INDEPENDENCE AND INTERDEPENDENCE

The Fourth of July! Independence Day! To be sure, it is a day set aside to remember an event in national history. And yet, so often it seems like we turn it into a statement about our individual lives. The rugged individualist who stands on their own, never needing any help from anybody else, independent—it’s a powerful myth in our culture, fed by stories of pioneers and settlers, entrepreneurs and self-made millionaires—stories that, when you scratch the surface, don’t really hold up as telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The pioneers and the settlers were given land by the government which then funded the development of canals and railroads that made survival possible. The entrepreneur and the self-made millionaire, more often than not, had parents who provided education and an inheritance and valuable connections; a government that provided security and favorable fiscal policies and infrastructure—all of which were necessary for their success. And so, despite the powerful, cultural myth, the truth is that we are not individually independent. 

But there is another story that begins with a declaration from God. “It is not good that the man should be alone,” God declared all the way back in Genesis 2, at the beginning of the Bible. “I will make him a helper as his partner.” And, as that story goes, God made the first woman. Or, in other words, according to this other story, God made us so that we need each other. God made us for community. God made us to be interdependent.

Which is something to remember and appreciate as you watch the fireworks—all the people who contribute to make our lives what they are—teachers and doctors, soldiers and first responders, farmers and bakers and fireworks makers—a human community in which the primary feature of any successful life must be the help that is given to others along the way.

--Pastor Don Steele