A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — September 4, 2011
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Isaiah 43:1-7;  Matthew 14:13-14

Do not fear, for I am with you… — Isaiah 43:5a

[Jesus] saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. — Matthew 14:14b

Over the years I’ve come across many different versions of the following religious story.  This version comes from the mystical Sufi branch of Islam and tells of a Sufi Master and his spiritual followers, called dervishes.

One day the Sufi Master told each of his dervishes to go buy a chicken in the marketplace and then kill the chicken.  However, they had to do so where no one could see them.  They were to return by sundown at the very latest.

One by one the dervishes returned, each with a slaughtered chicken under his arm.  Finally as the sun was setting, the youngest dervish came carrying a live chicken still squawking and struggling.  The older dervishes laughed and whispered to each other about how the young man could never follow orders.

The Master asked the dervishes to tell how they had carried out his instructions.  The first one back said he had gone out and bought the chicken, returned home, locked the door, closed the curtains over his windows, and then killed the chicken.  The second dervish said he had returned home, locked the doors, pulled the curtains, and then took his chicken into a dark closet and slaughtered it there.  The third said he’d done all of that, but also blindfolded himself, so he could not see the slaughtering.  Others told of going into a dark deserted forest or a pitch-black cave to accomplish their task.

Finally it was the young man’s turn.  Holding out his live chicken to his Master, he said, “I brought this chicken home, but everywhere in the house there was a Presence.  I went into the most deserted parts of the forest, but the Presence was still with me.  Even in the darkest caves, the Presence was still there.  There is no place I could go where I was not seen!”

I’ve heard similar stories of a Jewish rabbi and his disciples or a Zen Buddhist monk and his students.  But it is telling, I think, that I can’t seem to find a version of this tale in the Christian tradition.  Too much of Christian thought and tradition teaches of a supernatural, transcendent, all-powerful God who is somewhere “out there” apart from the world—“our Father who art in heaven.”  This God created the world, yes, but now watches from a distance, stepping back into creation only occasionally in the form of miracles or warnings.  This is the God most of us adults learned about as kids—the Almighty King and Father, the Lord and Lawgiver who’ll come to judge the quick and the dead and who sent Jesus to die for our sins.

Such concepts of God are so much a part of “the way things are” that it can be hard to question whether they’re true or not, whether they’re adequate, whether they are entirely healthy, whether we really need to or even should believe in them.  If we do raise such questions, we can end up feeling like we need to defend ourselves against those who claim we’re not really Christians at all.  In many ways we do live as if God is absent and not Immanuel (which means “God with us”).  Think of how often prayers address a God who must be somewhere else because they ask God to come and be with us.  And all too often we do or say or think things as if we were alone and unseen by God.

Speaking metaphorically, we pull the curtains and huddle in dark closets to kill our chickens.  Even if we do assume that God knows what we do, it’s more a kind of “Santa Claus” power—“he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.”  But in Psalm 139, the psalmist sings that God so much more than just knowledge from afar.  Wherever the psalmist flees from God’s Spirit, he finds, “O Lord, thou art there!”  Like the dervish he discovers God is present everywhere.  This is the God of Isaiah 43, the one who redeems you and calls you by name, who protects and nurtures you, who declares, “Do not fear, for I am with you.”

Over the years in the adult Sunday school class, many of us have read a lot of things by Marcus Borg.  One of my favorite of his books is called The God We Never Knew, subtitled Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith.  For Borg, “The God We Never Knew” is this ever present God, who while beyond us is nevertheless always with us, who is “right here” not “somewhere else out there,” who isn’t spying on us from “on high” but is “down here” with us and among us and within us.  Borg argues that now more than ever we need to emphasize such close and intimate concepts of God in contrast with the distant, all-powerful Monarch and Judge we were introduced to as children.  Borg says that to do so would transform how we relate to God, how we function as the church, and most importantly how we would live our lives as Christians.

We are made in the image and likeness of God.  That’s what Genesis tells us.  So it makes a vast difference how we picture God.  Is God a loving presence throughout all of creation, redeeming the people and calling each one by name?  Or is God a cosmic enforcer, wielding earthquakes and hurricanes to get the attention of Washington, DC?  Our image of God matters.  If we see God as a distant, unmoved mover, as an imperial ruler issuing orders and demanding obedience, as a stern law-maker and judge who warns and punishes—then we pattern our lives, both personal and national, in similar fashion.  But if God is seen as ever present and available to us and to everyone else, then the pattern shifts.  We are led to be more present and available… to others and to ourselves.  And we begin to participate in the grace of God by truly “loving our neighbors as ourselves.”

Throughout the Gospels Jesus demonstrates this kind of presence and availability in action.  Indeed, someone once said that everything Jesus taught in words probably could be related in a single day; the rest of the time he hung out with people.  We see Jesus’ radical availability to others in Matthew 14:13-14.  It’s such a brief scene.  We usually pass right through these two verses on our way to the story of the feeding of the 5000.  But look closer.  Jesus has just learned of the death of his friend John the Baptist.  Deeply distressed, he withdraws to a deserted place—something he does frequently in the Gospels to pray.  Then confronted by a crowd of people and touched by their needs, he shifts his focus and becomes available to them.  There are several lessons for us here.

