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Christ Church Covington
IV Lent
March 30, 2003
Let’s start by looking at what moves people – literally why people move
around, move from one place to another. I think on a primal
anthropological level, most (if not all) reasons for moving fall into two
related categories: internal reasons, which I’ll call satisfaction, and
external reasons, which I’ll call security.
By being moved by satisfaction, what I mean is that folks have a need or
an itch or something that isn’t being satisfied, and they are reasonably
certain that it will be satisfied elsewhere. We see this around here.
Folks come and go from the northshore all the time because a better career
opportunity opened up here or in Atlanta or Houston. If folks feel that
their needs will be better satisfied elsewhere, they’re going to go forth,
they’re going to move there. Satisfaction – the internal motive for
moving.
Then there’s the other motive: security. This is reason lies outside the
self; it is that feeling the one isn’t safe, isn’t secure where one is,
that one’s security is somehow threatened. I don’t need to go into this
too much. I mean, come on, that’s what suburbs are all about, right?
So we’ve got security and satisfaction – the two primal reasons that folks
move around. But we can throw into this mix another element, the human
element. Our feelings of satisfaction and security become wrapped up in a
person. Whether that person is the family patriarch or matriarch or one’s
spouse or some kind of leader, when that happens, a bond is formed, an
allegiance, an affection, and people will do what they need to do in order
to be around or be near that person. The famous line from the book of Ruth
epitomizes this: “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will
lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.” We
humans have been known to form these kinds of bonds.
What’s got me thinking about all this is today’s Gospel. You see, from a
pastoral perspective, five thousand is A LOT of people. Remember, our
average Sunday attendance at Christ Church these days is somewhere between
three hundred sixty and three hundred seventy. Can you imagine if we had
five thousand? Amazing! So that got me to thinking about why these five
thousand people went forth, why they followed Jesus into the countryside,
what moved this crowd.
Well, if you’ll notice, the crowd’s reasons shift during the course of the
story, a transformation takes place in their relationship with Jesus. At
first, the Gospel says, “A large crowd kept following him, because they
saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.” Yet by the end of the
story, they wanted to, “take him by force and make him king.” So initially
they went forth because of the first reason I stated, satisfaction. They
had a need, whether it was sickness or just curiosity, and they thought
Jesus could satisfy it. Yet in following Jesus, they arrived at a place
where they could not provide for themselves, and Jesus himself alone made
provision for them out of the humble resources placed before him. Then,
just like that, they moved into that third area that I described earlier;
they became fiercely and unquestioningly loyal to him as the person who
could satisfy them and give them security. I think it’s safe to say that
those five thousand would have followed Jesus anywhere.
Please notice a pattern here. We follow Jesus for whatever reason, and he
brings us to a place where we cannot provide for ourselves, he provides
for us himself, transforming what we place before him - our want and
scarcity - into abundance. Then we’re hooked, and nothing can turn us
aside. That’s how Jesus teaches us that in following him, we have nothing
to loose, and certainly nothing to fear. My guess is that most committed
Christians recognize that pattern and know it only too well.
Many of you know that I work with Happening in the Diocese of Louisiana.
Some of you might not know that Happening is a renewal weekend put on by
and for teenagers from all over our diocese. The young person who leads
the weekend is called the Rector, and another teenager serves as the RIT,
the Rector in Training. The RIT’’s job is to follow the Rector around
during the course of the weekend, to learn what he does, so that he will
be ready when his turn comes around.
Now, a couple of weeks prior to a recent Happening I got a call from the
Rector who had a problem. She said that the RIT, who marched in his high
school band, had a conflict. During the weekend of the Happening he was
expected to march in two parades (this was during carnival season). The
Rector wanted to know what she should do: ask him to step down as RIT and
select someone else or excuse his absence for the parades. Well, she and
the chair of the committee and I discussed it and we decided that the RIT
could postpone and serve as RIT at the following Happening, but that
really, the RIT needed to be present for the entire weekend.
Having explained this to the RIT, the Rector then called me back and said
that the RIT felt truly called by God to be RIT at that particular
Happening, and that he would forego the parades. Then it turned out that
his band instructor said that if the fellow missed one parade, his grade
would be lowered to at “C”, and if he missed both parades, he’d fail band
for the year. We went around and around about it, but we felt that if the
RIT were absent during part of the weekend, the integrity of the program
would be compromised. So we figured, he’d miss this one, but he’d serve at
the next one, no problem. But the guy insisted that he genuinely felt
called by God to be there that weekend, come what may.
Clearly, this worried us a lot. We contacted his parents and told them
that we did not want this for their son, that we knew how serious an “F”
during the junior year would be when he sent his transcripts to colleges,
wasn’t there something they could do? They said that his mind was made up,
and that there was nothing they could do about it. He felt called by God.
I even went so far as to say that I would not let my son make that
decision, it simply wasn’t prudent.
The weekend rolled around, and I reported for duty as did the weekend
staff and participants, including the RIT. My heart was heavy because I
felt he’d made a big mistake. The weekend went on as planned, and it was a
good one: a lot of kids drew nearer to God and became more committed to
Jesus. Still, I was troubled. Until the closing Eucharist. During the
Prayers of the People, the congregation was invited to voice their
petitions, and I heard a girl say, “I give thanks for parades being rained
out.” My heart leapt with joy. I knew that I was bearing witness to a
miracle. I knew also that I was being taught a lesson. I was ashamed of my
faithlessness.
Of course the parade was rained out. Of course God took care of one who
risked what he had, transforming his vulnerability into strength. Of
course. That is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus
Christ, God has gathered a people to himself. Through Jesus Christ, God
has transformed his relationship with his people by becoming our
satisfaction and security. And because of that transformed relationship,
because we are transformed people, doubt has no place. Fear has no place.
And yes, even prudence sometimes has no place.
Amen.
The Rev’d Robert M. Odom
M.Div., Curate
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