Sermon: On Loneliness

I preached this sermon, or something like it, at last week's Healing Service at American University. We did the service outside and there wasn't a whole lot of light so I ditched the manuscript and did the best I could, so what you're reading is what might have been preached. It's a possibility. 

John 15: 12-15

Psalm 88

 “You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.” -- Ps 88

As many of you know, about a year ago I had what might politely be described as a nervous breakdown. I would find out later that I had been living with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder for years, but at the time I didn’t know any of that and I was just really, really scared.

I had to be hospitalized, and in the hospital there were social workers who led group activities on topics relevant to our mental illnesses. One day, the social workers led an exercise on support systems. They asked each of us to make a list of 5 supports in our lives, 5 people or things that we could rely on in times of need. Now you have to know that at this point in time I was nearly incapable of thinking of positive things in my life. Everything seemed awful and everything hurt. But 5 supports? I could do that. Heck, I could do that with just Methodist clergy. Let’s see. There’s Mark Schaefer, here at AU. He drove me to the hospital and then stayed with me for 8 hours while I got checked in. So that’s 1. There’s Mary Kay Totty at Dumbarton. She came and visited me every single day that I was in there. So that’s 2. There’s Jimmy Sherrod, the pastor of the Crossroads worship service that I attend in the summer. So that’s 3. There’s Kate Murphey at Wesley UMC. She served me communion in the hospital and we shared the extra bread with another patient who spread butter on the body of Christ. So that’s 4. And there’s Charlie Parker at Metropolitan, who called to check up on me when I told him I wouldn’t be able to come to work. So that’s 5. I wouldn’t even have to include friends and family. Piece of cake, right?

I was the only person in the group who could name 5 supports. One person could name exactly 0.

“You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.”

I remember being shocked by this. I was feeling incredibly isolated, painfully alone. But if I, with my legion of support, was feeling alone, what did I have to say to these fellow patients that I was sharing a table with? Did I have anything to offer to people who experienced such loneliness?

Loneliness is a ghost. It haunts the halls of psych wards and prisons, of high powered firms and of American University. This week I asked some students whether they ever get lonely at college. All answered yes. Several of them looked at me like I had two heads. Of course the answer was yes. Homesickness. The loss of a carefully built support system back home. Busy schedules preventing quality time being spent with one another. The expectation that being surrounded by so many people on campus will cure loneliness when in reality it can’t. Loneliness, it seems, is present here on campus at American University.

Loneliness, I think, is one sign, one symptom, of the brokenness of the world in which we live and move and serve. By loneliness I don’t just mean being alone. We all need alone time, and solitude is a powerful spiritual practice. But that ache. That hurt. That desperate longing for someone else to share intimate time and space with. That is something beyond just being alone.

Our scriptures witness to the power of loneliness. The psalmist whose words we just heard cries out to God: “You have caused my companions to shun me, you have made me a thing of horror to them…You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.”

I want us to stop here, on these words. Think about how incredible they are. These are the words of holy scripture, words which we call “the Word of the Lord.” These are words that have been affirmed by generation upon generation of Jews and Christians as being holy, representative of God’s work in the world. And they are blaming God for loneliness. They are not just describing loneliness, they are throwing loneliness at the foot of God and saying, “God, why have you done this to me?” And this, we say, is an acceptable form of prayer. This is a Psalm, what in Hebrew is called tehillim: praises. Somehow this psalm of desperation and loneliness praises God. We have permission, Biblical permission, to cry out to God in the midst of loneliness and pain. God can handle, not only our feelings of loneliness, but our feelings that we have been victimized by loneliness, that this loneliness Should. Not. Be.

God can do more than just handle our feelings of loneliness, though. God expresses a radical solidarity with our experience, with our hurt. We read a passage from the Gospel of John in which Jesus calls the disciples, the people he has gathered around himself in community, his friends. His friends. Now Christians make a rather bizarre claim about Jesus, a homeless rabbi who was tortured to death in a stinking backwater of the Roman Empire. Christians make the claim, the absurd claim, that in this Jesus we see the very face of God. This is a shocking thing to say. It is so shocking that the early church spent centuries arguing about what exactly it means. I’m in a class in seminary right now that is dedicated largely to learning about these arguments. There was a lot of name-calling, a lot of excommunicating and anathematizing, attached to disputes over such questions as: How can Jesus be both human and divine? How is Jesus, God the Son, related to God the Father? Did God die on the cross?

