The Journey

One day you finally knew what you had to do

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” (Mark 1:35-37)

This is an excerpt from the Gospel story appointed for tomorrow.  In this story, Jesus and the disciples had come to stay in Simon’s house.  Simon’s mother-in-law was sick, and Jesus healed her. Word must have spread, because by sundown, “the whole city was gathered at the door.” Jesus healed many of them, and everyone surely expected more of the same in the morning.

But “in the morning while it was still dark,” while everyone else was sleeping, Jesus slipped away. When the disciples woke, they couldn’t believe it.  So many suffering people in need of healing, such important work to be done, where could he have gone? And when Simon finally found Jesus, he was far from the needy crowd. Of all things, he was alone in a deserted place, in silent prayer.

Jesus was always doing this, getting away from the crowd. At times, of course, “he had compassion on the crowd,” because they were hungry or because they were “like sheep without a shepherd.” But here, suffering people were at his door, and he just left them, apparently because he had an appointment he knew he needed to keep. Jesus needed to be alone; he had to return to his own soul, to God. He needed to go home.

But how could he bear to tiptoe around people who were in pain, just so that he could be alone? Was he being selfish? My guess is that those questions needled Jesus, while he stepped around the suffering people at his door – a pleading, accusing, and judging crowd in his mind.

Mary Oliver expressed it well in one of her best-known poems, “The Journey”. (Be sure to listen to David Whyte reading and commenting on “The Journey” in this link).

Jesus surely knew the agony and the necessity of the journey. He had compassion on the crowd, and he did what he could to be a healing presence in their midst. But he also knew he had to leave them. And in doing so, as difficult as that must have been for him, Jesus showed a way to the deeper healing and wholeness that every one of us so desperately needs, whether we are physically sick or perfectly healthy.

The irony is that our Source of healing and wholeness is always with us – as Martin Laird puts it, “God does not know how to be absent from you.”  But the problem is that the crowd is always with us, too.

Not just at our door but in our pockets, from our cell phones the voices clamor all the time – “Heal us!” “Pay attention to us!” “Help us!” “Join our cause and get angry with us!” “If you’re not with us, you’re against us!”

The editor of the Christian Century magazine said that his life started coming apart years ago when he began using his cell phone as his alarm clock. For many, the whole world is waiting every morning, right by our bed, to wake us up. In no time, we’re down the rabbit hole.

Even if you don’t use a cell phone much, there’s the crowd in our minds. The understandable catastrophizing about a world in crisis and politics in shambles, fear and anxiety about friendships or family relationships, self-doubts and brutal self-criticism, worries about our children, our marriages, our finances. The crowd in our minds is harder than ever to get away from.

During the pandemic, The Wall Street Journal published a story on the healing effect of reading books in times of stress and anxiety – reading is a wonderful way to leave the crowd of stressful thoughts and anxieties, to enter another world for a while, calming our anxious minds.  Apparently reading became more popular during the pandemic, but more and more people are reporting that they’re having trouble sticking with a book for long. The crowd seems to catch up with us quickly. 

So, The Wall Street Journal made a couple of suggestions, the first of which was, learn to meditate.

I know.  The Wall Street Journal.  Meditate.  Wall Street coming around to ancient spiritual practice. And this is the ministry of meditation, a way of returning to our soul, opening to the Divine Indwelling, to our true life.

And the second suggestion by The Wall Street Journal?  Give your cell phone to a friend, and make them promise that they won’t give in to your pleading to give it back, until a very long time has passed! We’re carrying the crowd with us everywhere we go.

Before I retired from full-time parish ministry, I was called to be rector of a very large Episcopal church that had been in a state of turmoil. Issues about the church and human sexuality had caused people to leave and others to cut their pledge.

And before my first day in the office, the vestry and search committee decided it would be good for me to introduce myself to the congregation on a weeknight.  Just put a microphone on, they said, and introduce yourself, maybe answer a few questions.

As you can imagine, the place was packed – hundreds of curious and apprehensive parishioners.  I told my story, introduced my family, and spoke about how happy I was to be with them. And after fielding a few questions from a very full church, I asked the ushers to distribute blank index cards and pens to everyone. Then, I asked them to :

Imagine God comes to you and offers to answer one question.  Any question you like, ask God, and God promises that he’ll answer it.  What is the most important thing you want to ask God?  Don’t put your name on that index card, just write the one question you would ask, if you knew God would answer you.

Well, you could have heard a pin drop. This was not your usual, cerebral, Anglican way of musing about theological things. I’m sure some started worrying they had the wrong rector.

But it didn’t take long before people began earnestly scribbling on their cards. After a while, I asked the ushers if they would please pick up the cards and bring them to me. And I said to the congregation, “I look forward to reading these. I am not pretending that I can answer these questions, but my hope is that our life together will be centered on these things that matter most to you.

And interestingly, when I read through the questions later that week, I noticed that not a single person wrote that they wanted to ask God a question about any of the controversies that were causing people to leave the church or to cancel their pledges. Not a single question about human sexuality, for example. Instead, they asked questions like these:

“Is my daughter with you in heaven?”

“Will I get to see my mother again?”

“My marriage is in trouble. We’ve tried everything. I’m scared. Would you please help me?”

“I’ve done some terrible things. I’m so ashamed. Will you really forgive me?”

The season of Lent begins on February 14. Lent is that time when many adopt a disciple of leaving the crowd to come home to our soul where the Divine patiently waits for us – to heal us and to bless us, so that we can return to the crowd as healing and blessing presences ourselves.  No wonder Jesus was always getting away from the crowd – it was because he had compassion for them and knew that this was the only way to give them what they needed.

As for my parishioners’ questions, I never attempted even provisional answers, but as I sat with the impassioned scribblings on those index cards, I began to imagine what they would hear if they could get away from the crowd. I imagined, in the words of Mary Oliver, “a new voice, which they would slowly begin to recognize as their own,” a voice at once human and divine, a voice of healing and blessing that they could bring with them “deeper and deeper into the world” to heal and bless others.

“Is my daughter with you in heaven?” 

       Yes

“Will I get to see my mother again?”

       Yes

“My marriage is in trouble. We’ve tried everything. I’m scared. Would you please help me?” 

       Yes, I am with you

"I’ve done some terrible things. I’m so ashamed. Will you really forgive me?" 

       Oh, child, I forgave you long ago. I don’t even know what “terrible things” you’re talking about.