Lonliness; A Curable Epidemic
As reported by the AP from Guatemala City, Guatemala. A disillusioned wife convinced her husband she had been kidnapped, and got him to raise ransom money. But instead of ending up at home she wound up in jail.
Angela de Leon Carrillo de Chavez, 53, said she has been married to her husband, Luiz, for 22 years, but that he no longer seemed to care.
Mrs. Chavez telephoned her home Thursday to tell her husband she had been kidnapped and that he would have to pay a $500 ransom for her release.
Chavez apparently did care and was concerned. He raised the ransom money, but then went to the police—who in turn located Mrs. Chavez and jailed her for faking a kidnap.
The underlying reason she did it? Loneliness, she wanted attention from her husband. She was just lonely!
In New York in the spring of 1927, Lillian Alling, a young servant, became very homesick and decided to return to her family in Russia, although it meant she would have to walk the 12,000 miles because she had saved only $100 and would not accept lifts from strangers. Equipped with maps, a knapsack and an iron rod for protection, the frail girl passed through Chicago, Winnipeg, British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska, arriving in Nome, the halfway mark for her epic journey, in July 1929.
Not only had Lillian endured untold hardships, but she had lost her dog. After having been her pet and companion for a year, the little fellow had died back in the Yukon and she, unable to part with him, had stuffed his skin with the aid of a trapper and was carrying his body with her in a cart.
Soon after leaving Nome, she was seen approaching Cape Prince of Wales and that was the last time anyone on this continent is known to have seen or heard of her. She had apparently reached the Cape, as she had planned, obtained a boat and rowed across the 36 miles of Bering Strait to Siberia. Why did she do it Loneliness, She was lonely for her family!
How will you keep busy after age sixty-five? I read about a seventy-one-year-old retiree in Detroit who spends most of every day playing solitaire. In ten years he has played 132,400 games and has recorded the results of each one. He can show visitors six ledger books filled with the figures.
This is a “no brainer” – solitaire, loneliness; no human interaction when you’re playing that game.
Loneliness. The World is dying of loneliness. Loneliness is the number one cause of alcoholism and addiction, divorce, rebellion of youth, and certainly suicide. How to be relevant to society and attract people to us so we can give them the saving message of Jesus Christ, the friend to the friendless, the comforter to those in need of comfort is something Christ followers have been looking for since the Pentecost. What we found is that many people who come through the doors of any church are looking for community. Why? Simple, in a community you will find those who are willing to have relationship with you, they are willing to be friends; you find support in your tough times and those with which you can have a party in the good times.
There are a few illustrations of this in the Bible. One of the best is a story that doesn’t even mention loneliness, but by digging a little deeper it is plain to see, is in Luke.
Luke 5
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.
14 Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
When someone in Jesus’ day had this terrible disease or any skin affliction, their problems extend much beyond the obvious. You see, someone might be sick, with cancer say, but it is not always obvious. People would not necessarily consider them unclean. But, with Leprosy, it was different. As a result of the leprosy the second affliction of this man was that he was lonely. No one wanted to be near him, he probably had trouble finding food and shelter, but his number one need was for others to love him. In India they call them the “untouchables”, and they are the lowest class in a strict Caste system. They are lonely people. Loneliness is a terrible malady, and the only way out is through human contact, loving human contact. It is easy to see that by being “untouchable” human contact is, in the very nature of the word, eliminated.
Today, the most lonely people I can think of are those that are in the shelters, it is obvious; they are homeless, usually with no family unit for any support. These are America’s “untouchables” so we should not feel we are any better than those in the strict caste system, at least insofar as our willingness to be part of their solution. We need to do what we can for those folks, that is why church mission outreach ministries gather blankets and coats for the homeless and people who are struggling so they can provide just a small bit of comfort when the cold comes. I also think that another thing we can provide for them, when we go to deliver these items, is a little human contact. Jesus did this didn’t He?
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.
He literally touched the man. Now you and I are not going to be able to work the miracle of cleansing someone from a disease just by touching them, we are simply not God, Jesus is. But, we can show Jesus to those who are down and out, something I believe we are called to do.
