Jesus
was a man among the people. He is God become man and come to save us. And so he
dwelt among us – he spent time among us – he was present to us. This is an
important model of ministry – but every bit as important is something that he
does in today’s gospel.
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| Christ feeding the multitude Coptic Icon |
After much time among the people – teaching, preaching, and feeding the five thousand – Jesus dismisses the crowds. He dismisses them and goes by himself up the mountain to pray. He even sends away his closest disciples – telling them to go before him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. There is much to learn from this, I believe.
Some of
us like to be always among people – or at least among friends. These extroverts
are inspired and energized by the company of others. And they quickly get
lonely and long for companionship if left alone. Others of us prefer to be alone. More introverted, these
find energy and inspiration in times of solitude. And they are emotionally
drained by being too much around people.
But whether
we’re introverted or extroverted, and whether we consequently seek God more
readily in silence or in our neighbors, I think we must learn from Jesus the
need for both of these aspects of our lives. He teaches us that when we pray, we
ought to go into our inner chamber, shut the door, and pray in secret so as not
to make a show of our prayer (Matt 6:5-6). He also teaches us that whatsoever we do to the least of his brethren
that we do unto him (Matt 25:40, 45), which means that serving others,
attending to their needs, and spending time with them is also a means of prayer
– of communing with Christ our God. And Jesus models both of these behaviors
himself – both ministering to the people and taking his leave of them to spend
time in undistracted prayer with his father.
I
believe it is important for us to imitate Christ in both of these ways.
Even if
we prefer to be alone, we should also devote some of our time to working out
God’s mercies among his people – feeding the hungry, consoling those who
grieve, visiting the sick, defending the faith, and in all those countless ways
God has given us to love one another – face to face and heart to heart with one
another – with the image of God in each other person.
And, on
the other hand, times of solitude with God are also essential, even if we prefer
the company of the crowd or our friends and even if we get uneasy when we’re
alone – when anxieties soar & restless thoughts and passions disturb us –
even waking us up in the middle of the night.
About
such times, my mother used to say that if you wake up in the middle of the
night it is because the Lord wants you to pray. My father therefore, who woke in the middle
of most nights with anxiety, would pray, “What are you doing, Lord, waking me
up in the middle of the night?”
The
Lord’s purposes are not always easily discernable and it is good, I believe, to
be frank with him. The middle of the night can be a good time to be alone with God. Sometimes
he just wants to be with us.
I
once heard a story of a young man who, after some time away, returned to his father’s
house to borrow some money. His father greeted him joyfully and quickly agreed
to give him the desired sum. ‘But first,” he said, “come in and sit with me and
talk for a while.” And so the son came in and they went to the sitting room and
sat and spoke with each other for a while. After some time had passed, the son
again brought up the question of money. The father said, “Yes, yes, of course,
but now it’s time for dinner. First, let us eat together.” And so the son
agrees and they go into dinner together and they eat and drink and talk. An after
dinner, the father suggests that it is getting late and that perhaps the son
would like to stay for the night. At this point, the son becomes irritated and
says to his father, “why do you keep delaying? Why don’t you give me the money
as you agreed?” The father answers, “My son, of course I will give you the
money and whatever else you desire, but I love you and it has been so good to
see you and to be with you, and I don’t want you to go.”
Sometimes
God just wants to be with us. Don’t
go to the Lord our Father only when you need something, but make time every day
simply to be with him – to dwell consciously in his loving presence.
Even if
it is difficult for us, we must devote some time daily, I believe, to being
alone with God. We must find some moment of silence in which the still small voice
of the Lord may be heard over the din of the thousands and millions and
billions of distractions that plaguily vie for our attention, especially
in our ever noisier technological world with the endless beeping of our “distraction
machines”[i] which
call for attention and away from attending to the one thing that matters – to the
voice of God, which, as was read at the recent Vespers for St. Elias, came to Elias upon the mountain not in the
wind, and not in the earthquake, and not in the fire, but as a still small
voice (1Kings 19:11-12).
To hear
this voice, both Elias and Jesus went up the mountain alone to pray. The Lord
wishes to speak to each of us also
and we too must seek a quiet place if we are to hear him. I assure you, none of us are better than Jesus, nor even Elias, his
second forerunner. None of us are above this need.
“For
what purpose does [Jesus] go up … the mountain?” John Chrysostom asks. “To
teach us that solitude and seclusion are good, when we are to pray to God.… We
find [Jesus] continually withdrawing into the wilderness. There he often spends
the whole night in prayer. This teaches us earnestly to seek such quietness in
our prayers as the time and place may afford. For the wilderness is the mother
of silence; it is a calm and a harbor, delivering us from all turmoil.”[ii]
Speaking
of turmoil, what is happening while Jesus is alone praying on the mountain? All
night, his disciples row against the wind in toil and turmoil in the sea. Then,
in the fourth watch of the night – that is, just before dawn – Christ returns
from his time alone with his father and he walks on the stormy water to the
disciples.
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| Jesus walks on water ink and pigments on laid paper by Ilyas Basim Khuri Bazzi Rahib (Egyptian, active ca. 1684) Walters manuscript W.592 |
I don’t
think his walking on water is unrelated to his time alone with his father on
the mountain. The mountain is like heaven and the sea is like the world. We must
spend some time on the mountain if we are to weather the storms of the sea – if
we are to be able to rise above the waters of this life forever threatening to
drown our faith, our hope, our love for God and one another in so much evil and
emptiness. Only by going occasionally to the mountain to pray alone can we keep
the faith needed to walk on water.
If Jesus
needs periodically to pray alone, so much more do we need to do the same. To
maintain connection to God in the midst of this sea of distraction and turmoil,
to know inner peace even as strife rages all about us, seems impossible. It is
like walking on the windswept water of the sea.
In
Christ, all things are possible.
