Loneliness in a Connected World

 

Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash

This is the sermon that was offered up during Morning Prayer and Eucharist on September 13, 2020. The Morning Prayer service was held via the zoom platform and the Eucharist was held in person with restrictions for St John's Episcopal Church in Dubuque, Iowa. Services were affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the first in a series of sermons on loneliness that St. John's was having for their fall sermon series.

Dear God, be with us today, wherever we are, whether we are with family or friends or are by ourselves.  If we are alone, let us not feel lonely, we know you are with us and that there is a community that is here for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Think about the last time you sat down and had a favorite beverage with someone outside of your family.  Now, that could be Sunday coffee time, since we have one here over Zoom, or it could be a physically-distanced opportunity outside where you could catch up on the details of what is happening with one another.  You talk about good things and one of you mentions that one of the worst things about the past few months is the sense of loneliness. Later that evening you find yourself in thinking about mental health, and part of a song from the musical Dear Evan Hansen.

When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?

Have you ever felt like nobody was there?
Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere?
Have you ever felt like you could disappear?
Like you could fall, and no one would hear?

Pretty unsettling, isn’t it? Like Bishop George Berkeley back in the 1730s, who first asked about trees and forests, is an action meaningful if no one notices? This is about more than trees, of course, because it asks about the value of individual living things.  Questions about fitting in, the purpose of life, and the quality of relationships are worth thinking about, and they speak to the anxiety and loneliness in our world.

These are not new questions; in fact, Joseph’s brothers are asking the same thing in the Old Testament reading today when they invoke the name of their father and ask Joseph not to punish them. They aren’t sure where they stand, and they are hoping for reassurance. Aren’t we all asking for that?

We live in a connected world. In my pocket is my phone, I have a tablet I use in the evening, I can tune the radio or listen to podcasts as I drive. In my spare time, I can game and join with others on social media.  It would seem that relationships would be easily made.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Regardless of the data you pick, the National Association of Science, the British Red Cross, or peer-reviewed studies, loneliness is on the rise. A researcher from UCLA even composed a Loneliness Scale, and there are some studies that suggest that more than half of Americans are lonely. 

Half of Americans? That’s about 165 million people in our own country. How do we deal with that as followers of Jesus?  Let’s start with being personal and filled with grace.  We see that today as Jesus speaks with Peter, offering grace to those who wrong us 77 times, a metaphor for infinite opportunities for forgiveness.  I don’t know about you, but there are people who I struggle with in my relationships.

And as I read and reread the Gospel, a new perspective became clear. That parable that follows the math problem Peter mentions is not about the wrongdoer. That parable is about us. Jesus is telling us that what WE do matters. Living out the unconditional love and grace of Jesus means something radical.

WE must be the forgivers.
WE must be the ones who offer to cancel debts.
WE must be the ones who respond when we are asked for help.

And when it comes to loneliness, WE must reach out to others who have broken connections.

Loneliness in a connected world is a complicated topic, but one thing I saw over and over is that relationship building is the key to solving loneliness.  People who have four or more significant people with whom they can be their authentic selves are better able to withstand the struggle of loneliness and the physical and mental stress it causes on the body.

Right off, let’s establish that the media is not the enemy.  It’s a tool we’ve used for hundreds of years to entertain ourselves, starting with postal letters, then newspapers, then phone calls, radio, and television broadcasts. While I have great memories of some phone and letter exchanges, I don’t know anyone who developed great relationships with a newspaper or one-way television or radio broadcast, so perhaps we need to think of the Internet in the same way. 

Use your media intentionally. Not all social media is authentic communication where you listen to understand.  Push notifications on our phone or a ticker on the bottom of a video screen can numb us and shift our perception.  I’m not bashing digital connectedness here; simply asking us to recognize that heavy social media users are correlated with increasing loneliness.

 
Loneliness is so widespread in our world that well-being strategies have evolved to help us make healthier choices.  One of the most popular  is called the PERMA technique.  P-E-R-M-A.  PERMA can help stop permanent loneliness.

P is for POSITIVE. Notice the Positive each day, and encourage others to see it too. This mindshift can make a huge difference, and often it is as simple as disengaging from screen time or intentionally keeping a gratitude journal.

E is ENGAGEMENT. Engage with your interests. Walk the dog.  Make a new recipe. Paint or Doodle.  Read a fiction book.   Talk with your roommate.  Join some sort of interest group.  Ask someone to dinner.

R is for RELATIONSHIPS. Rekindle relationships.  Take the time to make a daily call with a friend or family member. Join a small group video call, or put on a mask and meet someone at a park or on a porch. We are humans and we need regular conversation. If you are feeling lonely, talk with someone.

M is for MEANING. Build spiritual meaning  and opportunities for prayer and reflection. At St. John’s, that means trying to follow our Rule of Life and growing in faith in whatever way possible.

Finally, A is for Accomplishments.  Accomplishment means to celebrate the small steps; making a healthy meal, clearing out a box from the cupboard, walking a certain number of steps in a day, or improving on a daily task of your choice.

PERMA, P-E-R-M-A,

Positive-Engaging-Relationship-Meaning-Accomplishment

All of these steps are found in the Gospel today.  Jesus is Positive we can forgive people more than we ever imagined, and he tells Peter that through an Engaging Parable. Jesus and Peter have a strong Relationship, and the Parable builds Meaning so Peter and the other Disciples can understand. Our sense of Accomplishment, of course, depends on how well we hear and receive what Jesus is telling us.

 
Our goal is to build authentic relationships and meaningful habits of reflection. Loneliness varies by age group. Users under the age of 30 report higher anxiety and loneliness, especially if they don’t have a good work-life or school-life balance. People who live alone may go through a half-a-week or more without talking to others.

You are not alone.  That’s the other big message of the musical I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon.

You are not alone.

As a church community, our most important job in the wider world is to spread relationships, because we don’t have a private Savior.  How can we reach out to the college students up the hill? What do our youngest members and our teachers at St. John’s need to help recover from the stress of these last months? How about those who have been sick or recovering from surgeries? I don’t have the answers, but I know we need honest admissions about where we are, and strategies to build those four or more significant relationships that can reduce loneliness.  Games?  Online conference calls?  Bag lunches over the next two autumn months in local parks?

Loneliness in a connected world means that we need to decide which connections are most important.  As my time here at St. John draws to an end, I am reminded of those moments which have sustained me over the last two years, and those relationships I have witnessed among those in this congregation.

With Jesus, we are never alone.

My friends, with one another, we are a community. Long before church buildings and bell towers and steeples, Jesus and his disciples showed us that ministry in the church is really the sum total of the people who are willing to stand up and band together to make this world a bit less lonely through their kindness and commitment to God. 

With Jesus, we are never alone.

With each other, through Jesus Christ, we are not alone.

Amen.