God’s Solution to Isolation — August 18, 2024
August 18, 2024
Hebrews 10:1-25
God’s Solution to Isolation
Dr. Craig Goff
Once there was a man who only went to church to make his wife happy.
How do you think that worked out for him and her?
God does work in mysterious ways. I have heard stories of young guys who first started attending church just so they could sit by some pretty girl who has now ended up in the ministry. I know for a fact that happens. (I won’t bore you with the details).
I also heard about a little boy who lived in a trailer park who often didn’t have enough to eat. He and his brother heard about this thing called a pot-luck at a church near where they lived. After worship, they sometimes had this huge spread of all kinds of delicious food. To that church’s credit, they let those hungry boys come and eat and never made them feel unwelcome. They even gave them food to take home. One of those little boys became a very gifted pastor and the director of a huge, very reputable, nation-wide Christian organization.
So, God works in mysterious ways. But, in general, if you only come to church to please someone else, it rarely works out very well. You are not going to get a lot out of it and the person you attend church to please probably won’t get a lot out of it either
So it was with this man who went to church to please his wife. She wasn’t very pleased because while he did attend he was a little cynical. He would often ask questions about things that were said during worship. For example, whenever someone mentioned the resurrection he would turn to his wife and say, “now how did he do that? Did he have an escalator up to heaven?”
Finally, after many attempts of trying to honestly answer questions like that, his wife finally said, “Look if you are only coming to church to make me happy; it is not working. You can stay home. What I would like for you to do is decide why you are coming to church.” If you decide to come to church for you, then I want you to come. To his credit he did stop and think about why he wanted to attend church and worship became important to him.
I think it is good from time to time for all of us to stop and ask ourselves why we come to worship. What do we expect to get out of coming together during this time?
One of the things I’ve done when I’ve taught confirmation classes is to go through a worship bulletin and identify things God does in worship and things we do. That is actually a pretty good practice for anybody.
In a traditional service, like our 8:15 service, worship often begins with a “Call to Worship.” Who is calling us to worship? The liturgist, yes, but the liturgist is really a spokesperson for God. God is calling us to worship. Just as Christ invites us to the table for communion, God invites us to the sanctuary for worship.
So among other things, worship is God’s answer to a problem I identified last week and that our current worship series is designed to address, the problem of isolation.
I talked about the problem of isolation in a quote from Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General of the United States, last week at the beginning of worship.
Here is the quote:
“Loneliness and isolation pose significant threats to our health and well-being”
Loneliness and isolation are significant problems in the world today because as our worship series title says, “We were created for Connection.”
We were created for a relationship with God, one another, ourselves, and creation.
In a recent District Council on Ministry meeting, we interviewed Carrie Altman. I asked her permission to tell this story. Carrie is on staff at Franklin First and has entered the process of ordination to be an elder in the United Methodist Church. Her father was a heart surgeon. When we asked her a question about grace; that big Methodist theme, she began to talk about heart surgery. I was a little queasy before she finished. She said her dad would take her to his office when she was five years old and show her images of hearts that were blocked. He would ask her to tell him what was wrong with the hearts he showed her. She could do it. She could point out blockages that were preventing the blood to flow in those hearts like it should. Then she said, “God’s grace unclogs our spiritual hearts.” I thought that was a pretty good answer which is why I asked her if I could share this story.
Isolation is one of the things that clogs are hearts. Unfortunately, it is super easy for us to become isolated from one another and from God for a number of reasons.
We are Americans, known for our “rugged individualism.” There is a good side to that and a not so good side to that. If we don’t take care of ourselves, someone else is going to have to take care of us. I get that. We are each called to “give an account for the hope that is within us. “ We are all called to “work out our own salvation.”
But we were also created to be in community with one another and as John Wesley has said, “there is no such thing as solitary religion.” We do need each other.
So isolation is a problem and because we have been so geared to be rugged individualists, we have even created some cultural myths that support the problem of isolation.
Think of our heroes: Daniel Boone, Paul Bunyan, John Henry….not exactly known for close social ties and for “working well with others.”
I’m not saying don’t read stories about Paul Bunyan to your kids, but I will say maybe you should balance those kind of stories with those that show people working together and relying on one another.
Pushed to an extreme (as it often is), rugged Individualism can suggest we don’t need anyone. I am not an expert in sociology, but in some of the research I’ve seen we really seem to pressure males to be “rugged individualists” and “self-sufficient” and to not need anything or anybody.
And then we wonder why so many men don’t want to come to church. In a recent survey from 2016 the average Christian congregation is about 61% female and 39% male. Could our cultural conditioning have something to do with it? In other cultures around the globe men are very active in their religion, in ours not so much. I realize that may be oversimplifying things. I do believe we all have a lot of pressure to be more “me” focused than “we” focused.
We are often made to feel inadequate if we acknowledge we need anything or anyone outside of ourselves, which of course we do which is really sad.
We’ve got to learn that it is okay to ask for help, including help with our mental health.
I am not an expert in psychology any more than I am in sociology, but I have been around enough church members and other people enough to know, the majority of us could benefit from time spent with a good therapist.
I believe as many of us need help with our mental health as with our physical health. Even if you disagree on that, I hope you would agree that it is okay for us to ask for help when we need it.
When we are pushed and pressured to be rugged individualists and self-sufficient, it also becomes easy for us to develop a me against everybody else kind of mentality, or at best a me and my spouse and a few family members and friends against the world mentality.
It causes us to see others not as people to be loved and lifted up and encouraged, but as competition.
Isolation can cause all kinds of problems. When we are programmed to only care about ourselves and to only address our own personal desires we can land in all kinds of very destructive behavior.
So, I agree with the surgeon general of the United States and with John Wesley and just about every theologian I know of, isolation is a real threat to our health and well-being.
And so I like God’s solution found in this beautiful text:
“Let us hold fast to the confession of our faith without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some. But encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (verses 23-25)
Worship together. Encourage one another. Provoke one another to love and good deeds. We really do need each other. We really do need God. We really do need this planet. We really were created for Connection.