The Rev. Ann R. Lougee
July 23, 2006
"Disciples on Retreat"
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The gospel reading for today is divided into two sections. Together the sections tell us two important things about Jesus and human wholeness.

Knowing that one person cannot do everything for everybody, Jesus had sent forth his disciples two by two, to teach and heal. Now they have come back, in what was probably a noisy reunion, all twelve talking at once, telling Jesus and each other about the things they had done, what they had taught and experienced.

Apparently their ministry of healing and teaching has also attracted crowds. "For many were coming and going, and the disciples had no leisure even to eat" in peace. Jesus' response is to invite the disciples to get into a boat and go to a lonely, deserted place. For even though they are wanting to share their stories, and are probably excited and not sounding tired, Jesus understands their need to "recharge their batteries" after their venture into ministry. So, first, we see that Jesus understood the need for regular replenishing and renewal in order to minister to others.

Jesus understands very well what it is to reach a saturation point with people's needs, the wear and tear of constantly being available to people, and the need to go apart for a little while for quiet and rest. Even Jesus, as important as he obviously feels his ministry is, cannot keep it up without time for renewal and replenishment.

The gospel tell us that he withdraws frequently to pray. So that's the first thing this text tells us about wholeness: that we need to replenish the springs of our souls -- or rather to allow God to replenish them.

The second thing today's text tells us about wholeness is about healing. When Jesus and the disciples get to their supposed "lonely place," they discover that there are crowds waiting to meet them there too. Jesus could have been irritated by this invasion of intended privacy, could have been angry and dismissed the crowds as "groupies" and "hangers-on." The disciples could have tried to send them away too.

But that isn't what happened. Instead, Jesus saw the crowds as they were, "like sheep without a shepherd," and had compassion on them. He saw their broken-ness and alienation, their desperation to find meaning and wholeness, and he responded to them.

Now he probably wouldn't have had the ability to postpone his intended rest if he hadn't had a pattern of active retreat. He didn't wait until he was entirely spent before withdrawing for rest and renewal, but did so regularly, according to the gospels.

So people brought their sick to him to be healed, believing that they could be made whole by contact with him. The author of Mark expects us to understand this contact as contact with God. So the text is claiming that healing is not so much dropped on people out of the blue as it is given by God to those who open themselves to receive it.

To get the full meaning of the word "healing" as it's used in the Bible, we need to think of it in as broad a sense as possible -- as restoration to wholeness, as healing of body, mind and spirit. We need to think of it also in terms of healing the past, freeing persons from captivity to guilt and regret. We need to think of it as healing the mind, releasing one from anxiety and restoring one to a life of trust and confidence.

It is this kind of healing that these people anticipated and expected if they could simply touch the fringe of Jesus' cloak. In the Bible, there is close correlation between the words healing, wholeness, and salvation.

Our word salvation is from the same root as the word "shalom," which means all of them: healing, wholeness and salvation. To be healed is to be made whole. Healing may not always be what we hope for. Faith is not some kind of magical method of getting what we want from God. Rather, our faith can open the door to allow God to bring healing of body, mind and spirit into our lives.

When we are ill, we hope, of course, for physical healing. But the healing that eventually comes may be strength of spirit and confidence in God that can sustain us through the difficulty of a physical illness.

As a pastor, I have been privileged a number of times to be in intimate situations in which I have witnessed what I would call the healing of some individuals into death. Physically, they were not restored, but as they approached the end of life these persons became completely whole, sometimes even luminously so.

Jesus knew something really important about the ministry of wholeness, healing, and salvation. He knew that wholeness comes to those who, in faith, both expect it and leave its shape up to God.

He knew also that care-givers must from time to time be replenished. All of us are called to give and to serve, but Jesus modeled a rhythm to life that included hard work and quiet retreat. The Jewish people had known this rhythm in their six day work week followed by a day for sabbath rest, and they had known it in their daily prayer times. Jesus observed this rhythm well, according to scripture.

Giving and serving actually requires seeing first that our own needs are met. After you settle into your seat on an airplane, the flight attendants demonstrate the safety devices. One of the things they always say is that, if you are traveling with people who need your assistance, like small children, in case of a drop in cabin pressure you should put on your own oxygen mask before attempting to put on the other person's. This is a good metaphor to remind us that we've got to meet our own needs before we can meet another's.

One of my friends says that church people divide into two categories -- those who take on too much and those who don't do a thing. She says that from time to time we pastors need to give a kick in the rump to the couch potatoes and give permission to drop a few things to those who get overly involved.

So, mind you, what I'm advocating is not constant sloth, but termporary retreat. There's also a difference between a "retreat" and an"escape."
A retreat is not a disengagement from life. It is an active moving into faith by allowing ourselves to have time to heal and to listen to our lives, to listen for God's voice. A retreat is a withdrawal in order to come back and re-engage, whereas an escape is simply running away.

We all know some people who have become so enamored of the concept of spiritual disciplines that they have pulled away for retreat, but then they haven't re-engaged in life; their faith becomes devoid of the discipleship and service in which it is meant to result. The healthy Christian life involves activity to the limit of our capacity, and also active retreat in which we allow God to recharge our spiritual batteries. Our goal is to alternate hard work and rest, back and forth, in a continual rhythm as the gospels say that Jesus did.

Many of us have a hard time with the concept of retreat. We think we need to be busy all the time. But if we completely fill our time and our minds, we haven't left any room for God to work in us so that we become strangers to our own selves and to our own idle thoughts, through which we may hear God speak. We need some time each day to be empty.
Martin Luther, the great Reformer, is said to have taken two hours every day to pray. Somebody asked him how he could fit prayer into an already frantically busy schedule, and he said he could never keep up that schedule if it weren't for those two hours a day.

Contemporary writer and lecturer, Scott Peck, says the same kind of thing. People ask him how he can manage to do all that writing and lecturing, and he says it is because he spends two hours out of every day doing nothing. If you press him more closely, however, he says that what he does in those two hours is pray, meditate, and exercise. He makes a big thing of the body, mind and spirit all being of one piece, just as the ancient Hebrews did, so that you need to take care of yourself as a whole.

This is, of course, the reason for a spiritual retreat, a retreat of the kind that we are all invited to attend this fall. It isn't that we think we can make up for neglecting our spiritual lives on a daily basis, but that in a group retreat we can share some experiences that refresh us. It isn't that we can't engage in spiritual exercises and active retreat on our own, but that our shared experience of retreat may encourage us to do so in our daily lives, and also teach us some new spiritual tools or techniques.

After that kind of shared experience, we may also find it much more natural and appropriate to encourage each other to pursue and continue active retreat on our own. We may support each other in maintaining the spiritual exercises and disciplines that refresh and replenish our capacity for discipleship and ministry.

Obviously, I hope many of you will go on our fall spiritual retreat, which will include plenty of free time and freedom, as well as fellowship and group experience. But whether or not you attend, I hope that every one of us will learn more about giving ourselves permission to have regular, quiet, unproductive time in which God may speak and work in our interior selves, equipping us for our respective works of ministry. That's the purpose of disciples on retreat, after all. It's to help us to be whole before we try to give of ourselves. It's to create in us the rhythm that Jesus danced to, the rhythm of retreat and return, rest and service.

This may seem like a trivial matter to talk about when the world around us is erupting into new violence, particularly, of course, in the Middle East. But let's remember that the times in which Jesus lived were very violent, troubled times. In spite of that, or perhaps all the more because of it, he maintained that rhythm so that he was never depleted and was able to respond to the needs around him. May it be so for us. Amen.