In the early 1830s, de Tocqueville traveled to America at the behest of the French government to study the American prison system. I have spoken in previous sermons about how Pennsylvania built Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829. At the time, Eastern State was the most expensive prison in the world. It was designed so that every prisoner would be placed in their own individual cell. Part of what made it so expensive is that they needed to make sure every cell had its own heating and plumbing. Every cell had flushable toilets, which might not sound that amazing, but in 1829 the white house didn’t even have flushable toilets.

Alexis de Tocqueville travelled to Pennsylvania so he could observe this new prison system, but he was also intrigued by America itself. At the time, the United States was a brand-new country and there was intense curiosity about this new land of opportunity. Therefore, after de Tocqueville finished spending time in the prison, he travelled all around the United States taking detailed notes of everything he observed. He spoke with hundreds of people about their lives, examining the various communities and institutions that made up this new nation.

As he travelled out west, he met the descendants of European pioneers who had settled across the United States in the 1700s, he noted there was a fierce commitment to personal liberty. Yet, at the same time, he observed something unusual: among the same people who claimed that liberty was of the utmost importance to them, they were willing to come together to help the people in their community, both in public and private spheres.

De Tocqueville was the first person to coin the term individualism, which he defined as a selfishness that disposed humans to be concerned only with their own small circle of family and friends. As a French aristocrat, de Tocqueville was keenly aware of the pitfalls of individualism. Fifteen years before he was born, the unbridled selfishness of the aristocracy had led to the French Revolution where numerous aristocrats had their heads lopped off by the guillotine. The hyper-individualism of the aristocracy is what caused them to ignore the needs of the proletariat, which he felt was the root of France’s undoing.

De Tocqueville was inspired by what he saw in America. Again and again, he encountered people who were profoundly protective of their independence, but through deep community connections, they were able to overcome their selfish desires by engaging in collective problem solving. They were willing to work together to build a vibrant and surprisingly egalitarian society by pursuing what he called “self-interest, rightly understood.”

But by the 1890s, this egalitarian, communal spirit had dissolved. Following a bloody civil war, the people of the United States were no longer willing to work together. The individualism that de Tocqueville dreaded had overtaken the fabric of our society. Rather than pulling together for the greater good, communities were at odds with each other. Not only was the political polarization acute just like we’re experiencing today, but similarly, workers were facing highly deflated wages.

The industrial revolution had inspired workers to flood into cities seeking jobs. There were no regulations around pay and with an endless supply of workers, business owners could exploit their employees making them work 12-18 hours days for very little pay. Feeling like a replaceable cog in a much larger machine, the value of human life felt very low. The industrialists had ushered in an era of survival of the fittest. It was kill or be killed and nobody was looking out for each other.

But then America found itself sucked into World War I where democracy and the world order felt under attack. The younger generation was drafted into fighting the war, which was the bloodiest in the history of the world. Those who survived did so because they worked together. The men who fought alongside you in the trenches were no longer fellow soldiers, but your brothers. As one soldier put it, you were so bonded that you would divulge secrets to your brothers in battle you would never dare tell your priest.

Upon returning from war, these men and women married, creating closer and more bonded communities, teaching the value of sacrifice for the greater good. By the 1930s, the Greatest Generation was raising their families in the deprivations of the depression. Sharing with the community became essential as everyone needed each other just to survive. Then the United States was called upon once again to fight World War II.

After allied powers claimed victory over Germany, Japan and Italy, the Silent Generation continued the tradition of community fostered by their parents, but it wouldn’t last long. As their children became teenagers, the swing back towards individualism would begin in the 1960s with the Baby Boomer generation. My generation would grow up with fraying community structures, and today, some 60 years later, our country now finds itself exactly where it was in the 1890s.

Just so we’re clear, I didn’t come up with this all on my own. This is outlined by the Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam in his book 2020 The Upswing. What Putnam demonstrates in his book is how our society swings back and forth from communalism to individualism with each generation moving the pendulum closer and closer to one extreme until eventually a new generation swings it back.

Now why does this matter? Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but this church is a community-based organization. This place only works well when we put aside our individualism and work as a collective unit. Therefore, is it any wonder that the peak of church attendance in the United States was the 1960s and ever since we have seen a slow steady decline. With the rise in individualism, the church has experienced a steady exodus.

