Genesis 32:22-31 Matthew 14:13-21
Since this pandemic began, I have developed a certain kind of sensitivity. That is, when I see people get close to one another, touching one another, it sets off an internal alarm, like, “danger, Will Robinson, danger!” This happens when I’m watching TV and see scenes of people crowded into rooms together or embracing each other. “Six feet apart!” I want to shout at the screen.
I had that reaction to the gospel story, with the mention of the crowds that Jesus couldn’t get away from when he went in search of solitude.
We have all had quite a bit of time to think about solitude this year. It has its place, but not too many of us are cut out to be hermits, practicing solitude as a way of life. Of course, those who have children at home might be thinking a little time alone might be nice.
Some of us, introverts, crave time alone; others of us, extraverts, crave time with others. Introverts and extraverts get their batteries charged in different ways. But everyone needs some time alone with themselves as much as time with other people, for the sake of balance. We all need to charge up our batteries, but we also have to spend some of that energy.
I think we need both because important things happen in both the alone realm and the together realm. We know when we are together with others we can show our love and support for them, we can serve others and work together with others to make a better, more loving place.
But when you are alone you can become more aware of yourself and your identity. It gives you time to listen to your heart speak. It also gives you time to listen for the voice of God.
This is what the story of Jacob is about, in large part. When he fled from home as a young man, he spent a night alone in the middle of nowhere. It could be that this was the first time Jacob had ever spent a night alone. It led to a life-changing encounter with God. In his strange vision of a ladder to heaven, Jacob received the assurance that he was neither forgotten nor alone. Now, years later, on his journey back home, he has another life-changing encounter, but this time, he set himself up for it. He sent the rest of his family across the river, and went back to the other side to be truly alone on this one last night before he would see his brother again.
The Bible says he spent the night wrestling with a man, until daybreak. For a time it would seem that Jacob was winning, then the stranger would be winning, and on it went through the night. Toward the end of the night, they speak. Jacob was asked his name (to see if he knew who he was?), he was given a new name (a new identity), and he was given an injury that would remain with him as a souvenir of this encounter. Finally, he was given a blessing. It was clear, by the time it was over, that Jacob had been wrestling with God.
We know that, somehow, this was what Jacob needed to prepare himself for the reunion with Esau and to fully live into the identity God had in mind for him. Jacob was an essential link in the covenant God made with Abraham, and the times he spent alone were essential experiences for him.
But, of course, time alone is not all that matters in life – far from it. I think it is always the case that time alone prepares us for time together again. When we read the gospels, we see how Jesus periodically tried to get some time alone, because he needed it too – for prayer, for rest, perhaps sometimes for his grief. In the 14th chapter of Matthew, it seems to be grief that sends him off by himself. He has just learned of the death of John the Baptist, and he withdraws from the crowds to find a quiet place alone. He doesn’t get much, because the crowds just won’t leave him be. They are so needy. They are hungry, in so many ways. The disciples want to send them away, let them fend for themselves. But Jesus, we are told, had compassion on them.
It’s a very familiar story, one that we never grow tired of hearing, a story that always feeds us. Jesus guides and supports his disciples and together they feed the more than five thousand people gathered that day.
One of the great takeaways of this story is that out of our scarcity Jesus provides abundance. It is a truth that we reaffirm Sunday after Sunday in church – but do we know it is a truth for all aspects of our lives? even when we are not together in this place? That when we are feeling our own inadequacies and emptiness we may turn to Jesus and be restored to fullness? No matter where we are?
If you have any doubt this is true, consider this: An emergency room nurse in a busy city hospital completely overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases. You’ve heard the stories – patients dying before they could even get a bed, body bags kept in refrigerated trucks because the morgue was full. One day this nurse slips into a supply closet to watch a livestream of her church worship service. They are celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. She holds in her hands a dinner roll and a cup of cranberry juice, the bread and the cup. Afterward, she returns to her work. Did this woman find resources in that supply closet that she needed to carry on? I believe so.
We have a God who satisfies our hunger. Whether we are together or apart, the Lord feeds us with the Words of scripture. And, whether we are together or apart, Christ feeds us with the bread and the cup, and strengthens us to live into our baptismal identity, to love and serve the world in Christ’s name.
Let us celebrate at Christ’s table, that we may not forget who we are.