First, it is precisely because Jesus withdrew to be prayerfully present to God that he was primed to be able to respond to the crowd.  Replenished by God’s presence and compassion, he could be present and compassionate himself.  Jesus taught his followers this rhythm, because people centered on God in prayer tend to be more readily present and available to others.  In touch with God’s grace, we become bearers of God’s grace.  Please note:  this does not mean we must consume ourselves meeting the needs of others.  We need to be available to ourselves as well—for we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  Prayerful withdrawal lets us attend to our own needs so we can respond freely to others.

Second, Jesus made time for people.  We need to create more “space” in our lives if we are to be available.  Time management experts warn against scheduling any more than half of our hours.  But all too often we cram our schedules so full that any surprise interruption becomes an unwelcome intrusion.  We fail to get enough rest; we take on too many tasks; we don’t know what’s most important.  We tend to make time for others only when we see benefits for ourselves.  So when someone approaches us, insistent voices whisper within, “What’s in it for me?  How can this person help my work, my reputation, my favorite causes?”  Meals become times for networking.  Children become recipients of quality time.  And conversations become mostly about persuading others to our point of view.

This brings us to a third area.  We all need to learn to listen better.  Jesus was fully attuned to those he encountered.  He was present to them.  Even strangers could speak to him from their hearts.  But we race through life with so many distractions.  Ironically, we can be so busy “communicating” via instant messages, cell phones, Facebook, and e-mail that we miss out on direct human interaction.  When Kathy and I took the train from Toronto to Vancouver last month, one of the most enjoyable things we experienced was the time in Northern Canada with no cell phone or wi-fi service.  It seemed almost strange to see people actually talking with one another without distraction or interruption.  Of course there are other ways we can fail to listen fully, like tuning out whatever doesn’t interest us or focusing on what we are going to say next.  But what if we were to offer alertness to others?  There are ways to set aside such distractions—for instance, by taking a deep breath, turning to face the other, and focusing eyes and heart on them.

Listening is one way of offering hospitality to others.  And hospitality was perhaps the primary form of availability that Jesus modeled—especially as he shared meals with all kinds of people, from sinners and tax collectors to scribes and pharisees.  In the giving and receiving of hospitality, we become more able to be available to others.  This extends even to the point of acting with heroic compassion.  In the 1980s, Presbyterian minister Doug Huneke interviewed 300 people who had sheltered and rescued Jews during the Nazi holocaust.  He wanted to see if there was anything in their upbringing that led them to be more willing to risk their lives for others.  What he found was that every one of the 300 rescuers had been raised in a home that was open and welcoming to others.

Created in the image and likeness of a God who is radically present and available to us, we are led to be present and available to others—most especially those one theologian calls “the last, the least, the littlest, and the lost.”  Back to that brief scene where Matthew tells us how when Jesus goes ashore, he opens himself to the needs of the crowd.  The Greek text actually makes it clear this is not any old group of people.  The Greek word is ochlos, which might be better translated as the “masses” or the “common people” or even the “rabble.”  Recall how Jesus takes time again and again to be with the outcasts of his world—the “lost sheep”… lepers, sinners, tax collectors, foreigners, women, and children.  The ochlos comes to Jesus, and even in the midst of his deep grief “he had compassion for them and cured their sick.”

In today’s world we often seem more focused on the welfare of those at the top than those at the bottom.  Tax cuts are extended that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, yet a payroll tax cut tilted toward low- and middle-income workers could well expire in December if some politicians have their way.  Tax incentives are awarded to corporations that are reaping record profits and holding huge cash reserves, yet funds for education, healthcare, senior services, and child nutrition are all being cut.   Meanwhile both the poverty rate and the hunger rate for children in the U.S. are higher than in any other industrialized nation, and both are increasing more and more rapidly each year.    More than 4 million Americans have been unemployed for more than a year, nearly half of those for more than two years, yet more and more states are beginning to cut unemployment benefits as well as other emergency services.  Income inequality in the U.S. is as high as it has ever been in history, and it is increasing.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Who will be present and available to speak out for and act in solidarity with the last, the least, the littlest, and the lost in our midst?  Who, if not those who are followers of Jesus Christ—the one who revealed the fullness of God come to dwell among us as God-with-us?

A really surprising thing in all this is that it works both ways.  As we make ourselves more present and available to others, we will become more conscious of God’s presence and availability to us.  Jesus says, “I tell you, just as you [welcomed or met the needs] of the least of these… you did it unto me.”  And as we encounter the presence of the Living God in the last, the least, the littlest, and the lost, as well as within ourselves, God speaks to each and every one of us, saying:  “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…  Do not fear, for I am with you.”  Thanks be to God!  Amen.