This is the first time in 32 years that I have been
with my father on Father’s Day. So even as we celebrate this terrific time, there are many fathers who aren’t here this morning. Maybe that’s what you have been thinking of as we celebrate Fathers Day today.
God designed us to live together in families. And sometimes things don’t work out well and we feel the loneliness. I got an email this week from a teenager in Los Angeles who writes, ‘Its a long road to travel, and traveling by yourself isn’t very helpful...if anything, its only discouraging. PLEASE!!! I need a good friend, one grounded in the faith. It's so hard to live this way.’ The truth is that many of us at every stage of life would like help with the loneliness. Either families haven’t worked out as we hoped or some problem came up and we are alone too much.
I used to write to people that were lonely that they should pray to make a friend. It seems so simple. Don’t be lonely, Make a friend. But people wrote back and said, there are no friends to make. So I wrote back a second time. Maybe these people are too mean to get a friend easily. And so I wrote back and said, You are obviously in worse shape than most people. I’m praying for a miracle for you. And they would write back again to report that no miracle happened. Now I'm getting frustrated because I'm trying to be a good pastor and people keep popping up to report that its not working.
And then I saw this Scripture that we read this morning. It is a picture of the future when we each get to meet God. And God says to some of us, come and enjoy a great life forever because you looked after my family. ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. (Matt 25:40)
I never noticed that verse before. God is so concerned about the prisoner, the sick, the stranger, the thirsty, the hungry, and the poor that God embraces them as family.
One way to cure loneliness is to start to give. I want to mention why this happens. Giving gets your attention off yourself. People, when its all about me, I feel worse. Devoting your life to caring for yourself first is a lonely way to live. You can’t have friends until you’re interested in someone else.
Giving brings new friendships. Someone in our church came to me several years ago and asked if there was someone in Cambodia where a gift of money would help. I knew of a young pastor living about 20 miles from Vietnam who I have great respect for. The gifts bring for me a new interest in his life and what he is doing. I don’t have to be reminded to think of him or pray for him. The gift focuses your attention away from yourself.
And when you start to give, you find others with similar concerns and that brings new friendships. When I first got interested in Cambodia, I suddenly found other people who were also interested and they wanted to talk to me. New friendships started and today I have friends in several other countries who are concerned about Cambodia. The giving started conversation and the conversations led to friendship.
We all need friends and family. Where we don’t have enough, you have to take some practical steps to change that. You can do that by giving. It puts you in touch with God’s family. Even more, it puts you in new relationship with God.
When we are refocused away from our needs and towards the needs of another, it opens our heart so that God can do a work. And those changes – that new touch by God is also something that makes us the kind of person that others want to be friends of. We all know people with great potential, smart people, or maybe good looking people, and then they open their mouth and everything that comes out is meanness and anxiety. You just get weary of listening. Maybe you have that problem. But when you give and God makes those heart adjustments, it can change your conversation so that other people will let you talk all day.
The offering will soon be received. You can start a change today. In addition to your regular offering, why not make an extra gift, and just mark on the envelope or credit card, Cambodia, or Iraq, or our special guests today, Ekklesia. If you do that with your address, we will let you know which United Methodist program receives the gift and how to stay in touch.
Let us each add to our circle of friends and family and experience that new heart touch from God through giving.
