With his permission, I've posted this past Sunday's Sermon from The Rev. Tim Vivian, Vicar of Grace Episcopal Church of Bakersfield (and also a Professor at CSUB):

In her opening address to General Convention this past July, our Presiding Bishop spoke of the "great Western heresy" of individualism. ¹  

Those fightin’ words sparked a firestorm of outrage and protest. So much so that in this month’s  Episcopal Life Bishop Katharine jumps on the fire engine and rushes out the water hoses.²  

In our Epistle for today, James also sharply critiques individualism. So does Paul in his letters. So Bishop Katharine is standing on solid biblical ground. Maybe we should nuance things a bit, however, and say that Paul and James and Bishop Katharine are criticizing hyper-individualism. 

Each of us is an individual. So perhaps the question really is: What kind of individual will we be? 

We can be like the Borg in Star Trek. In that terrifying collective there are no individuals, only assimilated units.  

Or, think of George Orwell’s  1984.  

Or, we can use that quintessential American invention, the automobile, and think of ourselves as bumper cars at the county fair: each of us an isolate entity trying to crash and bam others out of our way. 

I saw a terrifying example of this the other day. A woman confined to a wheel chair at a town hall meeting was desperately trying to explain that her insurance company wouldn’t cover treatment for two progressive and debilitating diseases. A man in the back kept trying to shout her down. Afterwards he spat out these chilling words: “So now a person in a wheel chair has more rights than me?” 

Some of you may remember the film version of Charlotte’s Web. The mantra of the rat in that film, memorably voiced by Paul Lynde, is “What’s in it for me?” 

Unlike that rat, however, and the man at the town hall meeting, we can be individuals looking out for others, caring about one another, caring for each other: in church each Sunday, on the Bishop’s Committee, helping to build a house for Habitat, visiting the sick, preparing or serving at the altar, working at the homeless shelter, doing prison ministry, and much more. 

I’m no fan of the doctrine of original sin as articulated by St. Augustine, John Calvin, and others. But maybe hyper-individualism is our original sin.  

In Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve have fallen, God thunders

     Cursed is the ground because of you;  
       through painful toil you will eat of it  
       all the days of your life.    

     It will produce thorns and thistles for you,  
       and you will eat the plants of the field.

That’s an agricultural curse for an agricultural people. Since most of us in the West no longer till the soil, maybe we should—with apologies to God—rephrase the LORD’s imprecation: 

Cursed is your society because of you;

your whole desire your whole life

will be to grasp and horde, ignoring others. 

Your motto, oath, and code of conduct shall be

“I’ve got mine. To hell with you.”

I don’t know if it’s comforting, or terrifying, to realize that the first Christians were no different from us with regard to fundamental human behavior. 

It takes real courage to rappel into the darkness and scattered sanctuaries of light that make up our interior being. Descending into the depths, how daunting it is for us to see on a subterranean cliff face a painting of the first Christians, our founding mothers and fathers in the faith.  

But they’re so small. As close as they were to Jesus, shouldn’t they somehow be larger than life, superhuman? 

There they are, a mere thirty years after the death and resurrection of Christ, an event that has shaken and reshaped the world, there they are—exactly like us.  

And there’s James, speaking to them:  

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? Someone with gold rings on his fingers and wearing fine clothes comes into your assembly. Big deal. But you immediately give him all your attention and obsequiously say, “Please, sir, have a seat here.”  

But if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, you dismissively order, “Stand there”  or, even worse, “Sit at my feet.” Have you not made distinctions among yourselves? Are you not with evil thoughts passing judgement on others? 

Passages like this haunt my dreams and waking footsteps; they give the lie to my somnolent fantasies that my supine conscience needs no repair. My Christian soul is purring along quite nicely, thank you, a sleek new Hummer in a television ad, motoring happily through a verdant and edenic countryside.

But when I turn off the TV and open my eyes to the Gospel, I know there’s a snake somewhere in that bucolic landscape—maybe it’s even me—and I know that my car belches smoke, runs over people, and lays waste the environment.

I’m pretty used to dealing with the heartache I cause myself. When I realize that I’ve just swallowed a self-made stupid pill, or a whole handful of stupid pills, a little recollection—or a kick in the butt—will usually help me to see my mistake and hurry to the medicine cabinet for an antidote. 

But I just can’t get used to the heartache at Grace.  

I hope I never get used to it. If I do, all I’ll have done is exchange fire for ice.  

So, what’s the solution when our innate individualism and the hyper-individualism of American culture join unholy forces, even at church, and we become the rich man of Jesus’  parable?  

Starving Lazarus lies in rags and filth, asking only for a crust of bread that falls on the floor from the prosperous man’s table. The rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen, who feasts sumptuously every day, gives Lazarus nothing.³ 

Yes, this parable does teach us the importance of responsible wealth. It also, in absentia, teaches about the importance of compassion: the haute cuisine glutton stuffing himself apparently has none. 

But I think the parable teaches even more about the sin of individualism, the gross sin of hyper-individualism that bloats itself while starving others. 

What’s the solution? 

You know, forty years after Woodstock it’s easy to mock—and it’s even easier to sentimentalize—the hippie-speak of the Beatles’ message “All You Need is Love.”⁴ 

But isn’t that precisely what James says today?

You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Jesus says it, too. It’s right up there with loving God with everything you have. Love everyone else like that, too.

Love is all you need.

Actually, it isn’t.

James goes on to say:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have [love] but do not have works? Can [love] save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply that person’s bodily needs, what is the good of that? So [love] by itself, if it has no works, is dead.⁵ 

So, we have our work cut out for us.  

Yes, we need to clothe and feed the poor—and get them decent health care. But, to paraphrase what James says elsewhere, we first need to bridle our individualism.⁶ 

Despite what some—even, horribly, some Christians—like to bleat and bellow, poverty is much more the result of our unbridled individualism than it is the poor’s laziness. 

While we’re looking for bridles in the attic or basement, let’s also get out the saddles. Let’s throw them on our hyper-individualism, and cinch them securely. Let’s tame that unruly beast—rather than letting it ride roughshod over us.  

Amen.