“Everyone is Looking”

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”[1]

People are clapping. Awed. Looking for the Man who healed hundreds at Peter’s house as the sun set in Capernaum the night before. And they want more. But Jesus left to pray. Until he’s interrupted by 5 words:

“Everyone is looking for you!”

Jesus has a choice: To do what he sees his Father doing [2]or to do what “everyone” is asking him to do. Perhaps all good things. But not the thing – the thing his Father is doing. Jesus responds with words I assume shattered Peter and his friend’s hopes for another day in the spotlight (because they would definitely shatter mine):

“Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

Jesus bypasses the opportunity to be a heralded healer for a second day and walks away. If you read on you see exactly where, or who, he is walking toward. The leper, the paralytic, and Levi the tax collector. Three people with nothing to give him.

It is their face Jesus has in mind as he refuses the temptation to overthrow the voice of his Father in exchange for the praise of the enthralled crowd.

This move by Jesus offends me (if I’m honest…and I want to be) when I think about the implications of what following Jesus in this Way might mean, but for some reason I keep returning to this passage. Perhaps because it holds open a door to the significance and greatness only celebrated in heaven. It is the decision to not allow the “everyone’s”, who give me a false sense of popularity, relevancy, and power,[3] cause me to miss the people right in front of me and what the Father is doing and inviting me into with Him.

As a writer, I relate to this choice Jesus faced in (much) smaller ways. My attempts to be seen by “everyone” as a valuable voice with something profound to say are often in conflict with my desire to hear and respond to what or who Jesus is leading me toward versus what people in my life want from me, or more accurately what I presume they want from me so I can prove I am valuable, important, or doing something worthy of their attention.

But lately, I sense Jesus inviting me to follow him somewhere else, toward someone else: To engage with the place and people right in front of me. Not on the squares of the Instagram scroll or the timeline of Facebook. It sounds shallow, but this cultural moment tempts me, often successfully, into believing that hearts beneath a photo with numbers define my success. Are these the metrics of heaven? Or is something else? Or more like Someone else? Here’s what I’m seeing these days with the “eyes my heart” that’s challenging me and rearranging the way I view my “why” and the purpose I am here:

I see Him with Linda, the homeless woman who sits on the same bench in front of the pizza shop downtown every day. She’s suffered a stroke in the last week. Her left arm hangs limp. The plastic hospital bracelet still wrapped around her wrist. He’s walking toward her. Bringing her a cup of coffee and sitting down next to her. Will I bring her a cup, too? Will I engage with her in a conversation that might cost me more than my false ignorance and comfortably distant and sympathetic smile?

I see Him with Henry, an angsty old man pushing a grocery cart with a squeaking wheel piled high with junk he picked up off the street past my house. He’s waking beside him. Smiling. Asking Henry why those things that belong in the dump capture his attention. Will I walk with them?

I see Him with my friend Jenn whose marriage is falling apart. As I sit with her on her porch, I hear Him ask a question. I wonder how it relates to anything going on, but as I hear Him, I know he’s inviting me to ask it, too – instead of blurting out a cliché to fill the silence. Will I ask it?

I’m beginning, though imperfectly, to pay attention to His voice. Sensed through people who simply stand out or moments where a thought seems to plant itself in my heart from the outside. As I listen to Him, my false belief about what makes me valuable in the kingdom is exposed. And I discover I only need to fix my eyes on the One and then look for the one he is with today. Easier said than done. But perhaps this is a part of life in the kingdom: Following the Man from Nazareth as He follows the voice of the Father toward Home.

[1] Mark 1:35-38

[2] John 5:19-20

[3] Henri Nouwen’s 106-page book, In the Name of Jesus, addresses with power and clarity these three temptations all followers of Jesus face. Written in 1989, it is just as relevant today (if not more).