God’s Desire to Combat our Loneliness

Isaiah 62:1-5; John 2: 1-11

A Sermon by Donald Mackenzie

January 11, 2004

University Congregational United Church of Christ

Seattle, Washington

“And your land shall be married.” Isaiah 62:4b

Back in the fall of 1965, I heard a song by Gordon Lightfoot that struck a chord with me. The song was “In the Early Mornin’ Rain.” It is a poem set to music and the poem describes the essential loneliness of every human being. The first verse of the song has these words: “In the early mornin’ rain/ with a dollar in my hand/ and an aching in my heart/ and my pockets full of sand/I’m a long way from home/ and I miss my loved ones so/ in the early mornin’ rain/ with no place to go.” We are alone. I mean we are alone until we discover that we are not alone. But the song named a loneliness that is and was real and is, in many ways, a starting place for everyone.

Psychologists know now that a major factor in the first months of a person’s life is the development of a trust, a trust that helps us to understand that relationships are possible. The word nurture is applied to this development. Without this experience, human beings who are merely fed and permitted a warm, dry place to sleep, the experience of many orphans, that trust is extremely difficult to acquire. So, to be sure, we come into this world by ourselves, but right away we can start to learn that other people can be trusted and, as a consequence relationships are possible. As we grow, we try to develop relationships that will reassure us that we won’t be lonely; relationships that are trustworthy and will supply a foundation to our sense of security in this world.

In the passage from Isaiah, we hear a continuing encouragement that the healing of all of the world’s wounds and all of our wounds is coming. This is salvation. We also hear an encouragement that even though it hasn’t happened yet, because God has promised it, it will happen. And then, a surprising image appears. The poem suggests that God and Israel will be married. The word “married” was a word which, at the time of the writing of this text, sometime after the Exile to Babylon in the 6^th century BCE, was meant to evoke the strongest sense of a relationship; commitments made, promises spoken and a bond put into place. Today, in the culture of this church, we would use other words and broaden the sense of marriage to include all relationships whether marriage, partnerships or single people in relationship to this community of faith. For indeed, we are a family of people with an agreement to seek healing for the world and for ourselves. For Isaiah, the importance of relationship in the experience of salvation, or healing cannot be overestimated.

The story of the wedding at Cana, in our gospel reading, takes all of this a step further by suggesting that human beings are meant to have strong relationships, relationships that are supported by community. This means that if we live in a committed relationship with another person, we still need the support of a community. This is why, at a wedding, we find the words, “God and these witnesses.” If we are single and relationships are friendships, they also need the support of a community.

There are many ways to understand the meaning of the story of Jesus, his mother and the disciples at this wedding where Jesus, by miracle, turns water into wine. The story suggests that even by this early moment in his ministry, Jesus is aware that his close spiritual connection to God has given him the unusual ability to heal physical illness and perform other miracles as well. So when Mary, his mother points out that there is a need for wine, we can suppose that between the lines, she knows that Jesus can provide the wine. But Jesus’ response to her indicates that he is not ready for all of this to be made known about him. Mary seems to understand this immediately when she simply responds by saying, “do whatever he tells you to do.” It’s an interesting development of their relationship for clearly it has moved well beyond mother, son. In other words, the source of Jesus’ original nurturing has given him the authority to make thoughtful decisions and, at the same time, given her the security to move toward a new sort of relationship with her son. Mary appears in the story as a figure who knows what the story is trying to convey—that human beings are meant to have strong relationships, marriages, partnerships, friendships and that each of those must find support in the larger community.

Much of literature and film deals with the pervasive theme of loneliness. Concerning the need to move from loneliness to community, I remember in the early 1970’s when public television ran a series called “An American Family.” It chronicled the life of a family named Loud in Santa Barbara, California. Later, Henry Nouwen, the Catholic theologian, said, “Here we have seven lonely people trying desperately to love each other and not succeeding.” More recently, in a film called the Station Master, we find a wonderful and moving story about three lonely people who, almost without trying, succeed in forming a loving friendship. The film takes place in a rural part of central New Jersey where a dwarf inherits a railroad station from a dear friend who dies. He takes up residence in the station and meets a man who has a portable food cart where he sells hot dogs and other foods. At first their friendship is difficult. The dwarf is not used to being able to trust anyone but the friend who died. The food seller seems to have absolute good will for everyone and wants friendship. They are both lonely. Then, a woman, recently divorced and lonely enters the picture and their relationship develops. In some strange and surprising ways, they overcome their loneliness and find happiness.

Loneliness is a part of the image of the dragon that Flannery O’Connor uses to illustrate the difficulties that we have in life. We all pass by this dragon and some us are able better than others of us to overcome our loneliness and find a community and within it relationships that are satisfying in the face of a lonely world.

As we prayerfully try to discern God’s purposes for us, it seems clear from both scripture and tradition that God does not intend for us to be lonely. And so, in our ministry, an honoring of the preciousness of our relationships, alongside working for opportunities for others to do the same, would seem to be very high on the list of our priorities. If we consider the great moral issues facing us today—racism and classism, economic injustice, violence, environment destruction, I would argue that each of these conditions is rooted in a disregard, a dishonoring of the relationships that support us.

Surely each one of us has had this feeling of loneliness. The crying out for connection that we do through music, poetry, art, tears and laughter, is evidence of our deep desire to form relationships that help us to feel safe, that nurture us and that give us hope that the future will be good. “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land shall be married.” (Isaiah 62:4) Thanks be to God. Amen.