Twenty years ago, a movie called When Harry Met Sally premiered in theaters. I suspect that some of you might have heard of it or even seen it.
In the movie, Harry—played by Billy Crystal—meets Sally—played by Meg Ryan—when they end up sharing a ride from the University of Chicago to New York. On the way, they have some in depth conversations about life. (What else is there to do on such a long car ride?) Upon arriving at their destination, they part ways.
Five years later, by sheer coincidence, they find themselves sitting side-by-side on a plane flight. Their conversation continues, picking up from where it left off five years ago. When the flight ends, they depart and once again go their separate ways.
Another five years pass, and once again there is another chance encounter. Then the chance encounters start coming more frequently, and their relationship evolves.
There are other movies that develop love stories around chance encounters. Movies like Life is Beautiful, one of my all-time favorites, comes to mind…
It’s kind of fun leaving things to chance; unexpectedly running in to the same person. At least, it is in the movies. I wonder, though, how well that would work in the real world, in a variety of circumstances…
“Thank you for applying for the position, Mr. Merriweather. When can we schedule you for an interview?”
“Oh, let’s not schedule anything. It’s much more fun to leave things to chance. Maybe we’ll just run in to each other.”
Or how about this one: “When’s the first day of school?”
“Well, we decided to not set a date. We’re just going to wait and see when the teachers show up, and when the students show up… who knows? If we’re lucky, some of them might even show up on the same day.”
One more: two people meet, fall in love, and get married. After the wedding, they set off on their honeymoon. But, instead of deciding together where they should go, they get into separate cars and—without any advance planning—hope that somehow, they’ll end up at the same place.
Strangely enough, after the wedding, many married couples really do leave a lot to chance. They do get into separate cars, figuratively speaking, hoping to—somehow—arrive at the same destination. Their desire is to stay together, to grow old together, to grow deeper in love. And yet, those intimate conversations they had while they were dating become less and less frequent. The bills arrive, the children arrive, their lives become a whirlwind of family activities and responsibilities.
They don’t schedule any time together, just the two of them. They just leave it to chance. But with everything else going on in their lives, “chance” doesn’t have a chance. Instead of growing together, they start growing apart. They keep hoping that they’ll “rediscover” one another, but unless they schedule a time for that to happen, it probably won’t.
In the real world, if you just wait for something to happen, it’s not gonna happen.
When asked about their faith, about the times when they feel especially close to God, many people will mention a chance encounter they had with God, an unexpected moment when they were intensely aware of God’s presence. Most will agree that such moments are wonderful and meaningful experiences. Most will also agree that such moments are rare. Too rare.
The fact that these moments occur so infrequently is because we usually leave them to chance.
We want to have deep, meaningful, personal encounters with God. We want to have those intimate conversations with God, conversations that will draw us closer to God. Unless I am mistaken, that’s one of the main reasons you’re here: to learn how you can grow closer to God.
Jesus knew that, to do the work that he had been called to, he had to stay close to God. He had to stay in touch with God, maintain a strong relationship with God. It was, after all, God’s work that he was called to do.
If anyone had an excuse to not do the hard work of maintaining a relationship with God, it was Jesus—especially on a day like the one described in our scripture reading from the first chapter of Mark. What a day it was. Jesus spent some time teaching in the synagogue. While there, he got involved in a little apocalyptic battle with a demon. Then he went to the home of Simon and Andrew, where Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever. Jesus went in to her, took her by the hand, and healed her.
Perhaps at this point, Jesus was ready for a nice quiet meal. It was not to be. People began to gather at the door, a whole crowd of people. Soon the whole city was gathered around the door, people who were sick with various diseases, people who were in need of healing. Late in to the night, Jesus ministered to them, healing them. Under the light of the stars and the moon, he healed them.
After a night like that, it would be quite understandable if Jesus wanted to sleep in. No one would have thought any less of him. If someone came looking for him in the morning, and was told by one of the disciples, “I’m sorry, but Jesus needs his rest,” they would have understood.
But it didn’t happen that way. If anyone did come in the morning looking for Jesus, they would have found all the disciples asleep. And if they decided to wake one of the disciples to ask about Jesus—if they had decided to wake, say, Andrew—Andrew would have stretched his arms, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, looked around, and then said, “I don’t know. I don’t know where Jesus is.”
And he would have woken up his brother Simon. “Hey, Simon. Simon, wake up! Where’s Jesus?”
But Simon wouldn’t know where Jesus was, either. Because very early in the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus had got up, and gone out to a deserted place to pray.
Why did he do it? Or perhaps a better question might be, How did he do it? There were no alarm clocks in those days, and Jesus couldn’t have had more than a few hours sleep. What on earth could have compelled him to rise before the sun after such a long, tiring day?
Well, you see, Jesus had an appointment. He had a date with God, if you can call it that—a set time to meet with God, a time dedicated to helping him stay close to God, a time to make sure that his life was following the way God was leading him.
