4 Lonely Place
Mark 6:30-37
August 8, 1971.
John M. Buchanan

How do you spen that block of time in our worship service described "A
Period of Silont Prayer and Reflection"? For some people it is absorbed in
parking the car, but assuming that you are here a few minutes before the
service begins, what do you do with those moments? There is in the bulletin, ~
every week, a prayer, or 4 paragraph, chosen to stimulate your thinking, before
we engage in corporate worship together. But one of the abiding mysterics of
my ministry among you is the relative offectiveness or ineffectiveness of
this little ploy. Not once has some one said to mc, "That was a groat period
of silent prayer and reflection." So - partly out of curiosity, and partly
for a much deoper and much more serious reason, I would like to know what you
do in those moments, and whether or not the devotional helps at your disposal
are worth printing in the bullctin.

I know of one church in my home town that was notorious for its carnival-
like atmosphere preceeding worship. The congregation spent those moments
discussing the weather, the ball game yesterday, the absence or presence of
other members. The church also had an excellent organist - during whose
preludes these conversations transpired, Predictably the volume of the
prelude determined the volume with which one had to talk with one's neighbor.
On one particular Sunday the organist took it upon himself to strike a blow
of retalliation. His prelude was joyful and loud, accompanied as usual by the
conversations of the congregation carried on in normal voice. Suddenly - in
the midst of a crescendo, with all the stops out - with the sound of the
magnificient organ clashing with the raised voices of the people — he stopped
playing. And there they were, nearly yelling at each other. Tho point wan
well made, and the minutes before worship were noticeably quicter for some

time to comes

1 mow that I never fail’ to be impressed with the attitude of quiet

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reverence in a Roman Catholic Church prior to the beginning of the mass.

And I know that this is one of the impressions made on our Junior Highs

when they attend mass as part of thoir communicant training. I know that in
my own experience there are very few times and opportuni tics for solitude =
and reflection. In fact the only one I can recall that has anything to do
with formal worship took place at a camp I attended as a child. Every eve-
ning after dinner we walked to a hill for vespers, And the rule stipulated

no talking from the time one left the road until one came back down after—
ward. Now there aro plenty of ways to communicate other than verbally, and

we employed them with a great deal of ingenuity. Affection for a cute girl
might be conveyed, for instance, by a well-aimed pine cone, lobbed in her
MMseotion. Nevertheless, when I try to recall experiences of quiet reflection,
I can only remember those — the trees, birds, setting sun — the ministers
whose words I have long since forgotten. In the midst of that, in spite of
the coerced reverence, and the adolescent distractions, a person had to think
and reflect and become conscious of self in a new way. It was good and it
hasn't happened to me mich since. In fact, the only time for reflecting in
solitude now scems to be as I wage silent war against the weeds, which at
least has the advantage of forcing me to be on my knees,

In any case, part of Christian experience - particularly worship exper-
ience, ought to be devotional, reflective. Part of our practice of personal
faith ought to include meditation, silent prayer, and if not that, at least
times in which we are totally alone with ourselves and our thoughts.

There arc, howover, two phenomena, that prevent this from ahappening.
The first is our culture which is anything but reflective and quiet. The
second is that quiet, reflective moments can be difficult and sometimes
painful. Yet, given these two impediments -— and we shall deal with both
of them — one of the basic needs of persons is for rest, renewal, rejuv—
antion; for experiences of re-creation, or recreation. But it ie at the

same time, the basic human need, that reccives the least amount of attention.

All of that was precipitated by a little vignette from the Gospel
according to Mark -.which appeared on the lectionary for the Sunday of my
return from vacation. A happy coincidence, by the way, for this family
returns from a vacation -— as do most of you - in a kind of nervous shock,
needing nothing so much as the relative restfulness of the busy daily routine.

Early in his ministry Jesus sent the apostles out, two by two, for a
field trip in discipleship. Their instructions wee to visit the villages of
Galilea, teaching, preaching and healing. The success of their venture is
documented by the fact that King Herod thought John the Baptist, whom he
had beheaded, had returned to life. Im any case, they returned to Jesus,

tired we might assume, physically and emotionally exhausted. And Jesus said,

"Come with me, by yourselves, to some lonely place where you can rest quictly."

Mark adds, paranthetically, "For they had no licsure even to eat, sO many
were coming and going."

They needed, that is to say, an experience of re-creation: a place to
go to be alone with their thoughts and their Lord. It was his presoription
for xis immediate need and I don't think it is over-interpretation to
suggest that there is a word here for us. For, as I suggested earlier, most
of us are strangers to this kind of experience and that we have — all of
us - a basic need for reflection and solitude, or simply a lonely place.

Two impediments stand in the way: the first is cultural. Visitors to
our country are amazed at many things, chief among them the speed of our
common life style. Persons from other cultures find simply incomprehens—
ible the frantic rate of life lived by most Americans. There is no obvious
liesure, everyone is in a hurry, life is not complete unless every waking
moment is crammed with activity. Consider, for instance, the devise of
the porch swing. You don't see many any more, and they symbolize a dying
life style that included long evenings spent swinging gently, talking when
necessary, but mostly just swinging and thinking. Wo don't have time for

that any moro.

