“Simon and his companions
hunted for Jesus…”
I don’t know what your
reaction was when you heard those words from our Gospel this morning, but mine
was a feeling of tremendous sympathy. There’s something very poignant about
this story. Jesus has begun his ministry in a whirlwind of activity in
Capernaum. It all starts with Simon Peter’s mother in law, laid up with a
fever. Jesus heals her, lifting her up not just physically but spiritually and
emotionally too, giving her back her life. It’s a very personal favour, helping
out a friend. But of course, everyone else gets to hear of it, and Jesus is
besieged. By evening “The whole city was gathered around the door” says
Mark. That has to be an exaggeration, but that’s how it feels. In Jesus’ world,
what help was there for those who were sick or troubled? Precious little. Life
was precarious, especially for those who were poor to start with. When word got
out that here was a healer who could raise a woman from her sick bed just like
that, no wonder people flocked to Jesus. And he responded. “He cured many
who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.”
Finally, when the last
patient went away healed, Jesus could rest. And then, in the early morning, we are
told, while it was still dark, he crept out of the town to find some space to
pray, some time to be with God. It was still dark, and no one saw him go. But
as soon as dawn came, so did the next wave of sick people wanting his help. The
disciples didn’t know what to do, but they knew that Jesus would. They were
riding high on a wave of excitement. So out they go, and they hunt him down.
The Greek word Mark uses is the same one you would use of hunting an animal,
pursuing it until you catch and kill it. They don’t just look for him; they
hunt for him, without any apparent thought for what his needs might be. And
when they find him they tell him “everyone is searching for you…”
Who is this “everyone”? Didn’t he have the “whole city” at his door the day
before? Didn’t he work his way through every disease this town could throw at
him then? Where have these people come from?
The fact is that human need
was endless then, just as it is now. Anyone who works in any sort of public
service – teachers, medical staff, social workers, emergency services - will
know that. The job is never done. You can help one person, but there will be
another and another and another coming along behind them. If you do something
well, you can be sure that you will be expected to repeat the miracle, and do
it better, and faster, and probably for less money next time…If you fail, it
won’t escape attention. Everyone has an opinion on what you are doing. We’ve
all been to school, so we think we are all experts on education. We’ve all been
ill, so we know how the NHS should be run. We feel free to sit on the side
lines, to criticise and demand. Today is Education Sunday, a day when we are
asked especially to pray for those who work in that particular part of our
public service – if you are a teacher or work in a school, thank you for all
you do. We do know how hard it can sometimes be.
Those in other jobs are also
hounded by the demands of work, of course, especially in the current financial
climate. There is always pressure to do more with less, to work ever faster and
smarter. It is easy to find yourself looking constantly over your shoulder,
having to stay ahead of the competition all the time. And whatever we are doing, if we have a
conscience we want to be doing it well, not letting others down, working with
integrity.
For those who have no work the
pressures can be just as bad; despite what the tabloid press says, life on
benefits, for the vast majority of people, is extremely tough. It can be
frightening, humiliating and depressing.
And working or not, any of us
can find ourselves beset with family struggles, health problems and a host of
other worries which drive us to despair.
Sometimes we all feel hounded
by our responsibilities, hunted down. A
pack of demands bays at our heels, and we don’t know where to turn to get away
from them. All we want to do is sit and rest for a while. And that is where we
find Jesus at this very human moment, hunted down by people who want one more
healing, one more word of advice, just a minute of his time…
We could just stop there, and
this story would have given us something precious to take away. Sometimes it is
enough simply to recognise that Jesus has been where we are. We can see his
footprints in our own human lives. But if we read on we discover that as well
as sharing our exhaustion, Jesus’ example can also help us to deal with it,
because somehow, from somewhere, he finds the strength not only to continue
with his work, but also to broaden it. “Let us go on to the neighbouring
towns,” he says “so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that
is what I came out to do.” When I
hear that response I think to myself, “Whatever Jesus was on, I need some of it
too…!”