So we have this claim, this ridiculous claim, that Jesus, the Human One, is also somehow divine. And this Jesus, this Human and Divine One, calls to himself a group of friends. Friends. People to intimately share time and space with. Which to me, begs a question. If God needs friends, does God get lonely?

I believe in a God who, through Jesus the Christ, expresses radical solidarity with the human condition. A God who knows what it is to be lonely, knows what it is to need friends. Knows what it is to beat back the silence of seclusion, to gather companions to shed some sort of light into the darkness of isolation. A God who not only hears the broken cry of the psalmist, “You have caused my companions to shun me,” but who deeply understands that cry, who has even spoken aloud the words of another psalmist “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”

So we have this God, this God who hears the cry of the lonely, the God who even bends so far down into the human experience so as to experience loneliness. And furthermore, we have this God who makes some sort of demand on our lives. A God who calls us to follow, to follow after this Human One, this homeless street preacher, this Jesus. So what are we called to do? How are we called to follow, in this world haunted by loneliness, on this campus, in this community?

Community. What a word. Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker communities that continue to serve the poor and the hurting to this day, once wrote: “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” In the face of the power of loneliness, in the midst of a society in which, despite our access to communication technology and our iPhones and our Facebook profiles people experience increasing individualism and increasing isolation, we are called into community. Not just any community, either. A counter-cultural community. A community that pushes down walls of division. That throws it’s arms open to include, to embrace, undeterred by barriers of class or of race or of gender identity or of sexual orientation or of religion or of age or of mental health or, or, or, the list could go on and on.

Friends, God is forming us into that community, into that kingdom, even as we speak. But we are called into cooperation with that formation of community. We are called, yes, to work for that community. And we have a lot of work to do. Religious communities still divide themselves along racial lines. Along class lines. Along age lines. Many religious communities still exclude, explicitly or implicitly, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from their life together. Many religious communities still exclude those on the margins of society, those experiencing mental illness or addiction or chronic homelessness. And many religious communities are simply microcosms of societal loneliness. People arrive to church lonely and walk away lonely, with the walls hardened around our hearts unchallenged by genuine community. So yes, we have a lot of work to do.

But I see that work happening, here on campus at American University. I see conversations with people coming to a Methodist service for the first time. I see hospitality bags being assembled and distributed. I see the passing of the peace taking a central place in the worship service. I see a reconciling statement making it clear that LGBTQ worshipers are welcome here. I see people responding to Facebook friend requests and visiting people who are sick, often with soup in hand. I see people gathering around this simple meal of bread and wine that we will soon share together, made one by the grace of God. I see people lighting candles in the face of the darkness of loneliness.

Our work, the work of community, is not done. It is not done because there are still people in the psych ward at Sibley Hospital just up the road who cannot name a single support in their life. It is not done because there are people on this campus contemplating hurting themselves or killing themselves because they just do not see any way out of the loneliness haunting their lives. And if you are sitting here listening to this and you are haunted by loneliness, if you are hurting and you are feeling the pain of brokenness, know that this community is here for you, that Mark is here and I’m here and the person sitting down the row from you is here, that we will do what we can to break open the shell of isolation and to sit with you and to be with you in the midst of what you are going through.

Friends, our work is not finished. But our work is begun. And as we move forward, candle by candle in the face of the darkness of loneliness, we are accompanied by a God who is not a stranger to loneliness. A God who accepts us in the midst of the isolation that we inevitably feel. A God to whom it is acceptable to cry out in separation and in fear. And yet a God who calls us to not only be disciples, but friends. Friends of each other. Friends of those in need. Friends of God. And that, friends, is good news indeed.

Not to Lose Heart

This is a sermon that I preached at Wesley UMC on Sunday. I was asked to substitute preach on the first Sunday of a sermon series on faith and politics. This is one of those torturous pieces of writing that I wrote one sentence at a time, but it went ok when I preached it: 

 “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” When Pastor Kate asked me if I could preach today, she told me I was allowed to preach on whatever I wanted. Then she told me that this Sunday the cooperative parish begins a series on faith and politics, coinciding with the intensification of national election season. The series will explore the intersection of faith and politics, asking questions such as: “How does our faith affect our politics, if at all? What issues are important to us as a faith community? Is it possible to have political conversations in a Christian manner?”

