Alone or Lonely?
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Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
July 18, 2021—Proper 11B
Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
There’s a difference between being alone, and being lonely. Today’s readings highlight that truth nicely.
At the beginning of the Gospel, Jesus needs to be alone. Needs to get away from the demands of the crowds, and all the distractions and stress, to have the space to process the death of John the Baptist. The death, that is, of his cousin, so recently beheaded by Herod at the request of someone who did not like having their sinful behavior pointed out.
So there was grief there for Jesus, surely, and probably some anger. One can only imagine there might also have been some fear. Jesus, after all, was also a prophet, also a person who did not shrink away from criticizing the behavior of the people in power. He knew the risks of his mission, and John’s death threw those into extremely stark relief.
So it’s not surprising that he wanted to get away. To have no one else to take care of for a while (and as a caretaker, both professionally and at home, let me repeat that just for the sweetness of it: to have no one else to take care of). To set all other responsibilities aside, and just be in his feelings, and pray, and get his head back together.
Being alone helps many of us recharge. It’s a form of sabbath rest: ceasing from those things that require our energy and focus and action, and entering a space that allows us to take stock, to gain a larger perspective, and to recharge.
There’s value in being alone.
But loneliness is a whole other animal. Loneliness doesn’t suggest a healthy, deliberate choice to be quiet with your self and your God. It carries the suggestion of being cut off or cut out of; it is the situation described in today’s reading from Ephesians, in which someone was previously outside, alien, and a stranger, without hope and without God. Lonely. But now there is cause for celebration, because in Christ, all are welcomed in. He has broken down the dividing walls: making us all citizens, making us all members, making us all one. Which means that in Christ, we witness the upending of any system that has declared one group to be in and another to be out.
Now, it should be noted that the theological question of what it means to be a “The Chosen People” is not our issue to wrestle with. Jewish writers and teachers are doing great things with that, all the time. But we still have plenty of our own experience of in and out groups, don’t we? We have it from all the times that we’ve found ourselves alone at the lunch table, whether literally or figuratively. And we also have it from the times we have ourselves banished people with the simple power of words like deplorable, or good for nothing, or savages, or idiots, or any other in an endless list of ways to turn people into “the other.”
We’ve experienced it from both sides. And the painful thing to admit is that our own times of being excluded have not always inspired us to break down divisions: sometimes they’ve made us hold on even tighter to the times that we get to be on the inside. We are, at base, a tribal species, and it generally feels safer for there to be an inside to be in, and then to do whatever it takes to stay inside it!
Except that sometimes, whatever it takes to be inside feels like death. And sometimes, those who have been excluded really do die. And sure, that might be the brutal reality of survival at certain points in human history. But it’s rarely true in our current day. And it’s clearly NOT the Kingdom of God that Jesus assures us is as near to us as breathing.
Christ’s kingdom asks us to give up the identities we use to protect and define us over and above other people. In Galatians, Paul speaks of Christ breaking down gender and class, religion and nationality. Here in Ephesians, he focuses on those last two, even daring to suggest that the Ephesians should value citizenship in God’s Kingdom over the privileges of Roman citizenship, which (believe me) is even more audacious than me suggesting you should put allegiance to Christ before your allegiance to America.
Let them all go. All the things that make you feel in. All those things that cast you out. Let them go. Because you cannot serve two masters. You cannot cling to all those old ways of belonging, cannot define yourself by those things, cannot hold yourself separate from so many other people, and also truly belong to Christ.
And honestly, why would any of us want to hang onto all that petty tribalism, when the things it offers are just pale imitations of the richness of God’s kingdom? Pale imitations of the truest kind of safety, the deepest bonds of connection, the most meaningful, ground-shaking understanding of love.
To be in Christ is to begin to understand a different kind of belonging. After all, the Kingdom of God is general admission and there are unlimited tickets available. Which means its power and significance do not rest on the idea of “I am in and you are out.” On the contrary, its power rests in the exact opposite: in the breathtaking idea that we can all be united in Christ. All of us: members. All of us: citizens. All of us: siblings.
Take a moment to sit within that. You … you are a member of the kingdom, a member of the body. That man under the overpass, who could almost be mistaken for a heap of old clothes: that man … he is a member of the kingdom, a member of the body. Your least favorite politician … they too are a member of the kingdom, a member of the body. Along with the person you most admire, and that random drug dealer, and your needy ex-girlfriend. All, equally, members. All, in fact, kinfolk. None of them “other.”
My God, what does that mean? What would it mean, what would we be, if we truly understood that to be so? It makes me gasp to even consider it, to be honest. It strips me bare and leaves me with nothing and yet opens up … everything! As though something immensely powerful has brushed past me, touching me with the edge of its cloak, and healed me of things that I didn’t even know needed mending.
That’s the only thing that can get me there, that’s for sure. Jesus definitely needs to be the peace between us, because I certainly don’t have it in me to step into this understanding on my own. But perhaps, with Jesus as the foundation, knowing that the ground will hold under my feet, I can take that first step. Perhaps, if I remember to invite the Spirit to accompany me, I can move out of “But I’m right and you are wrong,” can move beyond mere self-protection and into brave space. Into kingdom space. Into a belonging that is as wide and as beautiful as God’s mercy.
My friends, may it be so for us all. Amen.