John 4:4-11,13-18,25-26

My grandmother was an unusually happy person. She laughed. I don’t mean a giggle,  I mean a quiet chuckle that made you feel in the presence of a woman who enjoyed life. Whenever she heard something in the sermon that she liked at church, she would laugh. And she drank tea. Tea in the later afternoon. Tea if she didn’t feel well. Tea if someone came to visit. Being around my grandmother was one of life’s comforting experiences. I have a cup of tea here this morning. My grandmother always drank green tea. And it even tastes comforting.

 A lot of us have never gotten enough of that kind of feeling. I spend half my time talking to people who feel terribly alone. There are different life issues that cause these feelings and none are easy or simple to deal with. There is the alone feeling that comes when you are ill. No one else can face the challenge. Our loved ones can offer a hand, but that cannot go thru our experience. We face illness alone.

 We face failure alone. Some of you know that I have been interested in Howard Dean who is about to lose the Wisconsin primary. His staff is leaving and his whole operation continues to shrink. But with a political candidate, the failure is really the candidates. No one will remember the staff, and I read this weekend that Howard Dean has been changing visibly in these last few days, because he is alone.

 There is a loneliness when you are in a minority situation. It may be cultural or not. There is a special loneliness when you wait for legal status. No one else can help.

 There’s loneliness in guilt. If you really feel that you have done something wrong, no one else can really share the blame. You are alone.

 But there is a deeper loneliness under all of these related to your parents. In most cases, I think that parents do some damage trying to raise us. And while it all comes out in different symptoms, your greatest problem may be that you have never really felt unconditional, comforting, embracing love. Frankly, I’ve concluded that not too many people ever experience this in their lifetime – not even Christians who are supposed to get this in their relationship with God.

 So on this valentine weekend, we’re going to talk about the fear of being alone. That no matter what you try, you just don’t feel that someone loves the true you just as you are. I could hardly wait to get to this sermon, because God has a good news for you. I’m praying that someone will experience that gift before you leave today.

 Many people experience loneliness. The woman that Jesus met at the well in Samaria had this experience. We gather from this story that she was poor and either in prostitution or moving from one cheap guy to the next. Remember that this was a society where women were expected to be protected by fathers and husbands. It was a hard life for those who fell through the cracks. There was no social security.

  And let me say a word about multiple lovers. From my observation, your loneliness tends to rise in proportion to sexual partners. I know a young woman who is about 30 years old and has had at least 48 sex partners. And I wondered how even God will break thru and ever give her a thrilling experience of love again. I want to say especially to young people that sex makes a wonderful part of love but it is a rotten cure for loneliness.

 And this woman is a Samaritan who resents the arrogance and power of the Jewish leaders nearby. Observant Jews at that time would walk around Samaria rather than walk through the province because of old feuds. Now the woman is suddenly confronted with someone who makes her feel in the minority.

 This parallels the experience of some of us. If you change countries and your family is still behind, there will be some intense moments of loneliness where you are working hard and feel like there is no one who truly knows and cares. The woman at the well had those feelings.

 Put it all together and this woman felt like no one truly could look past the poverty, sex, ethnicity, age and just love her. And you cannot do any great thing in life if you don’t feel loved. There are too many Christians who respect God and try to follow the rules of God but have never claimed an embrace from God.

 Jesus starts this passage by saying that he had to walk thru Samaria. Luke 19 says that Jesus was sent to save the lost.  [Luke 19:10] For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." Jesus was searching for this woman. In just the same way, it is your bad feelings about yourself that have attracted God’s attention. You would think that God would be looking for the beautiful people here this morning who prayed an hour at dawn and brought a tithe and will stay for Bible Study and then witness this week. And the angels rejoice with all that activity. But God’s heart is drawn by someone who is desperate and hurting this morning. You came hoping to remain hidden in the shadows and hoping to get a little bit of inspiration for the week and Jesus says, sister, brother, [Mat 11:28] "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

 The woman asks Jesus a number of suspicious questions. She may wonder if he wants sex. She certainly wants to find out if there is a trap in a Jew talking with a Samaritan. But the conversation finally gets to the point where she leaves and seeks people who normally shun her and says that she may have seen the Messiah. And I’m sure that the proper people of Samaria didn’t believe her for a minute. If God truly had come to Samaria, the Lord would have called on the leaders first –wouldn’t he?

 Usually when we feel bad, we think that the first answer is to break our bad habits. Maybe other people would like us more if we were better people. There’s some truth to that. First John 3 talks about following God’s commandments if we love God. But it is preceded with [1 John 3:21] Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; You have got to have a feeling of peace and love in your heart before anything else gets started.

 I have three kinds of tea here to think of this comfort. The first is a nice strong earl grey because to get this love and peace, you have to lay down your false view of God. I was talking to a guy this week who sees God as angry and who makes an example of some of us to try to scare the rest of us into behaving. First of all, if this is God’s plan to save the world, it is not working. But it fits too much what some of us feel about our parents.

 And next, spice and clove tea as you have to admit to yourself that your parents were wrong. Those areas of your life that they were just a little ashamed of don’t keep you from the love of God. A lot of people get lost here because we never stop trying to meet our parents expectations. I don’t care if you love your parents, hate them, or somewhere in between, you can’t just dismiss them. But for your own salvation, you have to say, Mom, Dad, I appreciate what you gave me, but I am dropping the bad feelings because they are keeping me from knowing the love God has for me.

 That’s one of the most freeing actions you will ever do. There are so many marriages that get fouled up because we are trying to solve some issue from our parent’s home. But the bigger issue is to get clear enough from our parent’s feelings so that we can know the full love of God.

 And then you simply get out my grandma’s favorite, the sweet green. Ask the Lord this morning to give you feelings of love and peace that are deeper than the issues of life. This guy asked me, ‘how do you experience God? What difference does it make?’ No one had ever asked it like that. I sense God as a loving presence in my chest that calms me and gives me feelings of inner strength to get through the storms of life. And I’ve concluded that a lot of people don’t experience God that way. But how else can we make it through life if we don’t feel that there is one person, a Savior, who knows and loves us on the inside. That can be your experience.

 I can’t think of any cute exercise to get it. But I can promise this. I have told people before to keep praying for the fullness of God’s love and peace. And several people have told me the next day that it didn’t happen but they would keep praying. And people do come back to me days or weeks later and say, you know, I suddenly felt the deep abiding love of God. And you will never be alone again. Amen.