Two are better than one

As a church, we have discussed the need to connect, develop, change and become. This past weekend, I had the chance to officiate a wedding for a couple of very good friends. I love performing weddings! It's a time of beauty and intense emotions and one of the few times we make vows. Two people commit to each other before God and others to continually connect, forever develop a more meaningful relationship, spend their lives changing each other for good, and, if it's a Christian couple, live more and more for Jesus. It's a beautiful image of what we, as Christians, are supposed to do with the world around us.

For the ceremony, I read a few verses out of Ecclesiastes, which are probably familiar to you if you've been to more than a handful of weddings. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon observes what matters throughout life. Throughout the book, he describes how he has pursued as many different ways of life as possible: work, wealth, luxury, pleasure, and even laziness, only to find them ultimately meaningless. He says, “It is all so meaningless and depressing.” Until he comes to this realization:

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.  If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

For them, I talked about the importance of two becoming one and how to move forward as one into the world. But for us as a church, I want to focus on Solomon's realization that the only thing that matters in life is our relationships. God's economy is always relationship. All of life was created from the beginning not to be alone. A rock in the ground will sit there and eventually crumble apart. However, if you take a living seed and place it in the ground, it will sprout, reach out, connect with what is around it and then do something beautiful. It will grow! This is the miracle of life and how we were created to be.

When we were “planted” in our mother’s womb, our lives began to draw from what was around us. As we grew, we did the same thing with the world around us. We drew life, experience, strength, and identity from the world and the people in our lives. These factors surrounding us not only allowed us to grow but also changed us. A tree grows from seed, but the environment around it molds and shapes the structure of that tree. In the same way, as we grew into our identities, our lives, and selves, we didn't do so without being shaped by the relationships around us. On the contrary, we grew up being tweaked, bent, strengthened, and formed because of the relationships around us.

This brings us to the realization that standing strong and isolated is not the calling we are created for. At some deep, core level, we all know that our life is not just for us. It would be foolish to think that the life we each have, the seed God planted in the world when he gave it to us, is just for us alone. A tree has some autonomy, but it is not there for itself. It cannot be there just for itself. As a tree lives and draws for itself from the world around it, it also gives back just as much. It provides rest and shade, oxygen, and fuel. A life given is never given for itself. How much more so for each of us as humans? We are meant to connect with those around us, develop and grow into those connections, and change the world around us.

However, this mutual growing, connecting, developing, and changing requires us to give up some of ourselves. And that isn't easy! We feel unique and desire to do life for ourselves and us alone. We want the world to feed us and not demand of us. But that is not life's way, and it is not what we are called to: we are called to be connected and to live not for ourselves but each other and for the good of all those around us. We are preciously placed here for others, not for ourselves. This is the root of Jesus reminding us that we are to "Love our neighbors as ourselves."

Learning to love others will be the most fulfilling and empowering thing ever. It is that process of growing into and with others that helps you find your true identity and purpose. Solomon didn’t leave us with the meaningless of life. He followed it up with the significance of being together. Being connected will make us more of who we were meant to be and more alive than we could ever be on our own. That will take real work, sweat, and intentionality because there is so much in us that keeps screaming, “I want what I want for me!” But life, real life as God intends, moves us beyond us. As our Texan-leaning worship leader, April would say, it isn't about you but about y'all.

So I want to challenge you: commit to living life together. Commit to connecting with those God puts in your life. Commit to developing meaningful relationships. Commit to changing the world for good. Commit to helping each other up when one falls. Commit to keeping each other “warm.” Commit to standing together and defeating all the things that attack us. I believe if we do this together as a church and as Jesus’ children, we will be more alive and more of a gift to our world than we could ever be on our own. We may even become a bit more like Jesus.

Grace and peace,

Trevor Owen