Friends,

It has been a very long time since I have taken a planned Sunday off. Now, there have been a couple of Sundays I was not at St. Luke’s, but I was still preaching, like at our vestry and parish retreats at Shrine Mont. This also does not mean that I haven’t taken vacations. I was just on vacation a couple of weeks ago, but worked things out so I didn’t have to miss a Sunday. I am not saying this to sounds like a poor, suffering, and over-worked priest. On the contrary, this week I keep finding my mind wandering to the lectionary to see what the lessons are for this Sunday and next, and then I realize that I won’t be preaching the next TWO Sundays!!! Your former associate priest, Rev. Grace Pratt will be filling in for me both Sundays at all three services, and honestly, I am jealous because she has a great narrative arch in the Gospels about Jesus constantly trying to take a break, but people keep pestering him, so he performs miracles. If you are Jesus, then it is truly hard to take a break, but like most everyone else, I just sometimes convince myself I am that important. This Saturday, my entire family will be flying to Northwest Georgia to go to my favorite place in the world, which is a little-known lake in the middle of the nowhere and surrounded by mountains, and I am currently thinking of little else.

This spot is sacred to my family. We have been going for about twenty years, when we “won” a weekend at someone’s vacation home at a Church silent auction. Back then, we were the only branch of our family tree that had moved south, but we loved the experience so much that we convinced our families up in Ohio and Michigan to join us for our big annual family get-together, and it has been a thing ever since. We tried other lakes, but they all paled in comparison to our beloved spot, and now it is just understood that in July everyone has to be poised to make the annual pilgrimage to our lake.

There are a lot of wonderful things about this place. Other than one small developed spot, it is completely wild. The water is so clean and clear that you feel fresh and clean when you get out. As long as you go out first thing in the morning, the water is so smooth it’s like you’re wakeboarding on glass. The best part of this place is less apparent. It is so isolated, that you are trapped with everyone else at the house. If you want to go Walmart, you are looking at a forty-minute drive down winding roads. There’s no going out to eat, escaping the crowd to play put-put golf, watch a movie or anything. The fun and beautiful things are nice, but what I am looking forward to the most is being trapped with those whom I love the most, especially if there is a rainy day, and we can’t even make it on the boat. In those moments where nothing is planned and there is a critical mass of love, humor and affection relationships are rekindled, games are invented, inside jokes are born, and life feels easy.

While I am away, you’ll hear two Gospel stories that involve Jesus going to a remote place, people following him, and then him showing compassion to them sometimes involving loaves and fishes and other miracles. These are just two of many stories in all four Gospels that follow a similar format, and I see it as a living example of how the first will be last and the last will be first. Jesus going out to the wilderness acting a filter of sorts. Those who were comfortable and well-off remained in the populated areas, but I suspect those in the most need of healing, compassion or good news, would be most likely to follow a rumor that Jesus was wondering out into the wilderness in the hope their needs could be fulfilled, and their hope as not in vain. It was because of the fact that they were vulnerable and in need of hope and healing, that these crowds received an audience with their savior. Jesus came to save the comfortable too, they just didn’t get front row seats in the wilderness.

Stay-cations become a thing every once and while, especially when money gets tight, but they never become a permanent fixture in our culture. There is something about getting away that feels so necessary. People go on pilgrimages and all that, but even in the most secular settings, it is something we feel compelled to do. The Gospels overtly claim that Jesus was trying to get away, so he would have enough time to even eat, but when he was away from it all, he found himself surrounded by those who need to feel God’s love the most. Maybe God has written something in our DNA to compel us to escape the spaces we have control over, like our homes and places of work, so we can experience our own filter. I know this isn’t true, but deep down in my subconscious, I want to believe that Church couldn’t happen without me on Sunday, but it will. It’s good to be reminded that we are not nearly as bound by our obligations as we think we are, just as it is good to be bound with those who will meet us in the middle of nowhere, because of a rumor that something good is happening.

I’ll be back in the office July 29th. I can’t wait to hear how wonderful things were while I was away.

Blessings,

Nick