I visited an older member of one of the parishes recently. Widowed for many years she sat there with her TV times nearby. We had a good chat, remembering family, church, the changes in the town. We laughed and prayed. She said she would love to come back to Church, and she so appreciated people kindly keeping in touch.
She was very very lonely.
Loneliness is the theme of an article by George Monbiot. He talks about the age we now live in - the Digital Age - and says it says plenty about our artefacts but little about society. We are social creatures and we need each other. Mammals are shaped by contact with others and we need each other, we are inter-dependent. This we have been reminded off wonderfully in our harvest festivals when we looked at a piece of fruit and thought about the dozens of people that had been involved in growing, picking, transporting, and selling it to us. And all the bugs and bees and sun and rain that helped it grow. We depend on so much, from God and from each other.
So when we are cut off in front of our TV's we are going against the wonderful way God made us. We are a human family. Wealth and work have given us the excuse to separate ourselves.
Open the Gospels and you soon read one of many stories about Jesus getting into trouble for healing someone on a Sunday (the wrong day) or being with the a foreigner or a sinner (the wrong person). When he says to the scribes and the pharisees we are connected to one another - we are part of God's society if you like - they get angry.
That was not the digital age, but like our age barriers of the mind were constructed to separate one from an other. Our God breaks down barriers and brings us back into family.
Those brave people who volunteer to help those with Ebola go with the belief that that life is valuable, that however "unclean" the patient is and whatver the risk we are all worthy of care and dignity. We are part of a human family. We should not have to die a lonely death.
More about TVs. 2/5 of older people report that the one-eyed God is their principal company. Researchers have found that those who watch TV a lot gain less satisfaction from a given level of income than than those who only watch a little. For all ages TV drives what Monbiot calls a "hedonic treadmill" - it makes us seek after more pleasure. It adds to our discontent. We are restless.
Mrs Thatcher is reputed to have said that there is no such thing as society. When we gather in our Churches, small though we may be, we make a bold statement. We say that loneliness is a sin and we should not cut ourselves off. We create a new family, founded on love.
Please consider how much loneliness there is in our parish. In Lower Falinge flats, in College Bank Flats. Oh that "all those lonely people" could be here for coffee, or we could be with them, chatting and laughing. With the TV turned off. The one eyed God silenced. And the God of Life active in our conversation and friendship.