Alone in Your Aloneness

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, February 28.  The text is Mark 6:30-52; read it here. 

 

 

I have a Sunday ritual. 

It’s a very important ritual. 

It involves food, and it involves being alone. 

 

I like both of these things, and I particularly like them early on Sunday afternoon, after I have finished my morning gig teaching music to kids over at the Presbyterian Church on the other side of town.  After I’ve finished my last class and put everything away in my office and made some notes for next week, I go to a restaurant where I can find a quiet corner, and order something good to eat and a pot of tea, and sit quietly and let my mind wander, and sometimes scratch down a few notes for the sermon I will deliver here, tonight. 

 

Lately, I’ve been going to Le Pain Quotidien over on 11th street, and lately I’ve been finding a little table by the window and ordering the white bean and prosciutto salad.  

 

And that is what I did today. 

But there was a glitch. 

The glitch was that there were no small tables free when I arrived at Le Pain Quotidien, there was only room at the “communal table.”

 

This made me grumpy.  And I grumped to myself as I found a place between three folks who were talking about an upcoming trip to the South of France (which made me jealous) and a couple who seemed unable to speak to one another (which made me nervous).

 

Stupid communal table, 

I thought. 

Stupid New York, always full of all these people. 

 

And then a funny thing happened, which is that the food arrived in front of the three people who were sitting next to me, and they paused for a moment, and one of them said, “The Lord be with you.”  And the other ones said, “And also with you.”  

And they prayed. 

They prayed, and in some strange, tertiary way, I prayed with them, 

and then opened my laptop to scratch out some notes 

on a story about Jesus breaking five loaves of bread

and feeding 5,000. 

In a restaurant called Le Pain Quotidien, 

which means, The Daily Bread.

At a communal table. 

 

Jesus was seeking solitude as well when the crowds descended on him.  He was seeking a place to perhaps have just a moment to pour a cup of tea and think for a minute about his next sermon.  But it was not to be.  The crowds found him, and the text tells us, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.  A phrase that resonates deeply for me, and evokes rich imagery that’s woven throughout the Hebrew scriptures and reverberates forward into the Gospel texts:

God as our shepherd,

Christ as our shepherd,

Christ as the sacrificial lamb. 

 

The setting, too, of this story, is richly layered with meaning extending from the Hebrew texts.  Jesus feeds these people who have followed him to the wilderness, just as God fed the Israelites who had followed Moses to the wilderness: manna from heaven is, in this story, bread broken and shared.  Jesus sits the crowd down on the green grass in groups and feeds them: a shepherd and his sheep. 

 

It’s a funny thing, 

how we follow God out into the middle of nowhere, 

and then suddenly think that we have to take care of ourselves.

 

There they are, 5,000 people, more than 10,000 with women and children, and Jesus in the middle of nowhere.  Send them away, the disciples say.  So they can buy themselves something to eat. 

 

No.  Says Jesus, 

and he gives thanks 

and breaks the bread,

and feeds them all.  

 

 

I have a tendency to think that I have to do everything alone. 

Perhaps you are the same way too. 

Perhaps it is partially our American individualism 

that brings us to this place, 

a notion that it’s every man for himself,

and it’s a sign of strength to persevere, 

to struggle through, 

to get the job done. 

 

We find a million different ways to keep ourselves alone,

to keep the most inner and fragile parts of ourselves secreted away from others. 

You break off a relationship just when your partner begins to uncover who you are. 

You withdraw into solitude in times of pain or sorrow. 

Even those of us who surround ourselves with people have ways of keeping ourselves alone: 

A overly-busy or cheerful exterior is an effective way to distract others

from the pain that lies beneath the surface. 

 

However we keep ourselves alone, 

it’s a way of saying to those around us and to God, 

I can do this by myself. 

I don’t need you or anyone else. 

 

To be alone in your aloneness 

can be a strange and addicting comfort.

Easier, somehow than admitting 

that you are not self sufficient,

that you are, in fact, a sheep, 

fed and watered by a shepherd 

who provides all that you need. 

 

You follow God into the wilderness,

and then suddenly think you have to take care of yourself. 

When God has made bread fall from heaven,

has given you everything, all that you need, 

and all you have to do is open your hands to receive. 

Open your hands and they will be filled with bread.

 

At the end of our story, Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him and finds him moment alone to pray on the mountaintop.  This moment of solitude extends, however, from the expansive communion that has occurred before.  A moment when he resisted the impulse to send them all away to find something to eat on their own, and instead told them that everything they needed was right there, with him and with one another. 

 

God pulls us out of our aloneness at unexpected moments, 

moments that are not of our choosing. 

We seek a moment of solitude with a cup of tea, 

and are instead granted a crowd of people, 

a loaf of bread, 

a prayer of thanksgiving. 

At a restaurant on 11th street 

or sitting down in the green grass,

God pulls us gently out of our desire

to be alone in our aloneness, 

to do everything on our own,

and turns us instead toward each other, 

and feeds us, 

gives us all that we need.

 

Comments

[Aliciatheactivelistener.blogspot.com]

Wow- what a great experience and a great insight!