More Than a Vibe: Why Thick is Better than Thin
Inspired by The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” what follows are five somewhat off-the-hip reflections on community — and a few reasons to consider joining a Harbor Group. Before getting there, though, it’s worth pausing over the song itself.
Released in 1966 on Revolver, “Eleanor Rigby” marked a departure from The Beatles’ brighter, guitar-driven pop songs many had come to expect from them. It is lyrically spare and sorrowful, carried not by drums or guitars, but a stark string octet. The minor, modal feel and repetition create a sense of loneliness that feels both heavy and restless. And unexpectedly, what you will notice with this song is that the church is the focus! Even the pastor gets a mention! (I don’t feel the way this pastor does by the way!) Much more could be said, but the sense loneliness and restlessness this song names points to something many of us recognize in our own lives.
Think of what follows as a small priming of the pump—a gentle attempt to cultivate the kind of communal imagination Scripture assumes is normal for the people of God.
My college pastor once told me that it should be hard to leave a church after you graduate because you have been loved so well. If you leave with no tears, he said, we have all failed to know the kind of love the New Testament understands as “life together”. When Paul departed from the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, “there was much weeping on the part of all”. The gospel binds us together every week through Word and Sacrament, but it is “on the ground” that we learn what that binding actually feels like. In shared meals, prayers, service, and ordinary faithfulness, our common life confirms—experientially—what we receive by faith every Sunday proclamationally and sacramentally.
Seattle is a nearly impossible place to thrive—or even survive—on your own, at least if faithfulness to Jesus is the goal. This city has a thinning power: it pulls people through quickly, reshapes them quietly, and often sends them back out just as fast. Only thick, embodied community can sustain us here. Without it, we are easily squeezed into the city’s mold and quietly formed by forces we never chose.
In embodied community we are drawn out of the darkness of isolation and into the light of fellowship. It is difficult to hide and remain hidden when others are consistently checking in, asking questions, and naming realities we may have stopped naming ourselves. Many poor decisions have been avoided because brothers and sisters loved us enough to pay attention. Many of our best decisions emerged not from solitary clarity, but from shared discernment—living close enough to one another that wisdom had room to grow.
Sociologist Ryan Burge notes that the younger we are—especially among Millennials and Gen Z—the more likely we are to organize our lives around political identity rather than religious identity. Politics now often trumps religion, which means politics has quietly become a kind of religion. But for Jesus, the situation is reversed. The kingdom he announces is itself a political reality—a peculiar polis that resists every ideological tribe and calls all of them into question. It is only within Christian community that we learn to see something stronger, older, and more demanding than American politics and its polarizing liturgies.
Finally, if we are to be the salt and light Christ declares us to be, we must let go of an individualistic vision of witness. A single grain of salt dissolves quickly and loses its potency. But a pound of salt changes everything it touches. Faithful presence in our city will not come from heroic individuals, but from brothers and sisters walking together—formed by shared practices, patient love, and a common allegiance to the crucified and risen Lord.