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Even vacation — that time for putting our lives back together, that
time specifically and particularly set apart for re-creation becomes just
another set of goals to be accomplished and an agenda to be attacked with
vigor and determination. The best illustration I can think of comes again
out of recent experience, The Atlantic City expressway - route to tho
liesurely pace of life on the sea shore is so crammed with determined
motorists that one feels a sense of accomplishment simply arriving without
a major accident. And I think I sensed in the grim faces of fellow vaca~
tioners, - and a little bit in myself, an ironic sense of determination that
this is going to be fun or else. The fact is, we don't take vacations — we
attack them, and they cost us more in terms of physical and emotional energy
than our normal routine.

It's cultural , I believe. It is a spillover from the Amorican work
ethic which dictates that if you're not physically doing something you mus t
be up to something immoral. It is part of our life style: it is part of
me, I confess. I'm not sure it is all bad ~ but I do know that it makes
reflection, solitude, quiet, meditation, a rare experience indeed.

The other impediment is that the very nature of quiet reflection is
difficult and sometimes unpleasant. There is no doubt that one of the
surest methods of escapism, other than drugs and alcohol, is busyness. If
wo can simply keep busy - keep mind and body occupied - we won't have to
confront our problems, unresolved dilemmas, quiet, frustration,unmet needs.
And again this is not always bad - in fact, it is sometimes therapeutic.

But when it becomes escapism - it is personally destructive.

For in solitude, in the lonely place, that which we meet is none other
than self. In quict moments we are aware of ourselves - our bodies, our
minds, our feclings. In lonely places we cannot avoid awareness of our
woaknesses and our strengths. We cannot avoid awareness of failures as well

as successes, unkept promises, unsaid words, undone deeds. In reflection

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we develop "gelf—awareness" which ig absolutely essential to mature, adult
life. But it is not always a pleasant experience. Sometimes we would
rather avoid the person we encounter when we are alone. And = rather than
seeking out tho experience we try not to let it happen. We switch on the
car radio rather than live with our thoughts, or turn on T.V. rather than
reflect in silence.

A philosopher once observed that no man can spend more than a few min~
utes of thought alonc, without thinking about God. I find that to be true,
not in the sonse of thinking up next week's sermon; but th the kind of
mystical way that quiet moments always seem to drive me back to some funda-
wanhat things like God and life and death and the world and my small role
in it. In June I attended a seminar at a church retreat center in New
Mexico. Beyond the content of the seminar which had to do with process
planning, I will long remember two experiences which for me were rare. One
involved a walk at night time - alone — simply to fill time. The ranch is
totally isolated: miles from the nearest road - and at night utterly and
' absolutely quict. The sky was bright with stars - and I found it quite
impossible not to contemplate the creator God. The other occasion was a
horse back ride up into the surrounding mountains. TI knew no one else on
the trip, and other than maintaining my precarious position in the saddle
had nothing to occupy my mind except the wind and sky and mountains, and
again I experienced a new sense of the omnipotence and omnitience of God.
the creator,

I find intriguing the disaries of men who are lost on hunting trips, or
in light plane accidents, or at sea. Almost without exception, the enforced
isolation drives the thought processes to deep and basic matters. For it
is impossible to be alone long without thinking about God.

The late Dietrich Bonhoeffer was instrumental in establishing an
underground seminary for German pastors during the Nazi era. He wrote 4

little manuel for this unique community entitled "Life Together". In it

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he says, over and over again, that the daily discipline iia include regular
mek of od tection and reflection. For this fine thinker, who could have
held down a chair in the Philosophy Department of any university in the world,
moments of quiet reflecting were the very bread of life. I mention him be-
cause his faith led him a step further than the philosopher's statement that
lonely thinking leads inevitably to God. It was Bonhoeffer's conviction

that God comes to men in this experience: that it is not just the meandering
of an idle mind that forces men to confront themselves and contemplate deep
things. Rather it is the restless spirit of God speaking to the spirit of
man; the alive word of God addressing the open mind of man: the risen
Christ touching the lives of men.

Not exclusively. He was not urging a return to the contemplative life
of the monks. In fact he left his academic community to participate in am
assination attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler. He well kmnos that the life
of discipleship - your life and mine - is lived in the moral ambuguity of
the world: and that wo serve Christ out thore where men bleed and get fired
and get divorced and commit crimes or our service is lip service only. He
knew well the wordliness of Christian discipleship. But he also knew that
apart from this deep communion with Jesus Christ it was a sterile worldli-
ness. And he knew that reflection, solitide, a lonely place was all he
had by way of re-creation.

Jesus was sensitive to this need in his disciples. The great men of
faith down through the centuries have been sensitive to this need in them-—
selves. Can it be less important for us? Take time: make time in which
the waters of your spirit can flow deeply: in which your thinking can run
freely: in which the Spirit of God can speak to your spirit. Find your
lonely place. Amen.

For our prayer this morning I would share with you the words of John
Baillie, great theologian, who wrote a classic of devotional literature under
the title""A diary of Privat Prayer" This from an evening weapes for the
Twenty-sixth day. Let us pray: