It helps to have connections. Everybody knows it’s true. It’s not what you know, the cynic says, but WHO you know that makes a difference. Unfortunately in some regards that’s true. In this competitive world where it is so difficult to land a job, it does pay to know somebody who can help you on your way. Oh, your mother’s friend is president of a company? Good for you. Being connected may not help you actually land the job, but at least you are more likely to be considered if you know the person in charge. And that is important. You can see how difficult this might make things for people who are not connected who do not know people in strategic places. Nevertheless, there is no use fighting it. That’s the way things are. It pays to be connected.
About thirty years ago there was a wonderful book which was later turned into a powerful motion picture titled Schindler’s List. You may be interested in how that book was first published. A shopkeeper named Leopold Page was a survivor of the Holocaust. He survived through the efforts of one man, Oskar Schindler, a Roman Catholic, who saved not only his life but the lives of 900 of his fellow Jews. Page was determined to find a writer who would be interested in telling the story of Oskar Schindler.
One day a novelist, Thomas Keneally, came into Page’s shop to buy a briefcase, and Page told him his story. Keneally was intrigued and agreed to commit Schindler’s story to print. What resulted was a moving story of a man who helped hundreds of Jews escape certain death at the hands of the Nazis. The book was dedicated to Oskar Schindler and to Page’s “zeal and persistence” in getting Schindler’s story told.
But that’s not the end of the story. Page, the zealous and persistent shopkeeper had some friends who had some friends . . . and somehow he was able to get his book to the attention of a director named Steven Spielberg. You’ve probably heard that name before. Spielberg was fresh from making the blockbuster film, Jurassic Park.
“Stop playing around with dinosaurs,” Page told Spielberg when they first met. “I promise you, you’ll get an Oscar for [telling] Oskar’s story.” And he did. Spielberg turned Schindler’s List into a major motion picture. The book‑‑and the movie, which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture more than fulfilled Page’s lifelong dream. “I did not know how I would do this,” Page had said, “but I promised Oskar Schindler I would make him a household name.” And he did. Leopold “Paul” Page was number 173, by the way, on Oskar Schindler’s list. He was 173 of the 900 who were spared death at the hand of the Nazis thanks to Oskar. (1)
Leopold Page was a shopkeeper, not a writer. But his commitment to his friend led him to connect with people who could bring his dream to reality. It’s important in life to have connections. If you don’t HAVE connections, then it’s important to MAKE connections. Don’t fight it. Make prudent use of this adage it’s not what you know but who you know. And so today I want to ask you this important question, how connected are you?
Of course, when I ask the question about being connected, the younger members of our congregation probably think in terms of social media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. This is a brave new world, and being connected has taken on a whole new meaning.
One woman said their new high-speed computer was in the shop for repair. Her son was forced to work on their older model with an obsolete black-and-white printer.
“Mom,” he complained to her one day, “this is like we’re living back in the twentieth century.”
For some of us that is a reality check BACK in the twentieth century. This IS the twenty-first century I may need to remind some of us.
A group of young children were sitting in a circle with their teacher. She was going around asking each of them questions.
“Davy, what noise does a cow make?”
He said, “It goes moo.”
“Alice, what noise does a cat make?”
“It goes meow,” she answered.
“Jamie, what sound does a lamb make?”
“It goes baaa,” he said.
“Jennifer, what sound does a mouse make?”
Without hesitation she answered, “It goes click!”
Well, a computer mouse does go click. The question, “Are you connected?” means different things to different people. However, there is a danger associated with electronic connectedness. Despite all the hype about being connected through the Internet, a number of studies suggest that this technology is actually disconnecting many of us from those around us.
A study of the Stanford Institute found that: 13 percent of regular net users that is, those who are on the web five hours or more a week reported spending less time with family and friends; 8 percent said they were now attending fewer social events; and 26 percent said they talked less to friends and family by telephone. That’s disturbing. (2) Being connected to family and friends is what gives life meaning.
As another prominent researcher noted recently, many people have a swarm of friends on Facebook. But “friending” is not the same as “befriending” being a friend. Instead of creating a global village, the Internet has distracted and distanced us from each other. One impact is that lonely people have no one to turn to in hard times. (3)
Of course, not all or even most of our personal isolation can be blamed on the Internet. The average American today already has only a third as many friends as 25 years ago, and one-fourth have no close confidants at all, according to recent research. We are becoming a disconnected society.
This is troubling because staying connected is important to our health and general well-being. That is what medical studies are showing us. One study compared 12,000 Japanese men living in Japan with Japanese men who had moved to Hawaii or California. The researchers looked at smoking, diet, exercise, cholesterol levels, and social support (the maintenance of family and community ties). The group with the lowest social support (the California group) had a threefold to fivefold increase in heart disease. The researchers concluded that social networks and close family ties help protect against disease and premature death. (4) Stay connected to other people, the research shows, and you will be healthier.
But the effects of social isolation are not just medical. A British study suggests that social isolation is in part responsible for the fact that suicides among those under the age of 35 have risen at such a dramatic rate. In studying the lives of 148 young people who died of either suicide or natural causes, the researcher found that those who killed themselves were more likely to be living alone, single, unemployed and with few friends. In other words, they were socially isolated, disconnected. (5)
In his book, Real Age, Michael Roizen calculates how different factors affect one’s life expectancy. For socialization he cites three factors: 1) being married, 2) seeing at least six friends at least monthly, and 3) participating in social groups. The “real age” for a 55-year-old man who meets all three criteria married, has at least 6 friends, and goes to church is 46 in terms of life expectancy. And you thought being married made you older. Not so, in terms of life expectancy, it makes you younger. If the 55-year-old man meets at least two of these criteria, his real age is 49. If he meets one criterion, his real age is 53. The real age of a 55-year-old man who meets none of these criteria is 63 eight years older than his chronological age. For a 55 year old woman the real ages are 49, 53, 59, and 61. Presumably, says researchers, the effect is a little stronger for men because women in our culture are better at social networking. (6)
Need more evidence? When a partner’s spouse dies, his or her risk of illness or death skyrockets for the first year. Retirement also changes social networks and can be very stressful. The point is that it’s very important at any age in life to stay connected.