Now, you may ask, how does this scripture apply to us reaching others for Christ? How is this News I Can Use? Again, this might not be the most obvious answer until you dig a little deeper. Loneliness is not by any means restricted to the homeless. In fact they are just the tip of the iceberg. Loneliness is rampant in Your City, USA. You can name the city, loneliness is not only rampant, but it is growing. Loneliness is the number one problem of our youth, of our moms and dads, of our friends even. It leads us to do unhealthy things, it makes us angry, in fact I would say the anger issues of our society are a direct outcropping of loneliness. Fear of rejection being the other major cause of anger.
This is not new, it is just more prevalent in an internet society where you don’t even have to go out to the store, where other people are, to do grocery shopping. If you wanted to, and had the patience to wait until UPS or Fed Ex to come to your door, you almost would never have to leave your house, and even then we have developed telecommuting so you would NEVER have to leave your house. This is a change in our society, It was by no means like this until fairly recently and the result we are seeing is a new level of loneliness never before experienced.
Like leprosy, loneliness is deeper than the skin and cannot be helped by mere “surface” measures. Like leprosy, loneliness spreads; and as it spreads, it defiles, it makes the lonely take extreme measures like the housewife in Guatemala City or the young Russian servant girl.
And because of this defilement, or uncleanness, a leprous person had to be isolated outside the camp. Lost people, unrepentant sinners, people who simply refuse to acknowledge the God of the universe one day will be isolated in hell. It has to be the loneliest condition a human spirit could ever experience. Eternal isolation.
People with leprosy were looked on as “dead”, and garments infected with leprosy were fit only for the fire. Do you think someone isolated from the rest of society would be lonely? Then how important is it for lost sinners to trust Jesus Christ and get rid of their spiritual “leprosy”!
This man in the story found in Luke not only needed to be changed, but he wanted to be changed. People in our society want their condition changed as well, and yet they feel they have no place to go to get the change. This is what Christ came here for. He came here to relieve this loneliness, for the people of Your City, USA. We have to reach them with the message that they are wanted, we need to get the word out that we are here for the human contact they lack. We are here to tell them this is the place, what we call church, is here so they can have their loneliness disappear. The places where people gather are there so they can find a solution to their malady. Lepers were required to keep their distance under Jewish law, but the leper who came to Jesus was so determined that he broke the Law and approached the Lord Jesus personally. Throughout his Gospel, Luke makes it clear that Jesus was the Friend of the outcast, and they could come to Him for help and healing. The man humbled himself before the Lord and asked for mercy. We need to communicate that if someone wants to, they too can have this burden of loneliness lifted, just like the leper. But they must be willing to break the social law that says they are not to share their burdens. You gotta “take it like a man” or be stoic.
Our job is to provide a safe space for the lonely folks that we are surrounded by in our town, to let them know there is One who will be their friend. That we, too, have been there, and we have found that their problem is not an unanswerable question. The answer is at your place, your church your small group. When was the last time YOU invited someone to church?
By the grace and power of God, this man was changed! In fact, Jesus even touched the man, which meant that He became unclean Himself, according to the Jewish social laws. This is a beautiful picture of what Jesus has done for lost sinners, AKA lonely people: He became sin for us that we might be made clean. Jesus is not only willing to save, but He is also able to save; and He can do it now. Are you willing to be known as someone who associates with those homeless, addicted, lonely people?
Jesus encouraged the man to see the priest and to obey the rules for restoration given in Leviticus 14. This is where we find the procedure for making a person with an infectious disease clean in the eyes of the church, society, and so they say the eyes of God. The ceremony is a picture of the work of Jesus Christ in His incarnation, His death, and His resurrection. Even in the Old Testament all of this was done over running water, with the blood of a bird mixed with the water. Water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Since it was interesting to me I thought it might be interesting to you - it’s only a paragraph and the ceremony goes like this.
14 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “These are the regulations for the diseased person at the time of his ceremonial cleansing, when he is brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine him. If the person has been healed of his infectious skin disease, a 4 the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed. 5 Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. 6 He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the infectious disease and pronounce him clean. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields.
