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S. Pentecost 9.24 Mark 6:30-44

“He said: ‘come away with me now, yourselves, to a deserted place and rest awhile’.”

Just because…

That’s C.S. Lewis’ brilliant answer (in his spiritual memoir Surprised by Joy) to the big question: as to why he returned to the practice of Christianity, to following Jesus, to worshiping him like he’s a god, or something? Lewis says that it wasn’t (as it had been earlier, in his adolescence) because it was expected of him. And it wasn’t because of all the treats Jesus showers on us (as we do on our cats to get them to like us).

No; it was… just because.

And here, Lewis turns to the liturgy which provokes this response, to the Gloria in Excelsis, where: ‘we praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great GLORY!’ That is to say: not for any particular benefit he confers upon us, but rather… just because of his “great glory”—and a very peculiar sort of glory it is, too! A light that strikes many more as deep darkness—that is terribly appealing. But, for those who’ve developed a taste for the other-worldly, IT’s the key that fits our lock perfectly, the fulfillment of our deepest desire.

Catherine Pickstock (who teaches currently at Emmanuel College Cambridge, a founder of the Radical Orthodoxy movement) gets at the same thing in an essay on Aquinas and the Eucharist, noting how the Eucharist, for Aquinas, is all about desire—God fanning our fervor for him to a fever pitch, enticing us, leading us on a merry chase after him as our one, true love.

In that brilliant essay, Pickstock sees how this makes the peculiarly hidden quality of Jesus in the Eucharist make perfect sense. He doesn’t overwhelm us with divine might. No, he wins and woos us, he hides the power, the glory, the brilliant light of heaven under quite ordinary (though necessary!) earthly elements of bread and wine, so that it is not the fanciness of the visible food—not the Boyarsky’s famed sage encrusted rack of lamb paired with a Chateau Latour ’99 that lures us, as luxury goods will do—but it’s the basic elements of bread and wine transparent in such a way as to allow the broken body and shed blood of our Beloved, the crucified one, to be all that draws us in, separating the true worshipper from the lover of luxury goods, the pragmatic benefits seeker.

As Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, after bickering (in the best rom-com way 😉 over whose well it is, how he’s being kind of uppity demanding a drink when he has no bucket, arguing about the rite form of worship, prompting him to point out the woman’s checkered, promiscuous dating history, Jesus says ‘true worshipers worship in spirit and truth and the Father is seeking such to worship him, rite… now!’

Later, in John’s recounting of the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus tells the crowds who come chasing after him that they come (as the world is wont to rush in 😉 “not because you saw the signs, but because you ate your fill of the bread.” The world seeks him because he is, for them, a chic celebrity who has wealth, power, prestige, (and free meals 😉 to give, and not because they saw the signs that here is the LORD who made us, from whom we’ve had a messy separation on account of our affair with the prince of darkness, but who has returned with forgiveness and reconciliation in the most moving rom-com, meet cute way, ever.

Jesus is like… let’s see: what analogy shall we use, here? Ah! Rom-com! Yeah, that’s it; we can use that. OK: imagine this: you’re back at university, let’s say mid-80s, ‘a different time you understand’— no internet, no cell phones, a simpler time—and you find yourself in a large intro-history lecture, sitting next to a sorta boho-gypsy cute, not exactly stunning young lass with a mane of dark, curly hair, big black Walter Cronkite glasses, torn sweatshirt, baggy men’s chinos with a hole in the knee, red Converse All-Stars. She has this proto-hipster, barista-next-door kind of thing going on. Not really your thing, exactly.

But she has this sparky personality, so you talk—the usual playful bickering. It’s fun; you look forward to seeing her in class. But when the suggestion of maybe dinner and an art-house film Friday night floats by, you flee to the friend-zone, because you have a hot girlfriend whose personality sparkles even brighter—like the sun compared to the moon. Besides; double-dating’s gotten you in hot water before 😉

Only later, you find out the “cute, but not hot” young lass is apparently a famous Hollywood starlet. And you’re grateful for her disguise; because you are definitely shallow enough (‘deep down, we’re all pretty shallow’ as a favorite teacher of mine liked to say 😉 to have tried dating her just for her celebrity-chic—forgetting, for awhile, that sparkling personality that is the true lover’s soul delight.

It’s like this, with Jesus: he wants us to want him for the Personality that shines brighter than the sun, rather than for his celebrity-chic.

To worship in spirit and truth doesn’t come naturally to any of us. Because of our ongoing thing with the devil, we’ve developed dark and twisted tastes. We’re greedy for tawdry gain, worldly status, influence, rather than for the glory of the one, true, God.

The worst thing about Christendom, since the so-called “Enlightenment” of the 16th century especially, is pragmatism, as C.S. Lewis and Alasdair MacIntyre see with unusual clarity. We’re not after Jesus just because—just for that Personality sparkling most glorious of all. Rather, we’re seeking him for the benefits he confers. We’re just in it for the fine food, fancy drink, the prestige, the power of a King. We’re the gold diggers in Kanye’s famous song. Because, deep down, we’re all pretty shallow…

To desire the things of spirit and truth, real goodness and beauty, is not our natural state. Plus, the power and glory of God are so blinding, so awesomely beyond us, IT’ll destroy us if we see IT full bore, as we are—as Isaiah chapter 6 shows the prophet nearly undone by a mere glimpse of God’s unveiled glory.

So, Jesus comes in the form of a suffering servant, more gloriously beat than Kerouac, saying: “come away with me to a deserted place; rest awhile,” just because…

But, the crowds recognize Jesus and the 12 as wonder-working celebrities. Yet… by his teaching them new things, heavenly things, the greedy seeking for gain fades, and they become enraptured, forgetting to eat. But, having compassion, Jesus remembers them and feeds them so that it appears the disciples are doing it from some hidden stash, dividing the crowd into groups in such a way they never notice the real miracle; feeding them…

Just because.

Jesus plays hide-and-seek with us, disguised as some hobo-ranger (like Strider in Lord of the Rings) so that we’ll seek him for his Personality, not for fringe benefits bestowed, but simply for love of that adorably, gloriously broken body, that blood shed to draw us to his table now, to feed on him who is Peace, surpassing all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.