Of course our most important connection is to Christ. In our lesson for the day from the Gospel, Christ says to us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
“I am the vine; you are the branches . . .” Here is where staying connected is most vital. Christianity has two central foci staying connected to our neighbor and staying connected to God and without either of these, we are not whole people.
In his book, A Blue Fire, psychologist James Hillman describes a condition among “primitive” people which anthropologists call “loss of soul.” In this condition a person is unable to make an outer connection to other humans or an inner connection to himself. He is unable to take part in society, its rituals, its traditions. They are dead to him, he to them. “Until he regains his soul he is not a true human.”
Hillman tells about an experience he had one day in Burgholzli, the famous institute in Zurich where the words “schizophrenia” and “complex” were born. Hillman watched a woman being interviewed. She sat in a wheelchair because she was elderly and feeble. She said that she was dead for she had lost her heart. The psychiatrist asked her to place her hand over her breast to feel her heart beating: it must still be there if she could feel its beat.
“That,” she said, “is not my real heart.” She and the psychiatrist looked at each other.
“There was nothing more to say,” writes Hillman. “Like the primitive who has lost his soul, she had lost the loving courageous connection to life . . .” (7)
We lose our heart, we lose our soul, when we lose our connection to God. “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world,” said Jesus on one occasion, “yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36) We know the answer to that. Lose your connection to God, and nothing else you accomplish will have any real meaning. Lose your connection to God, and you lose the meaning to life.
Back during the days of the Cold War a woman named Svetlana Stalin, daughter of the cruel former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin shocked the world by immigrating to the United States seeking a new life. She explained her change of allegiance this way, “I found it was impossible to exist without God in one’s heart.”
Ms. Stalin was right. It is impossible to exist as a full human being without God in one’s heart. How connected are you to Christ?
It’s important to note that, if we lose our connection to God, it won’t be God’s doing. God’s love for us is everlasting and unconditional.
The popular radio Bible teacher J. Vernon McGee once told about a little piece of wood that he kept on his desk. He explained that he took this small piece of wood from a vineyard in the San Joaquin Valley. The small piece of wood consisted of a section of a grapevine out of which grew a branch. The owner of the vineyard told McGee that if two people were to have a tug of war with this section of vine, it would break. However, it would never break where the vine and branch are joined together. The place on a grapevine where the vine and the branch are joined together is the vine’s strongest point.
“Now if you pull on a branch that goes into a tree,” the owner explained, “it will always break at the trunk of the tree in a tree that is the weakest place. But in a grapevine that is the strongest point.” (8)
No wonder Christ used the analogy of the vine and its branches to explain his relationship with us, his followers. The strongest place on a grapevine is where the branches are attached to the vine. In other words, we don’t need to worry that our connection to Christ will be broken at least not from Christ’s side. That connection is a powerful one. Do you know anyone who needs to be connected to Christ and needs to be connected to others? I’ll bet you do. They are all around us.
Author Max Lucado tells about a friend of his named Steve who worked at a pharmacy while attending college. Steve’s primary job was to deliver supplies. One of his customers was an older woman, perhaps in her seventies, who lived alone in a small apartment in a building about fifty feet behind the pharmacy. Steve would deliver a jug of water to this woman twice a week, receive the payment, thank the woman, and leave.
Over the weeks Steve grew puzzled. He learned that the woman had no other source of water. She relied on his delivery for all of her washing, bathing, and drinking needs. However, she could have had municipal water. In fact, it would have been significantly cheaper. Why didn’t she choose the less expensive source?
You have probably guessed the answer. The city sent only the water; they didn’t send a person. His visits were the reason she was willing to pay more for her water. (9)
Are there people in our community who are that lonely? Of course there are. There are children, there are teenagers, there are adults and there are seniors who have somehow become disconnected. Isn’t it interesting that when God wanted to save the world, God sent a person, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s own Son. Christ says to us, “If you want to find life, be connected to me. I will never leave you or forsake you. Where you and I are connected is the strongest place on the vine.”
And so I ask you one last time: how connected are you?
1. Randy Cassingham, www.thisistrue.com.
2. Donald M. Tuttle, http://www.first‑christian‑cc.org/images/sermons/Oct%201,%202000.htm.
3. Michael Bugeja, Interpersonal Divide (Oxford University Press, 2005).
4. American Journal of Epidemiology (1975): 102(6): 514‑25. Cited by Walter L. Larimore M.D., 10 Essentials of Highly Healthy People (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), p. 140.
5. Donald M. Tuttle, http://www.first‑christian‑cc.org/images/sermons/Oct%201,%202000.htm.
6. Michael Brickey, Ph.D., Defy Aging (Columbus, OH: New Resources Press, 2000), p. 18.
7. James Hillman, A Blue Fire (New York: HarperPerennial, 1989), pp. 17-18.
8. The Best of J. Vernon Mcgee (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1988).
9. Traveling Light (Nashville: W Publishing Group 2001), pg. 105.