SOS: Save Our Souls - A Sermon and Litany for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

All across the United States this year, schools have been holding book studies and discussion groups on a bestseller that was released in the spring. I attended one earlier this month at my kids’ school. In March, American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt released a book called The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. In this book, Haidt uses research data to demonstrate how the rise in smart phones and accompanying use of social media by children in linked to a significant rise in mental health challenges. The book is both fascinating and terrifying, especially for me when I learned that the most vulnerable population is young girls.

The movement of childhood experiences from the real world to the online world is causing a rewiring in the brains of our young people. They are more isolated and seek approval and validation in very different ways that prior generations. Much of this is true for adults as well, but the rewiring happening in the developing brains of children is the most concerning. When your world revolves mostly around what happens in the online realm, the shift in reality and the effects on connection and self-worth are massive. Haidt points to a time around 2012 when two things happened – the world, including young people, made a turn to more heavily utilizing smart phones for various functions including social media, AND the rates of mental illness begin to significantly rise in our youth.

And, again, these two changes are not just seen in young people…

I probably don’t need to tell you that we have a mental health crisis in this country – not a problem, not a challenge, a crisis. Suicide rates are up over 30% across all age groups since the start of the millennium. The firearm suicide rate here in Tennessee is 50% higher than the national average. One in five US Adults experience mental illness and one in 20 experience serious mental illness, often involving hospitalization. Approximately 20 million Americans experience concurrent mental illness and substance abuse issues. Sixty-seven percent of people experiencing homelessness suffer with a mental health issue, and about 1 in 5 U.S. veterans suffer from mental health disorders. And….while we are quoting statistics…the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) lists among its top facts that depression and anxiety disorders cost the global economy $1 trillion in productivity every year. Now, with all respect to the fine folks at NAMI, perhaps the fact that we are measuring mental health statistics in terms of what a human being can produce for the global economy is part of the problem!

The rates of suicide in this nation are scary and heartbreaking. I’ve known of two children (both girls) who took their own lives in the last three years, and at ages where I never would have even considered this to be a possibility. There is a sense in this country that ever since the shock and disruption and isolation we were thrown into with the Covid-19 pandemic, we are less “mentally OK.” While isolation due to the rise in technology may have helped lead to an uptick in mental health challenges, the pandemic was an accelerant.

In a Forbes Health Survey, 59 percent of respondents said they found it harder to form relationships since the onset of the pandemic. Research has shown that isolation atrophies our social skills. Some experts note that people are reevaluating whether it is important to even be social! We all know the stats — ­Americans of every age, gender, ethnicity and income are spending less time with one another than ever. Leisure time is decreasing; screen time is increasing. Our “third places” — ­locations outside of home and work where we socialize and have community — are disappearing, and with them, so is our greater sense of community.

The increase in isolation, increase in time spent on devices and increase in mental illness are interconnected. We know that people are spending less time socializing or participating in organizations outside of their home that previous decades. One of the ways we know this is in church on Sunday mornings. Every week, when we enter this building and come into our spaces for worship, we can’t help but notice that pews are less full than they used to be. We choose to focus more of our attention on who is in the room rather than who is not, and show our gratitude for the community we have, AND, we know that membership in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. nationally has declined by 51% in the last 15 years. This pretty well tracks with the changes in the local church I pastor in Downtown Memphis.

(Deep breath after reading all those statistics….) So, here is what I want to say on this Sunday, where we are acknowledging the mental health crisis in this nation and shining a spotlight on the prevalence of suicide and the need for more prevention work:

 Two things…

The local church has a very important role to play in combatting the mental health crisis we are facing. And the faith we share has a very important role to play in preventing deaths by suicide.

And these aren’t just this pastor’s hopes and opinions… there is research data to back this up. In a study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a long-term cohort study on US women found that among those attending religious services once per week or more, the suicide risk was 84% lower than in those never attending religious services. That’s more than a 5-fold reduction in incidence rate. In a Harvard study of health care professionals, those who attended religious services at least once a week had a lower risk of death from despair (which includes suicide and death from substance abuse) – 68% lower risk for women and a 33% lower risk for men – just by attending religious services. In a study led by an Economics Professor at Notre Dame, the connection between a sharp downturn of religious participation in the late 1980s and the swift rise in deaths of white Americans ages 45 to 54 in the early 1990s by suicide and opiate use was well established.

A review of all the data out there makes a strong case for the reality that participation in a religious community is what is called a “social determinant of health.” There is a connection between being a part of a faith community and being a healthier person. And knowing that, we must acknowledge that link and our place as part of the safety net in facing the crisis of mental health and the loss of lives by suicide.

