Everyone Is Searching for You
Everyone Is Searching for You
by Chris Heath
(While sitting in Sydney airport waiting for a flight to Hobart)
I guess one of the usual reasons people come to church is to have
some 'time out'. It is a point of rest and recuperation as well as
preparation to go back to a busy life. We see church as a rock
amidst the storms of life.
It is lovely to live in my own house for the first time in my life.
After 29 years moving from rectory to rectory as we have moved from
town to town - here in Orange I can settle into my own place and
pretend that it's mine. (Of course it is really the bank's J)
And coming to church, we want services that support us in the
turmoils of this life, and I suspect that if a preacher gives a
sermon which doesn't do this perhaps he or she might suggest that
we might have to examine our theology - we go away unfulfilled and
dissatisfied.
A while back I read a quote from a disaffected priest about the
Bishop: 'He upsets people. Bishops are usually urbane, empathetic
people.'
And for all I can sympathise with such thoughts, the problem is that
Jesus was always 'on the go'. This year we particularly concentrate
on the gospel of Mark and one of the characteristics of Mark is the
frequency of the word 'immediately' ('euthus' 42 times in Mark).
Jesus does one thing and immediately goes off to do something else.
And we see this in today's gospel snippet. Jesus does lots of good
things, but rather than stay and consolidate, he is up and about the
following morning, praying and planning where next he was going.
The disciples and the other people have to search for him. The last
thing they expected after such a perfunctory beginning to the
ministry in that place was for Jesus to move on elsewhere. But that
is precisely what he did, and does.
For all our desire for stability and permanency Jesus calls us onward
and upward.
And I rather think our theology matches the desire for an empathetic
stability. We look backwards to the certainties of the past. I
look back to scripture. Others look perhaps to tradition. There
is the old joke that the authority in the Anglican Church is what the
last Rector did :-)!
But Jesus has none of this. He conducts his ministry 'on the run'
and it is the disciples who have to struggle to keep up!
Jesus takes the initiative to move on to others. He didn't come for
the members of his own family. He didn't come for those of his
hometown of Nazareth and weren't they mightily pissed off! He
didn't come to those who the disciples thought were appropriate he
rebuked them when they wanted the children sent away. He didn't
come to establish the disciples into positions of power and authority
over others, like James and John. He didn't come to reinforce the
separateness of the religious authorities and was crucified as a
result. He didn't come just to support the nation of Israel, he
readily associated with Greeks and others.
This was his mission, and it was a mission that he undertook right
from the beginning to go on to others.
So Jesus can never be 'my' Lord, or the lord of the Anglican Church,
or the Lord of Christians - Jesus is always moving towards others,
and this is what we will find him doing if we search for him.
And so if we are searching for Jesus, we will not find him in church,
synagogue, temple or mosque Jesus will already be on his way from
these to others!
Anything and everything that we do to make him 'ours' is essentially
a distraction from this ministry. No matter what the cost of our
sacrifice, no matter the orthodoxy of our faith, or whatever, Jesus
is always on his way towards others.
This is the fundamental message, and perhaps so fundamental it is
often forgotten or neglected. It disturbs our certainties. It
erodes our assurance that we are the centre of Jesus' attention.
But if we look at it carefully it is in fact the basis of our
security not of course over others - but because we, and all
others, are included.
So if we look at the decline of the mainline christian denominations,
it is not that there was never any truth there, it is just that Jesus
blesses others as well. If we measure our success in terms of
others becoming like us, we are attempting to suggest that God finds
a 'lasting city' in an Anglican sanctuary! (Heb 13.14)
If we claim to be disciples of Jesus, we too will be given no option
but to find ourselves taken from where our natural 'roots' are and to
other people, who we will inevitably find strange, different,
other. They might well believe in different terms than we do, they
might well not speak our theological lingo, they may well lead quite
different lives, they may well call God by a different name than we
use but we will be brought to them they will not be brought to us!
I am reminded of St Paul's conversion where the Lord moved him from
orthodox Judaism to an acceptance of others, and later from the
people of Asia where he was brought up to the alien people of Europe
who spoke a different language. (Acts 16.9)
I read one evening's Old Testament lesson the words: 'They did not
obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil
will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backwards rather
than forwards.' Jeremiah 7.24 The wife of Lot was doomed because
she looked backwards. I suspect that she rued the thought of
fleeing, she envied the power and authority of the bullies of
Sodom. Perhaps she thought that if Lot were a 'real' man he would
confront these bullies and beat them.
The Lord wants us to face the future, not hark back to the past,
fight un-winnable battles, or live in subjection to others' emotional
or theological whims. Indeed the only way we will find the Lord is
if we follow him into the future.
I am reminded of the story of the stilling of the storm. We see the
power of Jesus when we are with him on the journey. The church has
to be moving, and if it is moving then Jesus is 'on board'. If we
are stationary and resisting change then probably Jesus has left the
boat and strode away to his next destination.
I mentioned that I began this sermon as I was sitting waiting for a
plane in Sydney airport. I was travelling to Hobart, Tasmania for a
National Health and Welfare Chaplains' Conference to become
Spiritual Care Australia. A number of participants took the
opportunity to go on one of the various boat tours of the Derwent
River and Islands there. No doubt they had a good time. But it
caused me to wonder why would anyone get on a boat that was in dry-
dock having a refit and going nowhere whatsoever like some people
in the church so often want the church to be.
The Conference was excellent. Chaplaincy has always been on the
margins of the church, at the interface between the church and the
world. In some ways I suspect the conference was and is another
example of Jesus leading us away from last century structures of the
past and into a newer paradigm being even more at one with others
and rejoicing to find Jesus already there with those others.
(Comments to Chris at frsparky@bigpond.net.au.)