that it does not work to be like that nurse in Berry’s story who says, “Nothing is happening to him that doesn’t happen to everybody,” because we are specific people, who love specific people, who care for specific people.

            I’m married to Kate. If she said to me, “I love you” and I replied back, “I love everybody,” you might excuse her for murdering me. In the same way, let us stop concerning ourselves with big picture statistics and instead start loving on one another as individual, scandalously particular people. That is what will unite us, because the idea of people is not enough. When we look in the eyes of another, we see the image of God. The concept of people becomes no longer an abstraction but an embodied, visceral reality. It’s the same reason people will say ridiculous things online that they would never say face-to-face.

            What unites us is our humanity.

I realize this is perhaps the hardest part of Covid-19 for those who haven’t lost somebody dear to them: It’s hard to remember that people are what matters when we are distanced from them. Some of us need to hold a hand or look somebody in the eyes to remember what makes us one in Christ, and when we can’t do that, believe it or not, we forget it. Instead, we turn to stories about systems—big picture stuff—but the problem with the big picture is we can’t wrap our heads around it. We can’t make meaning of this.

So, here’s my advice to you today: Stop trying to wrap your head around it. Instead, seek out humanity. Be reminded of the particular joy that is connecting with other people.

When Christ rose from the dead, it was for the world, but the world is billions of particular people each hand-crafted by God. You are one of them and your story matters. It is scandalously particular. You cannot be explained away by statistics or trends. God loves you—not the statistical average of people like you. Honestly, that one simple fact may be the most important: God loves you, not some caricature of the person that statistics say you should be.

And that is what unites us: Who we truly are. We are lost sheep; we are meaning-makers struggling to make meaning; we are afraid of struggling systems that provide us with safety and security and comfort; we are people. First of all, and last of all, we are people, and God loves people, and God became a person. A particular person for particular people, like you and me. And that is what unites us. Each of us is hand-crafted, 100% original, human being, loved by God, fearfully and wonderfully made. Sometimes the Gospel is simply remembering who you are.

A child of God.