◧ Last Tuesday, the sun was out, and the weather was so nice and relatively warm… and I thought that I would ride my bike to church, as I often do when the weather is nice…except that when I woke up, I felt tired.
I had slept well during the night. But still: I was tired!
The truth is, I’ve been tired for a while now. Tired in a way that I can’t tell if the exhaustion is physical, or mental. (Anyone else feeling extra tired lately? Just worn down?)
Lots of people in our community have been fighting colds, flu, COVID… so there are viruses going around, which means our bodies are working extra hard to stay healthy. Making sure your body gets the sleep it needs helps you maintain the energy needed to stay healthy.
Then there’s the exhaustion that comes from keeping up with each day’s bombardment of news. The attacks on so many people’s rights, and the sheer lack of compassion and mercy and care being shown to people by those in positions of power…
…knowing that I as pastor and we as a church need to “up our game” when it comes to caring for those who are most vulnerable to these ongoing attacks…
That’s exhausting, too.
On Tuesday, the problem for me was that I couldn’t tell if what I was feeling was mainly the physical exhaustion or the mental exhaustion. If it was mental exhaustion, then a bike ride to church would be just what I needed. But if it was physical exhaustion, then a bike ride to church would be just what I did not need.
Sometimes, it’s hard to know just how to best take good care of oneself.
And yet, it’s more important now, than ever, to take good care of ourselves, to be gentle with ourselves. And it’s more important than ever to also take good care of each other, and to be gentle with one another. Everyone is going through these tough times together.
I ended up not riding my bike to church last Tuesday; but I did take a break and go for a midday walk, to get some sunshine. And on that walk I thought about my sermon from last week, in which I talked about prayer, and about how Jesus often went off by himself to pray, to the wilderness, to the mountain, to spend time alone with God.
That was an act of self-care. Jesus needed those times of prayer, to care for his own physical and mental health, his own spiritual and emotional health. He knew he needed those times of solitude with God, to draw upon God’s strength, so that he could do the task and fulfill the mission that God had set before him.
In today’s scripture, Jesus once again goes off to pray. Like he did on at least one previous occasion, he goes up a mountain to pray.
◧ But this time, he doesn’t go alone.
This time, Jesus takes with him Peter, James, and John. This time, he needs others with him, to be with him, to pray with him, to help him access the strength he needs…
And he does this again, later, in the Garden of Gethsemane… he goes out to pray, and he brings along Peter, James, and John…
They weren’t always the best companions. In Gethsemane, they kept falling asleep. And here, on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured, they were confused and terrified.
Jesus got frustrated with them, and may have even wondered if it was worth it, to keep these disciples around, to keep them close, and involved in everything. Getting them involved in the task of ministry, helping him carry out his mission—sometimes it just seemed like it would be easier if he did it all himself.
We’ve all felt that way, right? Sometimes, it takes more effort to organize and equip those who are willing to help you. Sometimes, it really seems that it would be easier to do it all by yourself.
Yet, Jesus knew that he couldn’t do it all by himself. He needed his disciples. He needed his companions.
I’m reminded of one of our scriptures that we read last summer at Camp Walter Scott: the story of Jethro and Moses.
Moses was doing everything by himself. (Do you remember that?) It just seemed easier to him, even though it was wearing him out. But then Moses’s father-in-law Jethro came and saw what Moses was doing, and Jethro said to Moses: “What you are doing is not good.”
And Jethro convinced Moses to allow others to help him and work with him; to help carry the load.
We can’t do it alone. We may think we can, but we can’t. And we need more Jethros in the world, telling us that going it alone, trying to do everything by ourselves, is not good. We need others to help us, to walk with us, to pray with us, to lead with us, to help carry our burdens… to just be present, to be our companions, our friends, to ease the emotional burden of just being human on this planet.
The problem for many is that, in our society, it’s hard to find good companions and friends. Ours is the most individualistic society in the history of the world. And, even worse, it’s hard to recognize our need for companionship and friendship. It’s hard to recognize the isolation we experience, or admit the loneliness we feel.
And for many people today, the exhaustion they feel is actually a symptom of loneliness.
◧ Last week I read a book by Brene Brown called Dare to Lead. In one section of that book, she talks about Air Force Colonel DeDe Halfhill. I want to share part of that story with you…
One day, Colonel Halfhill was talking to a group of airmen, and she saw how tired they were. She asked them, “How many of you are tired?” The whole group raised their hands.
Thinking quickly, Colonel Halfhill remembered something she had recently read, about how sometimes, exhaustion is a symptom of loneliness.
So she asked her group a second question: “How many of you are lonely?” Nearly half the group raised their hands, which surprised her.
