Two are Better Than One

Two are Better Than One

Two are better than one, because they have a good return on their work:

If one falls down, his friend can help him up.

But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

These verses in Ecclesiastes sound like King Solomon has been watching television with us these past few weeks.  Almost every advertisement has the same message: “We are here for you!”  “We are all in this together!  The camera pans to… emptiness:  empty streets, empty subways, empty buses, empty churches, empty classrooms.  No one is there because we are all sheltering at home, doing our part to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic while endeavoring not to catch Covid19 ourselves.

Amidst the advertising voices clamoring for my attention, my favorite is the video by Facebook.  The camera is examining the profound emptiness, when suddenly this gravelly human voice begins to speak:

We're working every dread day that is given us

Feeling like the person people meet really isn't us

Like we're going to buckle underneath the trouble

Like any minute now the struggle's going to finish us.

And then we smile at all our friends

At that moment the camera shifts to people – specifically people’s faces, full of life and hope;  faces that proclaim that we are, indeed, all in this together, and a smile does wonders, both for the giver and the receiver.  The narrator intones:

There is so much peace to be found in people's faces

Show me your face…

There are many ways to “show your face” to those around you each day: call a family member or friend, text a greeting, send an email, wave at a neighbor, call out a “thank you” to a delivery person, greet one another on social media, send a thank you note to your pastor.   Lift your own spirit by uplifting someone else’s.

We are never lost if we can find each other.*

*

I am the church; you are the church; we are the church together.

All who follow Jesus all around the world,

Yes, we’re the church together.

The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple,

The church is not a resting place, the church is the people.

The United Methodist Hymnal No. 558

*Facebook video title,

British Poet Kate Tempest