People need people. We need connections. We need relationships with others who care about our wellbeing, who will check up on us and check in with us, and who will stand beside us in the more challenging events that we face in our lifetimes. Even if we are the most introverted person around, human beings are social creatures. We are created to be in relationship and in community, and survival becomes far more difficult, if not impossible, when we find ourselves living outside of community or thinking that the communities on a device can equally replace the experience of being face to face with others.

In addition to the value of community, people need faith to make it through in life. They need faith in something bigger than humanity. I believe it more and more all the time. That bestselling book I mentioned at the beginning today, The Anxious Generation, well the self-proclaimed atheist author, Jonathan Haidt, titles chapter 8, “Spiritual Elevation and Degradation.” He departs his role of social scientist and shares his personal observations as one who has also been overwhelmed by how technology is changing us.

He writes, “The phone-based life produces spiritual degradation, not just in adolescents, but in all of us.”  Spiritual is a word that’s frequently being redefined, and Haidt suggests spiritual means to live a life of morality. He also writes, “I am an atheist, but I find that I sometimes need words and concepts from religion to understand the experience of life as a human being.”

And don’t we all? Even while maintaining his identity as an atheist, this author is speaking to one of the profound reasons that we need faith. But in addition to needing a moral compass, Haidt is acknowledging that faith is part of how we make sense of life – the experiences we have, from the overwhelmingly positive and joyful ones to the heartbreakingly negative ones. Faith is a safety net in our lives. Faith acts as a softener to the harshness that life can deal us. Faith carries us through those times when we feel that we cannot go on. And faith reminds us that there is more to us than the present moment, and more to life than our current reality. Faith gives us hope when we have none. Faith is a powerful coping mechanism in struggle, and this is why faith is an important component to combatting the feelings of hopelessness that lead to suicide.

The Apostle Paul reminds us that nothing can separate us from the Love of God. No matter what. He even names a long list of things in order to demonstrate that nothing… means nothing. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. The church is vital to our survival because it assists in teaching us the faith that says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, and because it gives us the community of believers to remind us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in the moments when despair makes us doubt this truth. The love of God for us is eternal. And leaning into that love for us can remind us that God holds us through any pain, tragedy, hardship and hopelessness that befalls us – because we will all face these if we are lucky enough to live long enough to experience the fullness of life.

As a society, we are indeed sending up an SOS – a call to save our souls. More and more people are falling away from faith and from religious communities, and some for good reasons because our communities are not perfect. But in doing so, we are collectively losing some of the community and vital pieces of the faith that help equip us for the hardships that we will face in life. The church has a role to play in combatting loneliness and hopelessness. The church has a role to play in helping address mental illness.

Let’s continue to step into that role, and remind others around us how the relationships here and the faith we share, aren’t just something nice to have. They are an important piece of wholeness and wellness for all of us. We belong to God, and nothing can separate us from the love of God. As we follow that example, let’s remember that we belong together, accountable to one another and invested in one another’s well-being. Saving our souls is not a solo activity. We do it together. Faithfully together. Amen.

A Litany for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

Leader: Creator God, you gathered the dust of the ground and molded humanity into being, breathing the sacred breath of life into us.  We thank you for this gift of life, and we acknowledge in giving us life, we, your created, will experience all of the beauty and wonder, but also all of the pain and sadness that comes with loss, suffering and heartbreak. We light this candle for all those who are currently feeling the overwhelming pain that comes from living lives as whole beings and we pray for God’s comfort for those living under the heaviness of grief. As I light this candle, this is our prayer.

All: Lord, hear our prayer.

Leader: Christ Jesus, walked among us, seeing firsthand our complicated lives, and casting out the demons of mental illness in some that he encountered. We acknowledge that many among us live with all manner of mental struggles – depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and many others. We pray that this church, following the example of Christ, and surround those in our family who struggle with mental health challenges, helping them heal their minds, and live healthy lives because they are held in the love of community. As I light this candle, this is our prayer.

 All: Lord, hear our prayer.

Leader: Holy Spirit, our advocate and comforter, you move throughout the world in mysterious ways, reminding us of the eternal presence of God and inspiring us to do God’s healing work in this world. We pray that as many of us face challenges in our own mental health and when we experience feelings of hopelessness and despair, that your spirit would come to us, easing our worries and comforting us in the loneliest moments. As I light this candle, this is our prayer.

All: Lord, hear our prayer.

Leader: And finally, God, we know that there have been some among us, whose mental health struggles had been unbearable, and who we have lost to despair that could not be overcome. We pray that you would remind us that nothing can separate us from your love. And nothing means nothing. We pause to remember those we have lost to suicide ----  And we pray that you would equip us as your people to rescue others from hopelessness. As I light this candle, this is our prayer.

All: Lord, hear our prayer.

Leader: Amen.