I mean think about it. If your perspective on the world is dominated by the belief that the freedom of the individual trumps the greater good of the community, then obviously you’re not going to want to be in a place like this where the message is all about personal sacrifice. Consider who we worship every Sunday. The entire premise of Jesus’ life is that he sacrificed himself for the benefit of everyone. That’s why we read about Jesus’ crucifixion. Our model of what it means to be a Christian is sacrificing everything we have for the benefit of others.

This is a big reason why our version of Christianity is dying and other versions of Christianity like the prosperity gospel are thriving. What does the prosperity gospel teach? It teaches that God wants every individual person to have material wealth and comfort. According to the prosperity gospel, the more faith you have in Jesus, the more God will bless you with money and riches. Prosperity gospel preachers tell their audience to sacrifice their money and God will pay you back with more money down the road.* The goal is not to sacrifice for the larger community. Your goal is to sacrifice to benefit yourself.      

Now, of course, the prosperity gospel is not an accurate reflection of Jesus’ teachings. Take a look at these scriptures: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Lk. 12:15) “Sell your possessions, and give alms…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Lk. 12:33-34) “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” (Lk. 14:33) I think it’s pretty clear, your individual success is not Jesus’ top priority, so the prosperity gospel is a perversion of the gospel message, but in a highly individualistic society, it’s a message that resonates.

That being said, there are still some people in our world who are willing to sacrifice their individualism for the needs of the community and you’re sitting in this room right now. I preach this message so much, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t believe in this version of Christianity. And trust me, I realize this is not a popular message at this point in time. When I got here 9 years ago, we had almost 600 people a week spread across three services. Today, we’re worshipping less than half that. Some of our decline is losing members to death, but another big element is people leaving because they don’t want to hear a message where the focus is sacrificing for the benefit of the community.

But let’s just do a reality check. This is our come to Jesus moment for today. Just look at our world and where rampant individualism has gotten us. We are the most divided as a society we have been since the civil war. Families are literally split in half because they can’t have a civil conversation. More than 40% of Americans believe a civil war is likely in the next 10 years. And do you know why this is happening? Because we don’t know how to live in community with each other.

When we are isolated from each other, we lose touch with our empathy, sympathy and compassion. We have to be in community to feel empathy, sympathy and compassion because being in community causes friction. Empathy is developed from being in conflict with another person. Think about it, if I’m going to live in community with you and we have a disagreement, we have to work out our differences if we’re going to continue working together. That means listening to what the other person says and coming to a compromise. That’s how we build empathy and sympathy. Friction helps us to see the world from opposing perspectives.

That’s why this place is so important because it’s one of the last places where you can be mixed in with a large group of people with differing perspectives. But when you don’t really care about being a part of a larger community, then as de Tocqueville said, we are only concerned with our own small circle of family and friends, which becomes an echo chamber that further splinters our realities.

So why should you sacrifice to support this place financially? Because it’s literally one of the last bastions of hope for a society where true community has all but dissolved. Community is the medicine that can heal the fissures that are tearing our society apart. Through community, we learn how to love each other, even when we have differing opinions and Jesus’ message of sacrifice for the greater good is something everyone needs to hear and is more relevant than ever before.

Now, if we return to Robert Putnam’s book, the pendulum of individualism has pretty much reached its zenith. What that means is that my children’s generation and the generation being born right now will be the ones who start to swing the pendulum back towards community. But their effect will not be felt until decades from now. That means we have to do something right now, otherwise the negative effects of individualism will cause a lot more damage.

So I want to end this series with my favorite passage from Genesis. This is the scripture where Joseph’s brother’s beg Joseph’s forgiveness. Joseph says to his brothers, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God used it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” The premise behind this scripture is that humans are always making choices to inflict harm on each other. So God is always working through us to turn those harmful actions into something better for the future.     

This is the reason why I’m Christian. I choose to believe that no matter how many mistakes we make, God’s love can use those wounds to create a better world. All of us know someone who is mired and stuck in their own individualism. Someone who can only see the world through their eyes. To pull them out of that requires helping them to find community.

This is the culmination of everything we’ve been working towards in this series: I want all of you to go out and invest in one person who really needs community. I know everyone knows somebody like this. So, take your time. Sacrifice for them. Introduce them to our community. Such efforts might feel overwhelming and like a lost cause. However, what this scripture from Genesis tells us is they are not a lost cause. They simply need someone to love them and introduce them to the cure for their disease. They simply need to understand what you all already know: community matters. Amen.