Think back to the beginning…the beginning of all beginnings. “In the beginning, God created…” that is the beginning I mean. I mean the one at the start of the Bible. In that beginning, the Spirit of God hovers over the waters of chaotic nothingness.
Have you even taken just a brief moment and considered the loneliness of that image? In the beginning, there was nothing, other than the Spirit of God.
It is an image that draws me to imagine a lonely boat on an unending expanse of sea. There is no one else close by. There is not even anyone else beyond the horizon. It is just one boat floating, alone.
It is not insignificant that God creates the universe to fill this void of nothingness. God is not a God of loneliness. No one should be alone.
Suddenly, there was light and dark, seas and land, plants and animals, a person and then a companion. Suddenly, the universe went from a place of loneliness to a place filled with life and relationship. Creation is the medicine for loneliness.
What Jesus does at the beginning of his ministry is no different. The preacher out in the wilderness, John the Baptist, is arrested, and there is a void in the kingdom of God. That void is quickly filled by Jesus. And, one of Jesus' first acts in the kingdom of God is to draw people near.
“Hey you!” he cries out to Simon and Andrew who are casting a net out into the sea. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” They follow. He does the same a little further down the shore, calling out to James and John. Like Simon and Andrew, they drop their nets and follow.
Suddenly, Jesus who was walking by the waters alone, has created out of nothing: a church. Suddenly, the kingdom of God went from being a lonely place to a kingdom that has quadrupled in size. Jesus is not a savior who enjoys loneliness. No one should be alone.
And, we are not alone. On a dark night of the soul, a dark, sleepless night during college where the weight of the world’s problems and the doubtfulness of the spirit were working, like a demon, to possess all my thoughts and take control of my life, I resolved to wander across the campus in the morning to the office of a trusted professor.
In the cold morning air, the chaotic clouds of breath that swilled around my head conveyed the chaotic thoughts and fears held within.
As soon as I walked up and stood in his office door, my professor took one look at me, put down his coffee and said, “We need to talk don’t we?” And, with that, he clicked his laptop closed and turned his full attention my way. He offered his ear and his heart. It was enough. God is not a God of loneliness. No one should be alone.
When we consider our kingdom task of fishing for people, too often we think about it in terms of numbers. Unintentionally, we often think about God like an accountant who keeps a running tally of followers until there is a final amount sufficient to declare profitability.
“Fish for people.” “Bring more people into the church.” “Grow your church.” “Grow the kingdom.” “Evangelize.” “Get out there and knock on doors”…and the like.
Though God does care about every lost and wandering soul out there, God in no way sees us as a number in the church’s tally of saved souls.
Instead, God cares about each one of us being connected…being together.
A woman who has been suffering alone from bleeding for years and years, will soon touch his cloak and be rewarded for her faith. She will gain a savior. She will gain a family. Jesus is not a savior who enjoys loneliness. No one should be alone.
A man who has been rendered alone in his blindness will soon call out to Jesus, believing that Jesus can save. Jesus will heal the man’s sight and Bartimaeus will immediately become a follower. He is no longer alone. Jesus is not a savior who enjoys loneliness. No one should be alone.
That is the good news of the kingdom of God this day. The kingdom is not about "me," it is about "us." It is about community.
The kingdom is not a place that emphasizes individual belief and individual salvation. It is not a place that understands the “me and my faith” sort of Christian talk that we Christians throw around from time to time. The kingdom is not as lonely as that.
The call to fish for people is much bigger. Ancient people did not use fishing poles in order to draw individual fish into the boat one by one. Instead, they used nets that, when cast into the air rightly, would spread out into a huge sheet of webbing that could draw a whole school of fish into the boat or onto the shore. That is what the kingdom of God is like. It is like gathering a whole school of fish together so that it can swim for the Lord.
It is like choosing a bunch of people in order to create a rocking soccer team for the Lord.
It is like gathering the entire crowd at the wedding to dance together the Macarena. Is that example too 1990ish? No matter, you get my point.
The kingdom is a place where all people are called and gathered so that they do not need to go through this thing called life alone. The kingdom is a place where all are drawn through faith to find belonging. It is a new creation. It is a new family. It is a place of Holy Relationship. It is the realm of God where no one is alone. God is not a God of loneliness. No one should be alone.
There once was a man, true story, who lost his young son to the heat of a van in the middle of the summer. Somehow, the son had wandered out into the van during nap time, closed the door, and overheated. The man was distraught. He questioned why. He questioned where God was at that moment. He questioned life in general.
In other words, he felt alone. He felt alone without his son. He felt alone in his grief. He felt alone, like no one actually understood; not even God. He was alone.
Not knowing how to cope, the man reached out to a pastor, shared his story, shared his loneliness, and shared most of all that he felt like God did not care, was not listening, or simply did not understand his situation.
The pastor quietly heard the man’s pain and then shared one simple thought with the distraught man:
“One day, God lost his son too.”
The man was not alone after-all. God is not a God of loneliness. No one should be alone.
We are a people who have been given a holy task; to fish for people. But it is not about the numbers or the size of your church. Rather, it is about the family of God. It is about the holy connections that we make with the people that we gather into this place. It is about walking together in faith. It is about reaching out to a world of loneliness that is alone despite being connected constantly through our smart-phones.
We are a people who have been given the task of exorcism of loneliness. After-all, God is not a God of loneliness. No one should be alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment