Pentecost 9 Year B
Sunday, 21 July 2024
Esther Elliott. Lay Reader
Church, at it’s best, is a place where people find rest, true proper rest.
Well this morning we have a really interesting choice of a reading from the Gospel of Mark. The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that we have two chunks of verses with a great big bit missing in the middle. We have been given the bookends as it were, to two fascinating stories; the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water.
As an introvert, I love these bookends. They play into all my preconceptions about how exhausting crowds are. I love the idea that Jesus the Saviour of the world, also got worn out from people and just needed to take Himself off to somewhere quiet. And, just on the cusp of festival season in this wonderful city with the influx of tourists that brings, I feel seen, heard and validated. There is however, a world of difference between going somewhere quiet, away from people and going to a wilderness. Jesus could have suggested that He and His disciples went to a friends house, locked the gates to keep the crowds at bay, slept on some comfy beds and ate lots of nice food. That would have been relaxing and restorative. But He didn’t. Jesus wanted to take Himself and His disciples off into “a deserted place”, it’s the same word as the word for wilderness. It’s the same place that He faced down His demons in a series of temptations. It’s the same place His friend John the Baptist lived, eking out an existence eating locusts and wild honey. It’s the same place many of His, and our ancestors, Moses, Hagar and Elijah for example had profound experiences of God. What was it that Jesus longed for, that He felt would bring rest, that only the fierce environment of the wilderness could provide?
There are some characteristics of wilderness places that I want to explore this morning that may just start answering that question. First of all deserted places are dangerous. They are wild, and fierce and barren places where nature has taken over and is indifferent to the usual concerns of daily life. You have to take your own mortality very seriously in the wilderness. You have to go into the wilderness, the deserted and abandoned places with well chosen kit and lots of wisdom if you are going to sustain yourselves. Having an inner sense of what is absolutely essential, what’s indispensable in a situation and knowing your own limits is a good place to start leading a peaceable and restful life psychologically. Perhaps the disciples had lost sight a wee bit of their values, of why they were doing what they were doing, why they had followed Jesus in the first place. Perhaps they needed to remind themselves of what they were not able to do, as much as to think about what they had been able to accomplish.
Secondly, deserted places are always on the edges of society. Sometimes there is a considerable distance between them, but there is always a connection. Wild places need cultivated, domesticated places by definition. The deserted place Jesus chose was close enough to society that as soon as people worked out where the disciples were headed, they all flocked there. Wild, edgy places offer an opportunity to stand back, look around and understand what is going on in the world around. People climb mountains, stand on the seashore looking across the ocean to gain a sense of perspective. I read somewhere that most monastery sites in the Judean desert are located in cliff areas or at the top of high hills. Wilderness places offer the opportunity to gain a broader perspective, to lift our eyes to the stars, now not hidden by light pollution, rather than having them fixed on concrete or screens.
Thirdly, deserted places are also places where imagination is essential. It’s part of that wisdom that is needed for survival that I spoke about earlier. To imagine how to live, how people perhaps once lived and how to find life and joy in a wilderness place takes creativity and resourcefulness. Our missing bit between the bookends of todays readings includes the disciples saying to Jesus “this is a deserted place, and the hour is very late, send the crowds away to buy something to eat for themselves”. And Jesus replies “you give them something to eat” Now there’s a challenge to use your imagination and come up with something new! And of course, Jesus does and feeds five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Thinking in new ways, finding creative solutions to problems, these are things that give us a sense of ease, contentment perhaps even security.
Fourthly and my final characteristic of the wilderness, although I’m sure there are many more we could think of together, is that deserted places are actually places of company. Jesus, on the occasion in this story, didn’t want to go into the deserted place by Himself, He wanted to take the disciples, as a group. They are places where people have been and then left, abandoned, deserted. They are places where we see these shadows of the people that have gone before in what they have built and what they have used. And, we see their reasons and motivations for leaving and their exit paths. However much of an introvert and independent spirit you are, knowing that you are surrounded by others, past, present and future who have their own wisdom to offer is a huge comfort, it can bring confidence and peace of mind.
Now, where does this leave us as people gathered together as church? Well, sometimes, we are in wilderness places in our own lives through no choice of our own. I think, for example, of some of the people I know of through some work in combatting human trafficking, they arrive in Edinburgh with nothing, sometimes not even knowing where they are, the complete opposite of those crowds of tourists coming for the festivals. They are absolutely in danger and fearful for their lives. Compassion, born in us as followers of the Christ who knew no end to compassion, surely has us longing and praying for those of us in these sorts of situations that they might find a sense of comfort, peace, security, and freedom to live to their own values and sense of purpose with creativity. In other words that they might find rest.
Perhaps it leaves us with the encouragement to take ourselves off to a wilderness place to check in with our values, to step back and try to understand the world around, to use our imaginations and to reconnect with the saints down the ages and learn from their wisdom. That’s a good spiritual practice.
I would like to suggest as well, that there is something in these characteristics of wilderness, deserted places, that we could use to help us work out what church is and what it could be, at it’s best. And, what a brilliant day to celebrate church at its best, when we are welcoming Gillian into it!
Church, at it’s best knows how to take danger seriously. It’s somewhere to find the kit, the equipment and the wisdom to live within the sheer dangerousness of what it is to be alive. We have role models and the insights of those who have gone before. We also have bits of kit that sustains us emotionally and psychologically, forgiveness, hope, resurrection, the belief that God is all in all and will more than suffice. Most of all, we have Christ whose act of solidarity with those caused the most pain by society resulted in His crucifixion.
Church, at it’s best is a place of broad perspectives, of spaciousness and generosity and welcoming of people and ideas. It’s a place which uses the sheer width, breath, length and depth of the love of God to frame the events of human lives and the life of the world.
Church, at it’s best is a place where imagination is valued and cherished. Not imagination in the sense of making things up, but in the sense that possibilities and potential are discovered and uncovered. It’s a place where a new or different way of doing something, or of being, or of living life, a new way of feeling or emotionally responding is always on the cards.
Church, at it’s best is finally a place where we are together building up a good place to live in, showing each other what to leave behind and the paths to safety.
And all of this adds up to church, at it’s best, being a place where people find rest, true proper rest. The sort of rest Jesus was looking for in the wilderness places where He knew God had a habit of showing Gods-self to whoever was there. The sort of rest Augustine wrote about when he said: “Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee: For thou hast formed us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”
Amen