“All the Lonely People”
Mark 5:25-34
My wife and I had a discussion last Saturday at lunch about our mutual dislike for COVID. Can I get an AMEN? We agreed that COVID has changed everything.
• Places we go
• Whether we eat out or not
• Do we travel?
• Do we wear a mask? If so, when?
• When will everyone come back to church?
• We discussed the fact that people are very out of touch now, perhaps more than ever before.
So, as a result, one of the most pressing problems we have in America, today, is that of loneliness. In this series we have said hello to regret, anxiety, depression, guilt and debt. And today we say hello to loneliness. The Beatles wrote a song titled Eleanor Rigby where Paul sings these words: “I look at all the lonely people The problem is when we say hello to loneliness there is often no reply. It doesn’t take very long in the recording of scripture to get to this concept of loneliness. The Bible tells us God created the heavens and the earth and that then on the 6th day he made man. In chapter two God notices man and says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” So He created a helper suitable for him. Now we would hope that would solve the problem of loneliness but it doesn’t and for me it reminds me that being alone and loneliness are not the same. Many people prefer to be alone and a significant number of people feel lonely even when they are in a crowd of people.
In the gospel of Luke we find an interesting story. Let’s look at it together. Now, look, at her situation. The first thing to recognize in this story is that there are many factors in life that contribute to loneliness. For this woman, there are many. Her loneliness was profound. For numerous reasons:
• Her health. Mark states that she has been subject to bleeding for 12 years. Surely, as a result of excessive blessing she would suffer from physical exhaustion and most likely a great deal of pain.
• Her social activity would be limited. Leviticus tells us she would be pronounced as unclean and therefore, anyone who touched her would also be unclean. So, as a result, she was not able to go out in public and no one would be able to visit her.
• She would be deemed as an outcast. Through the years we have seen a number of individuals who have been ostracized due to their health. For those suffering with AIDS, society was told not to be around them. If they were using a swimming pool, for instance, it wasn’t considered to be safe to go into the water with them or to drink out of the same glass as them. Frankly, don’t touch them and don’t allow them to touch you. Even during COVID, we have been told especially, at the beginning, don’t get closer than 6 feet from others.
Here’s the thing….
A physical disconnection from others will most certainly bring about loneliness.
This disconnection is now showing up in the workplace; many are now working from home; there is a disconnect at the supermarket; we wear a mask as we go down the aisle, if we go; many are now picking up their groceries rather than entering the store. And all of this has affected the church as well. In at least two very profound ways….
1. The Pew Research center and Barna Research verify that only 33% of those who were actively attending church pre COVID are still attending. 1 out of 3. 72% of those who were actively attending are now (only) watching online.
2. Those who do attend feel less connected due to distancing issues. Church fellowships have become a thing of the past. Sharing a meal together at church is certainly not as common.
• For the woman in this story, her finances affected her lifestyle. There was no health insurance in that day so everything was paid out of pocket, Mark comments on this situation and bluntly tells us in v. 26 she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she had gotten worse.
She was likely not the first person to experience this and certainly would not be the last. Limited finances will affect our ability to get out and make connections. But here is the good news. After all of this, THEN she heard about Jesus. So, what had she heard? Mark, we believe was the first gospel recorded and we see that in her lifetime she had likely heard of:
• Jesus driving out an evil spirit
• The healing of Simon’s sister in law
• The healing of a paralytic
• Jesus calming the storm
In this passage Jesus had just healed Jairus’ daughter --- he says she was dying. Jesus went and laid hands on her and she was healed. So all of this added up to one thing. HOPE. If Jesus could do all of this, there was certainly hope for her as well. And this is when she decides to take an important step forward. Because she believed that Jesus could make a difference. And if you are experiencing loneliness today you must come to the realization that Jesus CAN and WILL make a difference. But it’s possible that you need to take the first step.
So, she goes to where the crowd is. Now remember her condition and her situation was far worse than what most of us are facing today. I’m not minimizing what you may be going through today; I’m just saying that her condition was terrible. She was an outcast from society and in spite of that she chose to go to Jesus and to go to the crowd. Our solution is usually to run from the crowd. But there was Jesus in the midst of all of these people; she came up behind Him and she touched him. This was unheard of and certainly went against every law society had put into place; yet she did it anyway. Why would she do that? Simple. She though “if I can just touch Jesus, in fact if I can just touch his clothes; the hem of his garment, I will be healed.” So she reaches out and touches Jesus and she is immediately healed. Mark says she was freed from her suffering. She was freed from her physical illness but on an even greater level, she was freed from her loneliness. Because now, she had the ability to be in the presence of other people.
During this sermon series, on several occasions I have chosen to ask people on social media if they are can help me define my topic, by asking questions like, what is loneliness to you? How do you cope with it? I communicated directly with about 35 people who were responding with their stories of loneliness. Most of these are from this congregation.
SHARE STORIES OF LONELINESS (Here is shared personal stories that I asked for from church members. I have been the pastor of this church for 21 years so I have cultivated relationships with people and they open up to me. I simply ask them to share a time when they were really lonely and how they worked through it. with their permission I shared some of these.)
The church has been hurt significantly over the past 1.5 years because many have elected to stay away. Do people have a good reason? They do. Did this woman have a good reason to stay away? She did. But she chose to go to the crowd. Everything and everyone was telling her to stay away but she had to get to Jesus because she knew that He alone had the answers she needed.
Loneliness is a tremendous problem plaguing our world right now. COVID has played a role in that; social media, designed to bring people together has actually separated us even more. We post our pictures online; we write about all the good things that are happening in our lives and we do that so we don’t have to actually face the fact that we are lonely people, designed for relationships with others and we have been told it is no longer safe.
So what do we do? (1) I encourage you, if you are at home today, to pray about coming back. It’s a personal decision but you are wanted, right here, every week. We are stepping up our protocols again. I encourage everyone to wear a mask. I plan to. No one will force you to do so. But consider coming back. (2) Don’t allow your absence from the body of Christ to be an absence from the Lord. Too many people think if they can’t get to church, they can’t get to God. The Bible never teaches that. That’s a lie Satan would have you believe. You have all of God that you want. How much do you want? Connect with Him daily, whether you are here or not. (3) Reach-out to others here in the church. You may be thinking no one has called. Perhaps they’re waiting on you to call. ?
Maybe Japan has the right idea. They have appointed a "Minister of Loneliness." His job is to work to reduce loneliness and social isolation among the residents of Japan. The country is with rising suicide rates. During the month of October, more Japanese died from suicide than had died from COVID-19 in all of 2020. There were 2,153 suicide deaths that month and 1,765 total virus deaths up to the end of October, according to the Japanese National Police Agency. One company in Japan designed a robot to hold someone’s hand when they’re lonely and one man charges people to simply sit with them and “do nothing” except keep them company.
Ah, look at all the lonely people
where do they all belong?
Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear.
No one comes near.
Eleanor Rigby, died in the church and nobody came
To the funeral except Father McKenzie.
All the lonely people.
Where do they all come from?
Where do they all belong?
