We need the wilderness

Scripture: Mark 1:29-39

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

            I don’t know about you, but that sounds awfully nice to me. Away from the kids. Away from the bustle—the demands on his time and attention. Away from dinging phones, emails, social media. Just away. We probably don’t talk enough about Jesus’s penchant for leaving it all behind and heading off into the wilderness. And Jesus wasn’t alone. It seems like most heroes in the Bible would go off from time to time, whether Abraham, or Moses, or Elijah, or John the Baptist. They all went off to pray and reflect.

            When is the last time you prioritized going off on your own?

            I hope you don’t hear that question as judgment. Lord knows, we have so many forces in life begging us to never take a break. There is always more work to do—more, more, more. There is so much to do, in fact, that it can never get done, so we keep at it—more, more, more. Because our work is important—so very, very important. Raising a family is important—so very, very important. If we don’t give it 100% all the time, we will regret it—we will wonder why we didn’t do just a little more. We want to give our kids, our families, and our selves our best shot. What could be wrong with that?

            It’s amazing to me how we can demand more of ourselves than even Jesus would accomplish. Jesus was out there performing all of these miraculous healings. He was even raising people from the dead. If anybody could justify never stopping it was Jesus. Yet, time and again, Jesus departs—he leaves the work undone. This is why the disciples hunt Jesus down (did you notice that? It actually says they hunted him down!)—and when they find him, they tell him that everyone is looking for him, presumably because there is more healing to do. After all, there is always more healing to do. People are always getting sick. People are always dying. Everyone needs Jesus to stay.

            So, quite to form in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus heads on to the next town. You can imagine the indignity of the people in the town he just came from! Excuse me, what? Jesus, there are more sick people! How can you abandon them? Why heal this person but not the other? How can you leave when the work is unfinished? And you call yourself the Son of God?!

            Scripture doesn’t report any of this, of course, but we know that’s what people are thinking. It is always what people are thinking, because the work is never complete. It is never enough. There are more sick people, more dying people, more dead people. The people who follow Jesus fail to understand that Jesus did not come to heal people. Healing is never enough. God bless all the doctors and nurses and healthcare workers among you. You know better than anyway that sometimes it feels like all you are ever doing is managing decline, because if you want to see it that way, it is true. All of us our getting older. All of us will get sick. All of us will die. If Jesus could fix that by hard work, maybe he would have worked harder, but he can’t, so he didn’t.

            Instead, there is something else going on here. Jesus has his eyes fixed somewhere further ahead. So, when the disciples find him, off he goes to the next town, because the good news lies further ahead—not in healings, after all, this is why Jesus so often holds up a finger, “Shh…” don’t tell anybody about this, he says throughout the Gospel of Mark, because the good news of Jesus Christ is not to be found in temporary healings but on the cross in his death—and, ultimately, his resurrection from the dead. That is how he will fix the problem of death—by dying on a cross.

            It is well worth the rest of us reflecting on what that means for us in our work—and by work, I mean our jobs of course, but I also mean our work around the house, our work in raising a family, and our work in being friends and neighbors to others around us. You will never do enough in your work to save anybody—even Jesus couldn’t do it, not that way. So, I have a revolutionary idea for you to try out: Stop trying to fix the world’s problems. Instead, do what you can, care for those in front of you, turn off the news, and then, after you have done something (not enough, mind you, but something) go somewhere to pray. In short, be more like Jesus, and less like the idol of productivity that tells you that you can save anybody, least of all yourself. You can’t. So, instead, retreat to pray.

            And that prayer could look like a lot of things. I feel like we imagine that we have to be actively talking to God and following a formula for prayer to work, like “Dear God, thank you for such and such, help me with such and such, Amen.” Totally cool if that’s what works for you, but I have found that my most prayerful moments are often spent in silence, sometimes casting a fly on the river, sometimes running through the woods, sometimes just stopping and looking at something I hadn’t noticed before. It’s in the gratitude for simple things that some part of me opens up and I find that God has granted me some perspective I didn’t have before.

            It would not surprise you that Ewalu is one of those places where this happens a lot. For sixty-plus years, our tagline has been “A place apart” and we are. A place apart from all the busy-ness of life back home. A place apart from the stress of emails and phones dinging. A place apart even from the façade of an identity we feel we need to wear for those who know us in “normal” life. Ewalu exists as that kind of refuge for people to disconnect and listen for the Word of God that comes alive in the wilderness.

            This is certainly one of the strengths of outdoor ministry, but I want to be quick to note that outdoor ministry is far from the only place this is happening. Even for our young people who get to come to camp every summer, they need a place apart in their home life as well. We need more than mountain top experiences—we also need to find space in our daily lives to slow down and hear God apart from our busy-ness.

            This is hard stuff, because outside forces are forever trying to rip that away from you. They have trained you so well that even that feeling of needing to get away starts to feel like another obligation. If you are not careful, rest just will start to feel like just another law that you are too busy to follow, and then comes the guilt. I know—I’ve been there—I often am there. This is how we human beings cope with a big and complicated world—we constantly feel insufficient. Yet, through Christ, we are called to a different kind of freedom. Yes, we should take care of the sick. Yes, we should love on our kids and care for those dear to us. Of course, we should be working for a just and equitable world for all—feeding the hungry, caring for those who need help. Yes, we should do all that. But just as importantly, when the work becomes too much, when we are overwhelmed or anxious or afraid, we need to find that space to remember that we cannot save the world—we are just drops in the ocean. Yet, through Christ, we are more.

            We need some kind of wilderness to see that, but that wilderness does not need to look like Ewalu! It can be the farm or a tree stand or a park or even our own backyards. It can even be our church or a quiet space within our homes. It is less the place than the act of slowing down and retreating from the noise that matters. But this work is important. It is not a luxury—rather, it is part and parcel of what it means to be human: Slowing down and encountering God in the midst of the silence.

            Most of all, it is us admitting something important and true: We cannot save ourselves. We cannot save anybody, really. We need a Savior for that. A savior who rested, who retreated to the wilderness. A savior who could heal but it wasn’t about the healing. Because there is something better ahead, something better we need to slow down to see. Grace for all we cannot do. Salvation, if only we can believe it; if only we can feel it, if only we can slow down enough to believe it.

            May you find that place apart—wherever it may be—and may you find that peace that comes through Christ Jesus, who can do what we cannot. And I hope very much that you hear that as good news.

Amen.