“No way I’m touching that,” I thought to myself, “especially not to people I don’t know. I’ll stick with something safer.”

It was an easy decision to make. I’ve been cynical about politics recently, and the week that Kate asked me to preach was a particularly ugly one in the political scene, with name calling and personal attacks ruling the day on both ends of the political spectrum. So it was an easy decision not to preach on faith and politics. 

Christians should be wary of easy decisions, though, so I’m preaching on faith and politics after all. I’m preaching on faith and politics, despite my cynicism and my doubt, because Jesus told the disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

Why is this parable relevant? In this parable, Jesus instructs the disciples to model their prayer life after a patient widow, persistently demanding justice in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Jesus’ choice of a widow as the protagonist of the parable is important. In Palestinian Jewish society of Jesus’ day, widows—like widows in many societies today—were vulnerable because they lacked the economic means to provide for themselves. Widows were supposed to be protected by Jewish law, but in this case an unjust judge denies the widow her rights. The widow persists in her demands, however, and through her steadfast opposition to injustice she wears the unjust judge down. I love that line. Says the judge: “I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” The patient widow wears down injustice.

In order to explain why the disciples should continue to pray and to hope for justice, Jesus lifts up the example of a marginalized woman who does not give up, even when it seems as if giving up is the logical thing to do. It is a story of radical hope, and Jesus ties the story directly into an admonition to continue to pray for justice: “And will not God grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry to God day and night?”

As Christians, then, we are called to have a radical hope in the reign of God, a reign that despite seeming evidence to the contrary is victorious over the evil and injustice that we see all around us. But it’s hard to have a radical hope, isn’t it? When so much of the atmosphere that surrounds us, and especially so much of the political atmosphere that surrounds us here in Washington, DC, is marked by cynicism and despair, it is hard to counter that with hope. When complex social positions are reduced to shallow sound bites and personal attacks seem to rule the political playing field, it doesn’t seem like there is much room for hope. When the gap between the rich and poor continues to increase and social safety nets that protect the poor continue to be cut, it doesn’t seem like there’s much to be hopeful about.

And yet Jesus instructs the disciples to pray always and not to lose heart. Jesus presents the disciples with a picture of radical hope that is to guide their prayer life and their actions in the world. This radical hope is not a shallow optimism. The patient widow does not sit back on her heels and say, “I hope that things will get better.” Nor does she give up. She takes action, brave and persistent action, on behalf of justice.

What does this radical hope look like for us as disciples today, especially as it relates to the intersection of faith and politics? First, like the patient widow, our radical hope doesn’t give up. It doesn’t say, “working for justice is too hard,” nor does it say, “this is impossible,” nor does it say, “it’s never going to change.” Instead, our radical hope leads us to take the next step for justice, the next step that God is calling us to make for God’s kingdom, and to proceed forward one step at a time. Each step that we take is a prayerful step, looking always to a God who does not give up on us. Persistence in prayer, Jesus says, is as important for the disciples as persistence in action. In the parable,prayer is action, and action is prayer.

Second, our radical hope holds up the marginalized just as Jesus holds up the patient widow as an example of persistence and prayerful action for justice. Our radical hope is not so concerned with grappling in the halls of power as it is about the concerns of the powerless. We are to be amplifiers, megaphones, empowering the voices of the marginalized so that those voices might be heard by all of those with decision making powers.

All of those with decision making powers. Which raises a third aspect of the radical hope modeled by Jesus’ parable. Radical hope transcends partisan political boundaries. Radical hope is neither Democrat nor Republican. The only side it takes is the side of justice, of the marginalized, of the oppressed. It prayerfully wears away at political divisions. It is immune to name-calling and dishonesty and shallow sound bites of all sorts. The patient widow wears down the unjust judge not because of competing political parties but because an injustice has been done, and must be rectified.

This all sounds a bit too much like theory, though. What does radical hope really mean for us, today, in Washington, DC or in Maryland, during this election year? What sort of steps or actions can we take, what sort of prayers should we be praying, when our faith and our politics intersect?