The clue, I think, is in what
Jesus is doing when he is discovered by Simon. He hasn’t got up in the early
morning to worry, or to plan, or to get some other jobs out of the way. He has
got up in the morning to pray. It is prayer which is the key to the way he
copes with pressure. That probably doesn’t sound very exciting or revolutionary,
but it is true.
My experience is that churchgoers
often have a very ambivalent attitude to prayer. Many people feel it is
something they ought to do – like going to the gym or cutting down on cakes –
but somehow they don’t get around to it. Praying at services is one thing, or
in desperate situations, but regular prayer is really for the professionals – “say
one for me, vicar!” People are often rather coy about prayer, as if it is an
odd thing to do. And does it really matter that much? Will it really make such
a difference?
According to Jesus, and
looking at his example, yes, it will. Not because it will magically solve our
problems, but because it will help us to see them in a new light, to set them
in a new context. When we are feeling hunted, in particular, it seems to me
that prayer can do two things which nothing else quite achieves.
Firstly it reminds us, quite
simply, that God is there. When Jesus prays he re-discovers again and again
that he doesn’t have to fight singlehanded against the powers of darkness. He gives
himself permission to need help, and to ask for that help. When we pray we do
the same, and that’s tremendously liberating. I don’t have to save the world. I
don’t have to have all the answers. I don’t have to know what to do. I can acknowledge
my limits with great gratitude and relief.
Prayer helps us to cut ourselves some slack. Our hands can only hold so
much – that’s how it should be – so we put ourselves, and those things which
are hounding us, into the hands of a God who has no limits.
The second thing that happens
when Jesus prays is that he draws on the strength of a whole community of
faith. I say that because at this time the normal practice of prayer, which I
am sure Jesus followed, was to pray seven times a day, using words from the
Bible, Psalms and set prayers. Of course people also simply poured out their
hearts to God in extemporary prayer too, but the backbone of private devotion
were these common prayers that were laid down and shared. Christians carried on
with that pattern, and they still do. In monasteries there is a daily round of
prayer, starting with Matins in the early hours and going through to Compline, which
finished – completed - the day’s prayer.
You don’t have to be a monk
or nun to pray in this way, though, and there are countless simplified and
shortened versions of these daily forms of prayer around. I’ve included some in
the leaflets on prayer on the table at the front. So long as whatever you do suits you, becomes
familiar - and you don’t beat yourself up if you don’t always stick to it - it
will do fine. Praying this way - leaning
on an inheritance of faith and using words that reflect the struggles and the
wisdom of those who have gone before you – reminds you that you aren’t ploughing
a lonely furrow. You are slipping into a tide of prayer, like a river which
flows on taking you with it. It isn’t the only way of praying – prayer can take
many forms – but it is particularly valuable in those hunted moments, when you
have nothing left of yourself to give.
If you have been watching the
Sunday evening drama “Call the Midwife” you’ll have seen this sort of prayer in
action. The programme is about a young and not particularly religiously minded
midwife in the 1950’s who finds herself, more or less by accident, working in a
nursing order of Anglican nuns in the slums of the East End of London. Time and
again she comes to the end of her tether, weighed down by the pain and squalor
she encounters. How can these nuns have endured it for decades, delivering
babies through the Blitz, facing the suffering around them day after day? The
answer gradually becomes clear to her. Punctuating each day, there is prayer,
come what may. If they can gather together they do, but if not they pray alone,
in the words they know their sisters in the convent are also using. It is an
anchor that holds them, a context into which to put all the burdens of the day,
a reminder that, whatever has happened, God is still there, and so are others.
In prayer we tell ourselves
the truth; that we are not alone, that it isn’t all down to us. When the hounds
of overwork, unrealistic expectation, failure or fear have hunted us down and
got us cornered, alone and afraid, it is prayer that holds us steady, and
prayer that will put us back on our feet again.
Amen
“Call The Midwife: A True
Story Of The East End In The 1950s” by Jennifer Worth.
