Today’s readings have quite a bit to say about how God chooses to be with us and how, in discerning what the Spirit of God is saying to us, we don’t always get it right. In 2 Samuel for example, David believes  that he is to build a permanent house for God,  but God tells Nathan that he is to inform David that this is not God’s plan. God has been leading the people and has been with them as they travelled. The people of God are a people on the move, a people on a journey, and God travels with them, speaking to Moses through the Ark of the Covenant. God is not asking for a permanent dwelling place, at least not at that time but chooses to be with the people as they journey. The letter to the Ephesians describes how Jesus brings about unity around diversity in the early church, known at that time as “The Way”. This emergent movement takes the form of small groups of people for whom all prior distinctions of race, gender, religion, and social status are done away with. This relatively small group of Jesus’ disciples have no church, no fixed abode if you will, nowhere to gather. The idea and need for church buildings came later.

Finally we come to today’s Gospel and again there is a lot of movement. Jesus has been busy preaching and healing, and he calls his disciples together and tells them to get into the boat and they will go across the lake to a quiet place where they can be apart for a while and find some rest. But the crowds hurry round to the other side of the lake on foot and are waiting for them when they arrive. So much for some rest and quiet time! It doesn’t quite work as Jesus planned because as the story tells us, he had compassion for the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them, and the people began to bring their sick to him for healing.

The story tells us that “many were coming and going, and the disciples had no leisure even to eat”. This is in many ways an accurate description of life in our society today: people are busy with many things, besieged by activities and responsibilities; it can be difficult for families and individuals to stop and eat a proper meal, or to get together with family or friends to share a meal.  

But what happens if Christians become too busy to come away and break bread together? This text suggests that gathering as a faith community to rest from our labours and participate in the eucharistic meal is a central part of our life together as a faith community. Jesus’s reminder to the disciples to take time to rest, away by themselves is also a message to the contemporary church. We all need times when we return from our busy lives and even our ministry in the world, to come back together and re-form ourselves as the body of Christ. Otherwise we may find ourselves so depleted that we struggle to be useful as God’s hands and feet in the world. We may become so caught up in many important activities that we forget to spend time with the one who gives life to our ministry, the one who directs our path.

We don’t come together each Sunday because we have so much in common. We don’t come together because we have the same taste in music, or the same political views or because we share the same interests. We might share some things in common, but they are not essential for Christian unity. The most fundamental reason for Christian community is that we are called into the community of Jesus. And as Christians, we must find balance between ministry and retreat, between service and replenishment, between growing in our relationship with Jesus and carrying out the work he is calling us to do. And like David, it may not be what we think. We have to listen, and that requires prayer, both individually and communally.  And there may well be times when, like Jesus and the disciples, we plan some quiet time, only to have to put it on hold because someone is in need of our care and attention.

In closing, I’d like to share some words from the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsay:

“Amidst the vast scene of the world’s problems and tragedies you may feel that your own ministry seems so small, so insignificant, so concerned with the trivial. What a tiny difference it can make to the world that you should run a youth club, or preach to a few people in a church, or visit families with seemingly small result. But consider: the glory of Christianity is its claim that small things really matter and that the small company, the very few, the one man, the one woman, the one child are of infinite worth to God. Consider our Lord himself. Amidst a vast world with its vast empires and vast events and tragedies our Lord devoted himself to individual men and women, often giving hours and time to the very few or to the one man or woman." Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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