Loneliness is quite a raw emotion, and she wasn’t expecting so many to admit to experiencing it. She wasn’t quite sure what to do or say. She wasn’t a therapist, equipped to deal with such raw emotion.
Colonel Halfhill thought about the high rates of suicide in the military, and realized that high suicide rates are probably related to the high level of loneliness. And Colonel Halfhill realized that she and other leaders in the military weren’t helping.
Colonel Halfhill said: “If I ask you if you’re tired and you say yes, I'm probably going to tell you to go get some rest. But if the real problem is that you’re lonely, I’m sending you away from what you need, off by yourself, which exacerbates the problem…Sometimes [people] just want to know that one person cares… We as leaders need to know how to do that…”
It took courage for Colonel Halfhill to ask the question, and it took courage for the people to raise their hands. Because we aren’t comfortable talking about loneliness. We’re more comfortable talking about “tired.”
Yet, in the military, loneliness is real, and more people in the military die from suicide than die in combat. (I know this personally: I once had to do a funeral for a friend who died by suicide while in the military.)
Colonel Halfhill decided to do some research. She found a copy of the very first Air Force manual on leadership from 1948. That manual said things like: “You have to understand how your men will feel.” The manual emphasized feelings over 100 times. It also talked about confidence, fear, belonging, kindness, mercy, friendliness, compassion, and even love—”what it means as a leader to love your men.”
By contrast, the most recent Air Force manual on leadership, written in 2011, doesn’t talk about feelings, or love, or anything like that. It's all about “tactical, operational, and strategic leadership,” but it doesn’t talk about feelings or emotions.
And let me tell you, this is NOT the time to NOT be talking about such things, given how lonely so many people feel.
◧ Two years ago, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy began sounding the alarm on loneliness. Half of all adults, and 81% of young adults, say they feel lonely. Loneliness increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death.
Many people try to numb their loneliness through addictions to alcohol, drugs, porn, pleasure, perfectionism, work, social media scrolling, food, money, gambling, or shopping.
Murthy wrote that “Given the profound consequences of loneliness and isolation, we have an opportunity, and an obligation, to make the same investments in addressing social connection that we have made in addressing tobacco use, obesity, and the addiction crisis.”
To decrease loneliness, Murthy said, we need to focus on ◧ relationships, service, and community.
Relationships, service, and community.
These three things—relationships, service, and community—help us make connections that will decrease loneliness and increase our sense of wholeness.
As it turns out, these three things—relationships, service, and community—are three things that churches like ours are well-equipped for.
If you are involved in a church—and especially if you are involved in a ministry team or small group—you are in a much better position to deal with and decrease the level of loneliness in your life.
I’ve been saying since the start of this year that a church like ours is exactly what the world needs right now, and exactly what we need… and this is just one more reason why.
Like us, Jesus–being human–needed companionship. He needed friendships. He needed relationships. He needed an antidote to the loneliness that creeps in when one tries to go it alone.
And that, I think, is one reason why he brought Peter, James, and John with him up the mountain that day.
We all need each other. Christians have always met together to worship, to break bread, to pray for one another and for the world, and to hear the gospel.
We gather together, because we need each other. We need the opportunity to develop true, authentic relationships with one another, and with God.
Some of you have heard me talk about the word religion… Some people don’t like that word. They say they are “spiritual, but not religious.” And I get what they are trying to say.
◧ But the word religion comes from the prefix ‘re’ and the word ‘ligio.’ The word ‘ligio,’ like the word ‘ligament,’ refers to that which connects, that which holds things together. So ‘re-ligio’ means to re-connect, to put back together.
True religion, then, is that which reconnects us to God and to one another. True religion is a rebuilding of relationships, and a tearing down of the walls that divide. True religion helps us overcome our isolation and loneliness.
◧ And worship—well, what we do in worship is called “liturgy.” And liturgy is a word that literally means “the work of the people.” Because to worship, you need a community. You need people.
Our worship is given shape and form by the liturgy. In some churches, like the Roman Catholic church or the Episcopal church, the liturgy is very rigid and formal. In our congregation, the liturgy is a little more relaxed and informal.
Liturgy includes all that we do in worship. It refers to the shape of the worship itself. The prayers, the readings, the hymns, and the words spoken at the table… they’re all part of the liturgy.
And since "liturgy" means "the work of the people,” the people are required to work. Worship is participatory. We’re all singing together, we’re all praying together, we’re all participating in the Lord’s Supper together.
Psalm 133 says: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” At least eight other times in the book of psalms, it talks about praising God in the midst of the great congregation.
We need each other. We can’t do any of this alone.
As I always say: your presence here is a blessing, to me, and to those around you. And I know that you will be blessed, as well, by being a part of the great congregation.
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