The Cure for the Loneliness Bug -- FPC sermon excerpt

Loneliness is like a disease, in that it can make you feel really awful. It’s also contagious.

Researchers are discovering that one person’s emotions have the power to affect friends, family members, and neighbors. According to The Washington Post (December 1, 2009), a ten-year study has revealed that lonely people increase the chance that someone they know will start to feel alone.

“Loneliness can be transmitted,” says the University of Chicago psychologist who led the study. “Loneliness is not just the property of an individual. It can be transmitted across people — even people you don’t have direct contact with.”

“No man is an island,” adds a professor of medicine and medical sociology. “Something so personal as a person’s emotions can have a collective existence and affect the vast fabric of humanity.”

Now you might think that this research study is interesting, but no big deal. Emotions are just emotions, right? Actually, no. Loneliness has been linked to a number of medical problems, including depression, sleep problems, and overall poor physical health.

Loneliness is more than a bad feeling — it really does have serious consequences. If we can cure the loneliness bug, we can help people to be healthier in body, mind, and spirit.

So, how do we do it?

We can begin by going back in time and gathering some ancient wisdom from the community of Christians known as the Colossians. If loneliness is truly a contagious disease — a bug — then the Colossians have to be given some credit for discovering the cure. In today’s Scripture lesson, the apostle Paul commends them for their hope of heaven, their faith in Jesus Christ, their love for all the saints, their good works, and their knowledge of God.

For the Colossians, the Christian faith is not an individualistic possession, but is something, says Paul, that “has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it” (Colossians 1:6). He looks at the Colossians, and sees a network of deep-spirited friendships in their community, connections which have truly positive consequences.

Right from the start, Paul makes a link between faith in Christ and love for one another. Even though some people seem to think that faith is a very personal and private experience, Paul seems to be saying that you cannot have faith in Christ without love for the people around you. “In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” says Paul, “for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” (vv. 3-5).

I find it fascinating that Paul says that the Colossians have faith and love “because of the hope laid up for [them] in heaven.” Their hope of everlasting life with God is what inspires their faith and their love. When I think of heaven, I think of an eternal connection with God and Jesus, and with loved ones whose lives on earth have ended. In my belief, heaven is all about reunions and relationships and closeness and community — the exact opposite of loneliness.

So hope is the starting point, followed by faith in Jesus and love for one another. Hope, faith, and love are the first ingredients in the cure for the loneliness bug.