Our nation’s surgeon general, who is stepping down after a second term as our country’s chief medical officer, has issued us a critical medical prescription my friends.

And that is: Build a stronger sense of community to help ourselves and each other. Do it now.

He says that given the state of our individual and collective health as a society, this community building is imperative.

“Community is a powerful source of life satisfaction and life expectancy,” Dr. Vivek Murthy wrote in a parting essay this week. “It’s where we know each other, help each other, and find purpose in contributing to each other’s lives.”

Reading his words reminded me of a modern day Paul the Apostle, what with all his talk about being the body of Christ. Too long to quote in full here, but check out 1 Corinthians 12 for reference.

I will just highlight verses 18b-20: “But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

Murthy reiterated that our narcissism comes at a cost to our society, but a focus on community actually produces benefits.

“Being socially disconnected increases our risk of heart disease, dementia, depression, anxiety, and premature death,” he wrote in an essay, and yet continued research demonstrates that our fixation on success and achievement whatever the cost and our addiction to social media continuously lead us into a downward unhealthy spiral.

Maybe Murthy’s most powerful line in the essay is this: “Relationships, service, and purpose are the time-tested triad of fulfillment that stands in contrast to wealth, fame, and power which define the modern-day triad of success.”

This will sound anathema to some who have bought into the American ideology of rugged individualism, to those taught to “get what they can get before someone else does, and to those tricked into living out of fear and distrust of their neighbor.

But friends, as we chase those golden rings, without regard to the wellbeing of our neighbor, not only are we endangering our own health and our community’s collective health, we also are ignoring Jesus’ teachings as well.

The simple truth is that many of America’s most beloved values don’t align with the gospel.

I’ll give Murthy the final word here on our current state of division: “It is fueling not only illness and despair on an individual level, but also pessimism and distrust across society which have all made it painfully difficult to rise together in response to common challenges. As I finish my tenure as surgeon general, this is my parting prescription, my final wish for all of us: Choose community.”

Now, friends … are we courageous enough to take the prescription?

Devlyn Brooks is the CEO of

Churches United, a homeless shelter in Moorhead, and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton.