Yesterday's Sermon
Jul. 20th, 2009 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrishansenhomeJuly 19, 2009 8th Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10 am.
Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Ps 23, Ephesians 2:13-18, Mark 6:30-34
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
A very very few of you are old enough to remember the great film actress Greta Garbo. She was famous for her roles in silent films, bridging the gap between the silents and the talkies, successfully establishing her reputation as the consummate on-screen female love-interest before leaving movies in 1941. She became a famous recluse on Manhattan’s East Side, wearing overlarge sunglasses while (often unsuccessfully) trying to dodge the paparazzi and her fans alike.
But what separates her from other actresses of the time is her method of leaving the acting profession. In the movie Grand Hotel, filmed in 1932, she is quoted as having said, “I vant to be alone.” This one line seemed to define her life from 1941 onwards until her death in 1990.
“I want to be alone.” (I shan’t continue with the fake Svedish accent.) 1900 years before Garbo Jesus and the apostles might have said the same thing. In the passage preceding our Gospel reading today Jesus sends his apostles out to preach and teach through the land. He gives minute directions as to what they should do as they roamed around. So it’s no wonder that by the time the apostles returned they were absolutely knackered. They had probably seen more crowds and more towns than they had ever seen before in their lives.
“...come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while.” The word “lonely” is possibly not the best translation here: other versions translate the Greek word as “deserted”. After blowing the dust off my Greek New Testament dictionary it seems to concur. The word refers to a place that has nothing and no one in it.
How odd that Jesus should ask the apostles to come away to someplace that is absolutely deserted! In a city like London, it’s almost impossible to find someplace that is entirely empty. There is always someone around who spoils the deserted landscape. A walker on Blackheath, for example, who walks by just as you sit thinking about your day, your job, your family, perhaps even your God.
What Jesus wanted the apostles to do is to get away from the people to whom he had just sent them and from whom they had returned. The problem, in Jesus’s mind, was the people! They gave the apostles no rest. We often say, “No rest for the wicked.” Apparently Jesus believed that there was no rest for the just either.
Tan and I often go to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with friends for dinner, as Chinatown and Soho are just down the street. Every time we go, we use a shortcut under the Trocadero building to get to Shaftsbury Avenue, because the crush of the crowds above us is such that it becomes oppressive to walk. Obviously, people wanted to see Jesus, and perhaps even the apostles after their tour were famous to a lesser extent. Imagine the Queen or President Obama walking down the Walworth Road making their way to East Street for a bit of incognito shopping. It wouldn’t happen. They would be recognised and mobbed for autographs, handshakes, or a word. It’s been said that the commonest dream in the United Kingdom contains a scene where the dreamer meets the Queen. Neither the Queen nor Mr. Obama would have much of a chance on the Walworth Road.
The apostles were so mobbed with people that they didn’t even have time to eat, the Gospel says. That might be hard to imagine—everyone has time to eat, don’t they? A recent Radio 4 program about the Downing Street secretarial staff told of a secretary who was assigned to a very important rush project. She was so busy taking dictation that instead of stopping to eat a sandwich and a cup of tea she sat there working while another secretary popped canapés into her mouth. So it happens now and it happened back in Jesus’s time.
There was a snag, though. The success of their plan to get away depended on getting away unseen. Like bank robbers, a smooth secret getaway was their only chance to come away with the reward, a few hours or days absolutely alone. They didn’t manage it. Someone blew the gaff on them, and together the people guessed where they were off to and hastened to get there even before the apostles and Jesus could get there.
Imagine being an apostle: Bartholomew, perhaps, or Jude, not to bag the more important ones like Peter, James, or John.
You are looking forward to a few days in the wilderness, with no one around but your Lord and your brothers, the other apostles. You’ve just gotten back from the mission fields, and discovered that John the Baptist has been beheaded to boot. As you walk along with Jesus you turn the corner to get to your destination and discover not a place that is deserted but a place that is full of people who guessed where you were off to in the first place.
How disheartening! Have some of you been to Stonehenge? When I first saw pictures of it, I was impressed by the majestic stones that had been raised three thousand years even before Jesus lived. Imagine my shock when I got there by train and bus and discovered that the stones are much smaller than the pictures had promised. Instead of a huge monument I found a monument that was lifesize, but only that. My disappointment was as nothing compared to the apostles’ disappointment at being second-guessed as to their hiding-place.
Jesus, on the other hand, took pity on the crowds because they were looking for their shepherd—a turnaround from the usual task of shepherds looking for lost sheep. He began to teach them and what happened next? The feeding of the five thousand.
The moral of this story is clear: there are no deserted places where God is concerned. Not the Walworth Road, not the Sahara Desert, not Blackheath nor Ilkley Moor. Not even a human heart. God turns up when we least expect him, whether we have pursued him or not. We are never sheep without a shepherd, as the shepherd is with us always.
Greta Garbo always protested when quoted as saying “I want to be alone.” She would say, “I never said that! I said ‘I want to be let alone.” We will never be alone. We will never be let alone either. The sheep have their shepherd.
AMEN.
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10 am.
Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Ps 23, Ephesians 2:13-18, Mark 6:30-34
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
A very very few of you are old enough to remember the great film actress Greta Garbo. She was famous for her roles in silent films, bridging the gap between the silents and the talkies, successfully establishing her reputation as the consummate on-screen female love-interest before leaving movies in 1941. She became a famous recluse on Manhattan’s East Side, wearing overlarge sunglasses while (often unsuccessfully) trying to dodge the paparazzi and her fans alike.
But what separates her from other actresses of the time is her method of leaving the acting profession. In the movie Grand Hotel, filmed in 1932, she is quoted as having said, “I vant to be alone.” This one line seemed to define her life from 1941 onwards until her death in 1990.
“I want to be alone.” (I shan’t continue with the fake Svedish accent.) 1900 years before Garbo Jesus and the apostles might have said the same thing. In the passage preceding our Gospel reading today Jesus sends his apostles out to preach and teach through the land. He gives minute directions as to what they should do as they roamed around. So it’s no wonder that by the time the apostles returned they were absolutely knackered. They had probably seen more crowds and more towns than they had ever seen before in their lives.
“...come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while.” The word “lonely” is possibly not the best translation here: other versions translate the Greek word as “deserted”. After blowing the dust off my Greek New Testament dictionary it seems to concur. The word refers to a place that has nothing and no one in it.
How odd that Jesus should ask the apostles to come away to someplace that is absolutely deserted! In a city like London, it’s almost impossible to find someplace that is entirely empty. There is always someone around who spoils the deserted landscape. A walker on Blackheath, for example, who walks by just as you sit thinking about your day, your job, your family, perhaps even your God.
What Jesus wanted the apostles to do is to get away from the people to whom he had just sent them and from whom they had returned. The problem, in Jesus’s mind, was the people! They gave the apostles no rest. We often say, “No rest for the wicked.” Apparently Jesus believed that there was no rest for the just either.
Tan and I often go to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with friends for dinner, as Chinatown and Soho are just down the street. Every time we go, we use a shortcut under the Trocadero building to get to Shaftsbury Avenue, because the crush of the crowds above us is such that it becomes oppressive to walk. Obviously, people wanted to see Jesus, and perhaps even the apostles after their tour were famous to a lesser extent. Imagine the Queen or President Obama walking down the Walworth Road making their way to East Street for a bit of incognito shopping. It wouldn’t happen. They would be recognised and mobbed for autographs, handshakes, or a word. It’s been said that the commonest dream in the United Kingdom contains a scene where the dreamer meets the Queen. Neither the Queen nor Mr. Obama would have much of a chance on the Walworth Road.
The apostles were so mobbed with people that they didn’t even have time to eat, the Gospel says. That might be hard to imagine—everyone has time to eat, don’t they? A recent Radio 4 program about the Downing Street secretarial staff told of a secretary who was assigned to a very important rush project. She was so busy taking dictation that instead of stopping to eat a sandwich and a cup of tea she sat there working while another secretary popped canapés into her mouth. So it happens now and it happened back in Jesus’s time.
There was a snag, though. The success of their plan to get away depended on getting away unseen. Like bank robbers, a smooth secret getaway was their only chance to come away with the reward, a few hours or days absolutely alone. They didn’t manage it. Someone blew the gaff on them, and together the people guessed where they were off to and hastened to get there even before the apostles and Jesus could get there.
Imagine being an apostle: Bartholomew, perhaps, or Jude, not to bag the more important ones like Peter, James, or John.
You are looking forward to a few days in the wilderness, with no one around but your Lord and your brothers, the other apostles. You’ve just gotten back from the mission fields, and discovered that John the Baptist has been beheaded to boot. As you walk along with Jesus you turn the corner to get to your destination and discover not a place that is deserted but a place that is full of people who guessed where you were off to in the first place.
How disheartening! Have some of you been to Stonehenge? When I first saw pictures of it, I was impressed by the majestic stones that had been raised three thousand years even before Jesus lived. Imagine my shock when I got there by train and bus and discovered that the stones are much smaller than the pictures had promised. Instead of a huge monument I found a monument that was lifesize, but only that. My disappointment was as nothing compared to the apostles’ disappointment at being second-guessed as to their hiding-place.
Jesus, on the other hand, took pity on the crowds because they were looking for their shepherd—a turnaround from the usual task of shepherds looking for lost sheep. He began to teach them and what happened next? The feeding of the five thousand.
The moral of this story is clear: there are no deserted places where God is concerned. Not the Walworth Road, not the Sahara Desert, not Blackheath nor Ilkley Moor. Not even a human heart. God turns up when we least expect him, whether we have pursued him or not. We are never sheep without a shepherd, as the shepherd is with us always.
Greta Garbo always protested when quoted as saying “I want to be alone.” She would say, “I never said that! I said ‘I want to be let alone.” We will never be alone. We will never be let alone either. The sheep have their shepherd.
AMEN.