This sacrifice reminds us that Jesus had to die for us in order to deliver us from our sins. It is one of the reasons for baptism, a cleansing, a restoring, a renewal of a spiritual kind. Don’t you wish we had a ceremony for relieving loneliness? I can hear it now, “Hey pastor, can you bring a couple of birds and some red yarn over to the house, I’m lonely and I need your help, I’ll just fill the bath tub up, man I got get rid of this loneliness”.
The amazing thing to me is that many people do not even realize that what their destructive behaviors are doing is the result of their loneliness. Anger issues often are the result of people feeling there is no one on their side, nobody to understand their problems, often they don’t even get that they feel isolated in their challenges of life. Most are fearing rejection and feel as if they are in control when they force others to reject. It seems they are thinking “I am going to be rejected anyway, I might as well have it happen on my terms”. How self defeating, and yet the cycle continues.
Jesus instructed the man not to reveal who had healed him, but the cleansed leper became an enthusiastic witness for the Lord. ( Isn’t it funny, Jesus commands us to tell everybody, and we keep quiet! This time he says “SHHH, don’t tell anyone, and the man couldn’t keep his mouth shut. We are such rebellious creatures.)
Because of this witness, great multitudes came to Jesus for help, and He graciously ministered to them. But Jesus was not impressed by these great crowds, for He knew that most of the people wanted only His healing power and not His salvation. He often left the crowds and slipped away into a quiet place, the Bible calls it a lonely place but it really means a place where He is alone, to pray and seek the Father’s help. That’s a good example for all of God’s servants to follow.
This is what we are here for is to show the way to the One who relieves the pain of this life, the loneliness that is so easy to fall into. We need to get this word out to our friends, our co-workers, the people with whom we come in contact. But we also need to reach those who are not in that dire place of the need for shelter, we need to get this message to the people who feel that church is not for them, because they obviously haven’t heard that church is not here to judge them; it is here to help them relieve the problems everyone, including them, experience in this world, and they don’t have to do it alone. At your church there are others who will walk with them through this period of life, even if that is not your calling.
Frankly, our marketing effort, to put it into a business context, is not going to be evidenced by a lot of advertising, or fancy gimmicks. It is going to be by word of mouth, by service to the community, even by joining the larger effort in the community.
This issue of loneliness I am convinced is a leprosy in our society, and the cure is simple. It doesn’t take some complicated ceremony that requires the blood of a small animal. But, remember that simple is not always easy. It is not easy for people to change the habits that created the loneliness, and often people do not even realize that their loneliness was started by their habit of isolating. Folks, we have the message, let’s be the messengers of hope, we are called to be that for the sake of Christ Himself. God set it up that way. Are you doing your part? If you’re reading this, chances are you have found that answer for yourself, let’s share it, let’s give it away, let’s be the beacon of hope for the lonely in Your town, USA.
Another question comes into play here. How are you doing? In your lonely times, (we all have them), are you calling others in your church body and not isolating? We need to be more like the leper in the Luke story and reach out not only to Jesus, but to each other. A few of you do it I know because you call the pastor, or a friend. People think the pastor is too busy to be bothered, but I am telling you, it is why we are here, Call us. If we can’t be there, we’ll let you know, but chances are great that we will be the one to pray with you, or have a cup of coffee with you, or just be available to talk. Maybe, if you give it a shot, you WON’T be disappointed, but if you don’t reach out who is going to know?
The leper took the chance, and his consequences could have been to be shipped off to an island, by himself. But his desperation in his loneliness made him realize he had nothing left to lose but his problem. You see, we need to model it for others so they can know we are really here for them. That is what is going to be attractive to others and that will begin to grow your church, or your ministry. Let’s pray today for God to help us help those in need. Not just materially, but spiritually, loneliness is a disease more of the spirit. Let’s let God heal our spirit through the church, He set it up for just that purpose. After all, fellowship is one of the “big three” life activities we have been talking about for quite a while isn’t it? Prayer, reading the word, and fellowship.
