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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Loneliness
Fifth in the Series: Where is God When It Hurts?

By Rev. Jerry Herships

Mark 14: 33–41  

³³He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. ³⁴And he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” ³⁵And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. ³⁶He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” ³⁷He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? ³⁸Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” ³⁹And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. ⁴⁰And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. ⁴¹He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Jesus’ story here in the garden of Gethsemane is familiar in some ways, even if you have never been there. Have you ever had those moments at night when you’ve gone to bed, when you are pouring your heart out to a roommate or a spouse or a partner and after you finished with a long, heartfelt monologue, you pause and hear….nothing. You realize they’ve fallen asleep on you. This is what has happened to Jesus…three times!

This was the beginning of a very lonely time for Jesus. In Matthew 26:31 Jesus tells his followers, “You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’  This was Jesus’ place of deep loneliness.

The Hebrew word, “lonely,” translated in the Old Testament as “one alone, one who is solitary, forsaken, and wretched.”

Loneliness is painful and we are just beginning to understand its full affects.  It is a feeling many of us have had or are having and it’s ironic.  Lots of people suffer from it, but they aren’t together.  We're a lonely society.  

According to loneliness specialist, James J. Lynch, Ph.D., the author of, A Cry Unheard: New Insights into the Medical Consequences of Loneliness, twenty-five percent of American households consist of one person living alone; 50 percent of American marriages end in divorce; 30 percent of American births in 1991 were to unmarried women.  These factors are linked to an increased risk of premature death.  Lynch has spent almost four decades clarifying how loneliness contributes to an increased risk of developing heart disease.  He says, "Mortality rates in the United States for all causes of death, and not just for heart disease, are consistently higher for divorced, single, and widowed individuals of both sexes and all races.” 

Even with these statistics, we want to be careful not to confuse being alone with being lonely. I want to make clear that being alone, and being lonely, is not the same thing.  This might seem obvious to some but they are really not even close. Being alone is really all about your physical location. It doesn’t have anything to do with your feelings and can be measured. If there is no one around you, you are alone.

Being lonely has nothing to do with your physical location. I have felt amazingly lonely in crowded malls, airports, and even churches. How many people you have around has very little to do with whether somebody feels lonely or not.

Alone is a location. Lonely is a feeling.

Once we strip away how many people we have around us as a defining factor of loneliness, we realize that loneliness is one of those emotions that is very hard to detect in others. It is not always the loner who feels lonely. Being an introvert has little to do with being lonely. And the reverse is true, too. Extroverts, who love being around people, can easily be lonely.

Loneliness is feeling like other people don't care about you. You don't feel like you belong anywhere. No one understands how you feel and they don't care to get deep and personal with you. Do you ever feel like people don’t care about you? Or do you feel like you don’t belong anywhere? Do you ever have the feeling like you have lots of “acquaintances” but not many friends? I think this happens more and more the older we get. High School and college are great places to meet people and develop friendships but after you get out of school it is really hard to meet people. Church can be a great place…as long as we can drop the idea of feeling like we have to be “perfect people”…that just makes most of us feel even MORE alone…(look at all these perfect people…I have nothing in common with them!)

Jesus was about as perfect as you can get and yet he related to everyone. In fact he liked hanging out with you the LESS perfect you were.  Jesus knew these people had few options because they were the unloved. One of the evils of loneliness is the feeling that no one cares for you. Mother Teresa said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” What we truly give to people down in Civic Center Park and at El Centro is a momentary break from loneliness.

There is a guy in Civic Park. Let’s call him Carl. Carl has been on and off the streets for five years. He helps unload the cars and sometimes helps hand out the food and water.  He likes being around and talking with us. I asked him if he knew a lot of the guys but he said he keeps to himself a lot…there are a lot of bad elements out there on the street so he prefers to keep to himself. That is a lonely life. It’s hard enough being invisible, as most homeless are. It’s harder still to be invisible, ALONE.

Which brings us back again to Jesus. Remember, at the beginning of Holy week, Jesus’ last week alive? He rides in on a donkey and people are waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” He was like Bono or Clooney or Obama.  Everyone loved him. By week’s end, the crowd had scattered, the cheering stopped, the friends disappeared, the authorities closed in, and Jesus hung on a cross…alone. Talk about a bad week?

At this moment in time we hear Jesus crying out, “My God my God, why have you forsaken me?” Now some scholars say this is Jesus at his most human, his moment of saying, “God, why have you left me? I am now totally alone.” Others say that it was Jesus starting the beginning of Psalm 22 which begins, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But ENDS with words of hope and promise, “To him indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down…future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn.”  The yet unborn people are you and me.  This might look bad at first glance, but when we look harder, we can often find something deeper.

I can be guilty of this. I am one of those people who like to stay busy. The problem with staying busy is that there is very little time to look at things deeper. That is why we take two minutes of silence during our time together. It is a deliberate time to slow down. When we first started doing that, it drove me crazy.  

While I was in seminary we went to a Buddhist temple here in Denver. Part of the “field trip” was to meditate with the monks in complete silence….for an hour. I thought my head would explode. The truth is though, after I started, I found I relaxed into it and almost…dare I say, enjoyed it. 

Our job, like Mother Teresa’s, is to help alleviate the suffering of others whenever we can.  Part of the way we do this is to do what Jesus told the disciples to do, keep awake.  Some versions say, “Keep Watch.” We are to stay alert to each other’s needs. I know it is safe to say that there are people right in this room who have felt deep, deep loneliness, some as recent as today. Remember, we are the hands and feet…and ears, of Christ.  We are here to help alleviate the loneliness of others.

If we are the ones feeling lonely, we need to remember two things.

One, we need to reach out whenever we can and have the strength and be okay with sharing with other people the fact that we are lonely. The world is full of good people who do want to help, who do want to listen. Some of the kindest people I know are right here in this room. Reach out to them…they will be there for you.

The second is that God is there for you. God hears your pain. God hears your loneliness and God IS with you. Even though it might not feel that way sometimes…and believe me, I know sometimes it doesn’t, God is still right there beside you. That’s a promise throughout the Bible. We see it in Deuteronomy and in Isaiah and in the Psalms and in Hebrews.  We see it in the Gospels. The very last line of Matthew, Jesus’ parting words, makes us that promise. Jesus tells us, ". . .And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Last week we heard it from The Apostle Paul telling us that nothing can separate us from God. This week we have the words from Jesus himself. God does not break promises.  

No matter how lonely you might feel, no matter how dark the night is in your Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is right there with you, and he will never leave you to face your fears and loneliness alone.