Daily Lesson for January 14, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 1 verses 35 through 38:

35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”

Sometimes what Jesus chose not to do amazes me more than what he did.

In the small village of Capernaum Jesus was up into the wee hours of the night healing the diseased and casting out demons. The next morning even more people came for healing, but Jesus had slipped away early in the morning while it was still dark. He went out alone to pray and when the disciples finally found him and told him about all the people who needed healing Jesus refused to go back.  "Let's go to the other towns," he said, "that I what I am supposed to do."

The tyranny of the urgent drives what we do so much that it often keeps us from what we are supposed to be doing. It's all good work, and it's the work we were called to yesterday.  But it's not necessarily the work we are supposed to be doing today. Yet it's so hard to give it up.  To give it up and to let it go risks disappointing others.  And disappointment means disapproval; and disapproval is the last thing most of us willing to accept.  That's especially true for us pastors, who Stanley Hauerwas once called "quivering masses of availability"; but really it's true for a whole lot of us clergy and lay people alike. We need to be needed; it's a part of our God complex.

Yet we see, the Son of God had no such complex. Early in the morning Jesus slipped away from the people to be with God. And there he gained the insight to see the need to be needed for what it really was -- a temptation.  And there too, through prayer and meditation, Jesus found the courage to resist. Jesus was most definitely not all things to all people; but he was what he was called to be.  And that's what made him faithful.

The tyranny of the urgent will soon be upon us. A thousand needs will soon be at our doors. Would we dare to risk the disappointment and disapproval of others to take time out to be with God and find out if the things we were about yesterday are really what we are supposed to be about today?  And if they aren't, would we dare to answer the call to go on to other towns?