Perhaps it’s because my childhood was spent on a small farm just outside a small town. My family belonged to a small church in a sea of small churches, 12 of them as I recall, half of which were Lutheran. And so, in my neighborhood, Kevin, Brian, and Karla, across the street, were Methodist. Danielle, Daniel, Danise, Danette, and Danten were Catholic. So were Bernadette, Mary, Jacob, Joseph, Jacinta, Teresa, John, and Charlie. My friend SueBe and her brother Brian went to a different Lutheran church. And Beth went to a church known as the Congo, which always intrigued me. (I later learned that it was Congregational.) We talked church and theology just as we talked about our hobbies and our families. Thankfully, no one had told us not to. We were engaged in ecumenism before we knew the word.
In a town of 5,000 with three elementary schools, 12 churches, scouting, and 4-H, we didn’t need a computer to make schedules fit together. When it snowed, someone always seemed to be there to shovel for someone who couldn’t or shouldn’t be doing it. When a farmer needed help, the neighbors just appeared, and pitched in. When there was flooding, we worked side by side with sandbags and brought in our pickup trucks to help people get their most treasured belongings out of their homes. From a child’s perspective, this all happened naturally and seamlessly. Only the adults knew the work and prayer that went into those special moments of working together.
Not a few years later, that upbringing would come in handy. By then I was a pastor, drawn to our text from Ecclesiastes by a Hebrew professor who gave it more life than any translation I had ever read. “This is not just about married life,” he had said, “it’s about life!”
I had just moved to a new community and a new congregation.
Even though it was 1999, we were thinking less about Y2K and more about the looming problem we had in our area schools. We were in the midst of a youth suicide epidemic; it wasn’t limited to one school or one district. My congregation’s families were from four school districts, and all four had experienced student, or school staff suicides, or both.
Working with the hospital chaplain, school counselors, and area pastors, we created a safety network that included parents, professionals, neighbors, churches, friends. Through the network, we encouraged doctors to not just prescribe anti-depressants to an estimated 20% of our youth but to recommend or require talk-therapy, too. We added one-on-one mentoring to our confirmation program and encouraged churches that didn’t have confirmation to add it to their youth ministry. Every church was given the task of openly praying for its youth and talking about what had happened. Together, we logged thousands of hours of work; compiled research, resources, and ideas to help; and received a grant for the high schools to begin a Yellow Ribbon Club. By working together, we accomplished things that none of us could have done on our own.
In that time and place and for that purpose, it did not matter how Jesus was present in Communion or what kind of music we used in worship or whether women were allowed to preach. What mattered was that we worked together to support the youth of our communities. They knew we cared about them. They knew they could trust us. And, not long after we united in our love for them, the epidemic ceased.
As one who is actively engaged in my denomination’s ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, I know of its importance. While those critical conversations continue and valuable covenants are formed, the world needs us to stand together shoulder-to-shoulder, arm-in-arm, heart-to-heart to fend off the darkness and usher in peace as we work together, because two are better than twice as much as one… and a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
Amen
