There
is something profoundly transforming about aloneness.
I'm not speaking about those times when we voluntarily
take a hike into the woods to sit by a stream and listen
to the water rushing over the pebbles, the song of the
birds in the tree tops, or the rustling of dried leaves
dancing on the ground.
Instead I am thinking of those
times say for a little child, standing in the middle of
a huge department store having just emerged from amidst
a rack of shirts and slacks yelling "Boo!" And mom's not
to be seen. At first, it's still a game of hide and seek
and the child runs from rack to rack looking for the
familiar face and arms that will scoop her up into an
embrace - but fails to appear. Slowly the glee turns to
fear and fear to panic and panic to terror as reality
sinks in. You know that feeling deep in the pit of your
stomach? That everything that is familiar is lost, and
the one who connects us to what is safe is missing. And
all that child can do is cry out "Mom!"
Fortunately for most children,
mom hears and mom comes running. She was only a step
away, but from the pint sized point of view, she was
adrift in a sea of unfamiliar legs and shoes. Mom
carefully reviews the rules about what to do when mom
gets lost again. Stay where you last saw me or enlist
the aid of a store clerk. But the deep lesson comes in
that moment when the child feels abandoned and alone.
Suddenly, mom's value and worth are instantly calculated
to the nth power. Mom, the source of security, comfort,
and love is not accessible and the child must come to
grips alone with a world that once seemed safe and
controllable. Instantly the child calculates they can't
do it alone and finding mom again is the only activity
possible.
We as adults can smile
knowingly. So many times we have reached out a hand to
grasp securely a little playmate's hand. As long as that
hand is outstretched our little friend feels secure
enough to venture out and take small risks of adventure.
But what about us? We who have
learned so much of the world. We who have high school
diplomas, college degrees, and oh, so much life
experience. Are we able to go it alone? Well, you could
say that is a ludicrous question. Of course not. Our
everyday experiences incorporate people. Students have
teachers and other students to compare answers with, get
homework assignments from. We purchase items from stores
that require clerks, stockers, and factory workers to
provide the goods. Our food doesn't just spring up in
our refrigerators, we need farmers, dairy producers, and
livestock owners. We are sick and need doctors, nurses,
and pharmacists. After work we relax to the products of
actors, athletes, and authors. Everything we participate
in involves someone else whether we ever see them or
talk with them. Everything we take for granted including
our friendships and loves shout out to us we cannot go
it alone.
Well, yes, there are some people
who have done this. There are hermits, monks, recluses,
and naturalists who have rejected the rat race and gone
out to secluded places to eke out a living from the
earth in virtual solitude. Fashioning tools from the
resources around them they have carefully grown or
caught their own food, tanned hides for clothing, and
obtained their shelter from their environment. At one
with nature, they have braved the capricious whims of
the weather and the elements around them. Afterall, our
earliest ancestors, the cave dwellers did just that and
evolved into the complicated society that we have come
to know.
Yet, as Tom Hanks has portrayed
for us in the movie Castaway, there is more to life than
making decisions about lifestyle and occupation. There
is something about relationships that carry great
influence on how we think and feel and act. As an
important cog in the wheel that turns the massive
delivery system, Federal Express, Hanks continued to
make connections for and between people. While he no
doubt viewed his job as efficiency expert as a means of
increasing exposure and profit for the company, he was
still streamlining relationships. His life was a
whirlwind of worldwide business trips but what held it
all together was his love for his wife. This he came to
fully understand when he found himself castaway on that
small uninhabited island after hours maybe days of being
battered by storm and sea. Although he crudely managed
to provide for his physical needs, his emotional and
psychological needs were barely fueled by the picture of
his wife and the conversations he had with Wilson the
volleyball whose face was drawn with his own blood.
Needless to say that did not
suffice. For at one point he contemplated ending his
exile by jumping off the highest peak. After four years
stranded far from all relationships, he decided to take
his chances out at sea than remain another day isolated
from the one he loved.
The intense desire for
meaningful relationship draws us powerfully. Most of the
time we seek to fulfill that desire in the embrace of a
fellow human be it parent, friend, or loved one. Yet, if
we draw our strength from another who is as weak and
fallible as we are we will eventually meet
disappointment and the quest continues for the one who
will not abandon us.
King David knew God as the
source of his strength as a great warrior, leader and
king, yet David too was human and sought fulfillment in
the embrace of Bathsheba. In so doing he violated his
relationship with God abandoning his one sure love. One
of the beautiful things about the people of Israel as a
covenant partner with God is that God is part of the
very fabric of their lives - not aloof and uncaring but
involved and involving in the careful revelation of what
a divine/human relationship can be. What has been
gathered together as the Psalms are part of the constant
conversation of the people with their creator - praises,
adoration, petitions, laments, complaints and fears in
this daily walk. Including God's very own response.
So, when David was confronted by
Nathan with his sin, David turned to the Lord with his
plea for mercy. He knew that God had every right to cast
him away from his presence to teach him his need for
utter reliance. He feared the consequences of a life
devoid of God beside him. He prayed that God would not
withdraw that presence. David's responsibility as king
was to lead his people into that same kind of closeness
and reliance.
David could turn to God with
confidence because of the assurance offered to the
people in the days of Saul that we read in 1 Samuel.
Despite their demand to have a human king, and their
desire to be like other nations, despite their
sinfulness in having turned aside from following the
Lord, Samuel assured them they could return again to the
Lord because God would not cast them away. God had
decided to form them into a people. It was God's good
pleasure to make a nation out of them. not theirs.
So David asked the Lord for his
life to belong to God. If you desire truth, Lord, then
grant me wisdom to know it and speak it. Cleanse me -no
- not just cleanse me, but purge me from my sins. Bring
joy and gladness back into my life in the form of your
daily presence. Don't hide from me - just hide your eyes
from my sins.
We know what it is like to lose
friends and loved ones to arguments, career moves,
sickness and death. There is an emptiness and an
unspeakable longing that pervades our days and nights.
Can you imagine what it would be like if God actually
turned away? Fortunately, we have Jesus' absolute
promise to be with us always. Verse 6 of Psalm 12 tells
us of the confidence we may have. "The promises of the
Lord are promises that are pure, silver refined in a
furnace on the ground, purified seven times." "You O
Lord, will protect us; you will guard us forever."
A small child will expend every
ounce of its emotions to find mom when she is lost. Tom
Hanks was willing to pit his life against the elements
to return to his beloved because of the emptiness of
being cast away. What if we spent that same kind of
emotion and energy in our conversations with Jesus? What
if we totally immersed ourselves in the hope of the
baptismal promise and sought and found Jesus in
everything we did and said. What if we deepened our
spiritual lives by spending more time listening to him
in our quiet time? The promises are sure that Jesus is
with us.
In this journey through Lent
that we have undertaken together we have been challenged
to look closely at our own lives to seek out those
places where we have drawn farther away from God, to see
our neglect of discipleship, and our participation in
the sinfulness of the world. The challenge now is to
realize that in all that, Jesus does not depart from us.
Jesus seeks instead to enter in to our hearts and fill
us. As we walk toward Easter may we not dismay of our
sins, but remember that Jesus is with us and the
sacrifice of that Friday was to draw us closer in. "Cast
me not away from your presence" is a cry of utter trust
in the faithfulness of the one who gave his life for us.
Deepen that trust during the upcoming days. "When the
woes of life o'er take me, hopes deceive and fears
annoy, never shall the cross forsake me, lo, it glows
with peace and joy."
Amen