Here’s one story, a parable if you will. In 2011, a federal budget was proposed that would strip massive amounts of funding from programs benefiting the poor. In response, Ambassador Tony Hall decided to pray and to fast for one month. He was eventually joined by 36,000 Americans, including 28 members of Congress. Reflecting on the impact of the movement, Hall says “Hungerfast didn’t focus on any one specific political ask. Instead, we sought to fundamentally alter the contours of the budget debate; we wanted to change the very nature of the political and spiritual environment within which the national debate took place. Our goal was to put a moral frame on the budget, and make the case that “budgets are moral documents.”” The fast did not entirely succeed in restoring programs for poor to the budget, but then again the patient widow did not always succeed in achieving justice. However, the amount of cuts was significantly reduced. More importantly, according to Hall, political discourse around the budget was changed so that moral considerations, rather than simply political expediency, were part of the conversation. The fast changed Hall as well. “In the end,” he says, “I believe fasting is effective because it moves us closer to the heart of God, resulting in a humble and quiet transformation of our own hearts that fundamentally changes the way we walk through life.”

And maybe that’s the most important thing about a politics of radical hope. It changes us. Jesus tells the story of the patient widow as an admonition to the disciples about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. Just as the patient widow works away at the unjust judge, so radical hope works away at us, disintegrating cynicism and despair, empowering us, forming us more and more in the image of the Christ who breaks down boundaries and frees us from all forms of chains.

So what does a politics of radical hope mean this election season? What does it mean to be a patient widow at the intersection of faith and politics? It means not to give up. It means that although we cannot always expect quick results, we can trust in a faithful God who will “quickly grant justice…to God’s chosen ones who cry to God day and night.” It means that we do not lose sight of God’s kingdom breaking out right here, right in the midst of us, right in the midst of what looks all-too-often like cynicism and despair. Breaking out in conversations. Breaking out in movements for justice and peace. Breaking out in members of DC’s homeless community advocating for their own needs and rights. Breaking out in churches and communities that fling their doors open wide to include and to embrace and to empower.

Yes, faith matters to politics. And politics to faith. But we approach this intersection with a radical, prayerful hope that informs all that we do and all that we say. Jesus told them a parable. So pray always. And don’t lose heart.

