As fireworks light up our Kansas City skies this Independence Day, we are often reminded of the American values of self-reliance and rugged individualism deeply woven into our cultural fabric.
But what if, this year, we celebrated something even more powerful than independence?
Over the past 48 hours, as your Minister of Congregational Care, I’ve witnessed your quiet, holy acts of interdependence. I watched best friends, connected since their children were in Pastors’ Class together over 40 years ago, sit with the spouse of a church member in their final hours. I visited a member in the hospital because their Sunday school friend let us know they were suddenly admitted. Just last night, I received an update from a deacon who was beaming after an hour with their church “buddy,” an older adult member who is primarily homebound. And each day, I receive and shepherd prayer requests for your loved ones, friends, and fellow members who are in need of God’s healing.
These are not stories that celebrate self-reliance, rugged individualism, or independence. Instead, they are your stories of love and connection.
The New Testament gives us a powerful picture of this in Luke 5, where friends carry a paralyzed man on a stretcher, tear through a roof, and lower him down to see Jesus. It’s not a story of one person fixing their own life through sheer willpower. Instead, it is a story of stretcherbearers who show up and literally carry each other toward God’s healing.
We all need stretcherbearers. And we are all called to be stretcherbearers. God doesn’t call us to lives of fierce independence, but to lives of shared burdens and shared joy–together.
This Independence Day, let’s celebrate a deeper kind of freedom: the freedom that comes when we stop striving alone and choose love. Because life is richer, faith is deeper, and healing is nearer when we choose each other.
Grateful we are connected,
Ashley