It seems that Jesus had these meetings with God regularly. They were, for him, a priority. Certainly it wasn’t easy for Jesus to get up at such an early hour. But when else was he going to do it? The crowds were following him everywhere. His days were incredibly busy. He certainly couldn’t leave it to chance. His only choice was to set an appointment with God—and keep it.
We think that our lives are so busy, so hectic, that we don’t really have any time to spend with God. But the truth is that, so often, we just don’t make spending time with God a priority. You may have a doctor’s appointment on Monday at 10, and a committee meeting on Tuesday at 7, and your service organization meets on Wednesday, and you have a lunch date with a friend on Thursday. Thursday night at 8 you have time set aside for your favorite TV show; you promised the kids you’d take them to a movie Friday after school, and you’ve got tickets to the game on Saturday.
You and your spouse had talked earlier about going out to dinner, just the two of you, so you could have a chance to talk and work on your relationship, but that would involve finding a babysitter and marking down yet one more thing on your already busy schedule. And as for God… does God get a spot on your calendar? No. If you’re fortunate, maybe you’ll “bump into” God at some point during the week. Or maybe not.
Does that sound familiar to you? It does to me!
Many of us live lives that are busy and hectic; but Jesus’ life was busy and hectic, too. Which is why he made a point of spending time with God. Having an ongoing commitment to spending time with God, to setting up appointments with God—and then keeping those appointments—does require that you have discipline. Prayer—time alone with God—is a discipline of a spiritual life. To be a disciple does require that you have some discipline. Surely, you can hear the connection? True disciples have discipline. One of the most important disciplines is a predetermined time to spend with God. Leaving it all to chance is a very undisciplined way to live.
Being disciplined about your prayer life shows that God is a priority. Not including God when you make your plans for the week, leaving encounters with God to chance, shows that God is not a priority. Isn’t a relationship with God too important to be left to chance?
A life without God is like a plant without water. Most people who have gardens or houseplants water them regularly. They have a schedule for watering.
When it comes to watering our soul, many of us are withering in a drought. We say we’ll get some water soon, but we don’t finalize those plans, we don’t set the date and time, and so we keep on withering. And if we do set a date, we write it in pencil, so that it can be easily erased, easily cancelled. Because after all, we might be tired when the time comes; we might feel like taking a nap instead.
For Jesus, it didn’t matter how tired he was. He had his appointment with God written in permanent ink. Nothing is more important than time spent with God, and so nothing would keep Jesus from his scheduled appointment.
At this point, I’m going to assume that you agree with me. I’m going to assume that, in the calendar of your mind, you’re writing down that appointment with God in permanent ink, that you’ve written the words, “every morning at sunrise,” or, “every day at noon,” or, “every evening at 6:15 p.m.—spend time with God.”
Assuming that you now have that written in your mental calendar, I’m going to give you some tips on how to have a more productive and meaningful encounter with God.
First, have it be a time of silence. Don’t leave the TV or the radio on while you’re spending time with God. How rude is that! And they’re way too distracting. If Ginger and I go out to a restaurant, and it’s one of those restaurants that have TVs mounted up on the wall in the corner, I’ll make sure I’m settled where the TV is not easily in view. TVs are way too distracting for me, and when I’m with Ginger, I want to be able to give her my attention. I want my focus to be on her.
Likewise, in spending time with God, I find that I am way too easily distracted. Certainly, the TV and radio will be off, although sometimes some quiet instrumental music is helpful. I want to make sure that my focus is on God.
Second, try to quiet your mind. During the time I have scheduled with God, I try not to worry about other things that need to be done, or other appointments I might have on my calendar. Instead, I try to focus on the present moment, on what I’m feeling right now. Buddhists call this being mindful. How often do our minds drift away from the present? We don’t notice the taste of our food, because we’re too busy thinking about other things. We don’t remember what we saw as we drove across town, because our minds are elsewhere. When you spend time with God, keep your mind with you. Don’t let it wander.
Breathing helps. Sometimes, when I have a million thoughts jumping around inside my head, I’ll realize that I’m breathing in short, shallow breaths. If I focus on taking slow, deep breaths, it helps.
Remember this, though: time with God is not a test. You won’t be graded on how well you do. If all you’re able to do in those 5 or 10 minutes is breathe, that’s OK. Perhaps you’ll notice something small, like the smell of the flowers outside, or the way the dappled sunlight, coming through the trees, dances across the floor. Perhaps you’ll experience a tiny spark of gratitude, and wouldn’t that be something?
If you don’t experience anything like that in your time with God—if the only thought in your mind is, “Why isn’t this working,” or “what am I supposed to be feeling? What am I supposed to be thinking?”—If that’s all you get, that’s OK, too. That, in itself, is a start. Besides, God is very patient, and you’ve got another appointment tomorrow.
The important thing is to make that appointment with God, to write it down in permanent ink, and to keep it. Jesus knew he couldn’t live without spending time with God on a regular basis, and he certainly couldn’t do all that God was calling him to do without taking time for his morning prayers. Even though it was inconvenient, he made the time. He kept the appointments. Something that important couldn’t be left to chance.
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