Sermon: Not to Lose Heart

Here is a sermon I preached Sunday at Wesley UMC in Washington, DC. I somehow got tapped to guest preach on the first Sunday of a sermon series on faith and politics. Here's what I did with it: “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” When Pastor Kate asked me if I could preach today, she told me I was allowed to preach on whatever I wanted. Then she told me that this Sunday the cooperative parish begins a series on faith and politics, coinciding with the intensification of national election season. The series will explore the intersection of faith and politics, asking questions such as: “How does our faith affect our politics, if at all? What issues are important to us as a faith community? Is it possible to have political conversations in a Christian manner?” “No way I’m touching that,” I thought to myself, “especially not to people I don’t know. I’ll stick with something safer.” It was an easy decision to make. I’ve been cynical about politics recently, and the week that Kate asked me to preach was a particularly ugly one in the political scene, with name calling and personal attacks ruling the day on both ends of the political spectrum. So it was an easy decision not to preach on faith and politics. Christians should be wary of easy decisions, though, so I’m preaching on faith and politics after all. I’m preaching on faith and politics, despite my cynicism and my doubt, because Jesus told the disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. Why is this parable relevant? In this parable, Jesus instructs the disciples to model their prayer life after a patient widow, persistently demanding justice in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Jesus’ choice of a widow as the protagonist of the parable is important. In Palestinian Jewish society of Jesus’ day, widows—like widows in many societies today—were vulnerable because they lacked the economic means to provide for themselves. Widows were supposed to be protected by Jewish law, but in this case an unjust judge denies the widow her rights. The widow persists in her demands, however, and through her steadfast opposition to injustice she wears the unjust judge down. I love that line. Says the judge: “I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” The patient widow wears down injustice. In order to explain why the disciples should continue to pray and to hope for justice, Jesus lifts up the example of a marginalized woman who does not give up, even when it seems as if giving up is the logical thing to do. It is a story of radical hope, and Jesus ties the story directly into an admonition to continue to pray for justice: “And will not God grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry to God day and night?” As Christians, then, we are called to have a radical hope in the reign of God, a reign that despite seeming evidence to the contrary is victorious over the evil and injustice that we see all around us. But it’s hard to have a radical hope, isn’t it? When so much of the atmosphere that surrounds us, and especially so much of the political atmosphere that surrounds us here in Washington, DC, is marked by cynicism and despair, it is hard to counter that with hope. When complex social positions are reduced to shallow sound bites and personal attacks seem to rule the political playing field, it doesn’t seem like there is much room for hope. When the gap between the rich and poor continues to increase and social safety nets that protect the poor continue to be cut, it doesn’t seem like there’s much to be hopeful about. And yet Jesus instructs the disciples to pray always and not to lose heart. Jesus presents the disciples with a picture of radical hope that is to guide their prayer life and their actions in the world. This radical hope is not a shallow optimism. The patient widow does not sit back on her heels and say, “I hope that things will get better.” Nor does she give up. She takes action, brave and persistent action, on behalf of justice. What does this radical hope look like for us as disciples today, especially as it relates to the intersection of faith and politics? First, like the patient widow, our radical hope doesn’t give up. It doesn’t say, “working for justice is too hard,” nor does it say, “this is impossible,” nor does it say, “it’s never going to change.” Instead, our radical hope leads us to take the next step for justice, the next step that God is calling us to make for God’s kingdom, and to proceed forward one step at a time. Each step that we take is a prayerful step, looking always to a God who does not give up on us. Persistence in prayer, Jesus says, is as important for the disciples as persistence in action. In the parable, prayer is action, and action is prayer. Second, our radical hope holds up the marginalized just as Jesus holds up the patient widow as an example of persistence and prayerful action for justice. Our radical hope is not so concerned with grappling in the halls of power as it is about the concerns of the powerless. We are to be amplifiers, megaphones, empowering the voices of the marginalized so that those voices might be heard by all of those with decision making powers. All of those with decision making powers. Which raises a third aspect of the radical hope modeled by Jesus’ parable. Radical hope transcends partisan political boundaries. Radical hope is neither Democrat nor Republican. The only side it takes is the side of justice, of the marginalized, of the oppressed. It prayerfully wears away at political divisions. It is immune to name-calling and dishonesty and shallow sound bites of all sorts. The patient widow wears down the unjust judge not because of competing political parties but because an injustice has been done, and must be rectified. This all sounds a bit too much like theory, though. What does radical hope really mean for us, today, in Washington, DC or in Maryland, during this election year? What sort of steps or actions can we take, what sort of prayers should we be praying, when our faith and our politics intersect? Here’s one story, a parable if you will. In 2011, a federal budget was proposed that would strip massive amounts of funding from programs benefiting the poor. In response, Ambassador Tony Hall decided to pray and to fast for one month. He was eventually joined by 36,000 Americans, including 28 members of Congress. Reflecting on the impact of the movement, Hall says “Hungerfast didn’t focus on any one specific political ask. Instead, we sought to fundamentally alter the contours of the budget debate; we wanted to change the very nature of the political and spiritual environment within which the national debate took place. Our goal was to put a moral frame on the budget, and make the case that “budgets are moral documents.”” The fast did not entirely succeed in restoring programs for poor to the budget, but then again the patient widow did not always succeed in achieving justice. However, the amount of cuts was significantly reduced. More importantly, according to Hall, political discourse around the budget was changed so that moral considerations, rather than simply political expediency, were part of the conversation. The fast changed Hall as well. “In the end,” he says, “I believe fasting is effective because it moves us closer to the heart of God, resulting in a humble and quiet transformation of our own hearts that fundamentally changes the way we walk through life.” And maybe that’s the most important thing about a politics of radical hope. It changes us. Jesus tells the story of the patient widow as an admonition to the disciples about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. Just as the patient widow works away at the unjust judge, so radical hope works away at us, disintegrating cynicism and despair, empowering us, forming us more and more in the image of the Christ who breaks down boundaries and frees us from all forms of chains. So what does a politics of radical hope mean this election season? What does it mean to be a patient widow at the intersection of faith and politics? It means not to give up. It means that although we cannot always expect quick results, we can trust in a faithful God who will “quickly grant justice…to God’s chosen ones who cry to God day and night.” It means that we do not lose sight of God’s kingdom breaking out right here, right in the midst of us, right in the midst of what looks all-too-often like cynicism and despair. Breaking out in conversations. Breaking out in movements for justice and peace. Breaking out in members of DC’s homeless community advocating for their own needs and rights. Breaking out in churches and communities that fling their doors open wide to include and to embrace and to empower. Yes, faith matters to politics. And politics to faith. But we approach this intersection with a radical, prayerful hope that informs all that we do and all that we say. Jesus told them a parable. So pray always. And don’t lose heart.