What God Does with Deserted Places

Me: Orientation

When I first arrived at University just over a year ago...

...one of the first things I did was wander through the building.

I wanted to get to know every hallway, every classroom, every corner of the place God had called me to serve.

Eventually, I found my way to the old education wing.

I remember walking those quiet hallways, noticing the faded murals, the well-worn carpet, and the window air conditioners covered beneath tarps...

It felt...

...deserted...

Months later, while visiting Rita during her rehabilitation, we found ourselves talking about those very classrooms.

She smiled as she told me stories about raising her boys in this church...

...and serving as a Sunday school teacher.

Then she shared something that has stayed with me.

As her sons grew older, she would ask to teach a younger Sunday school class instead of following them from year to year.

I asked her why...

She smiled and said, “My boys didn’t need their mom teaching them every Sunday.

They needed to know the whole church.

They needed to learn from other faithful adults who would help shape their faith.”

I’ve never forgotten that piece of wisdom...

As I listened to Rita, I found myself thinking back to that quiet education wing.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just seeing faded murals and empty classrooms.

I could picture children racing down those hallways.

Teachers preparing lessons on Saturday evenings.

Parents dropping off their children before worship.

Those classrooms tell a beautiful story of generations of children who were formed in the faith.

...and yet...

...the hallways are now quiet...

...the classrooms are now empty...

...life changes....

...places change...

… and just as our education wing entered a different season...

...so do our lives...

Sooner or later, we’re all confronted with the same question...

What does God do with deserted places?

We: Identification

I imagine I’m not the only one who has asked that question...

What does God do with deserted places...

Maybe your deserted place looks different from mine...

Perhaps it’s an apartment you’ve been told you have to leave...

...or maybe it’s a shelter where your time has run out...

Maybe it’s an empty bank account...

Perhaps it’s the first season of retirement, when the days suddenly feel quieter than you’ve ever known...

Maybe it’s a hospital room after everyone else has gone home...

Friends… we all have deserted places...

The details may be different...

...but they have a way of asking us the very same questions.

Is God still here?

Can God still be trusted?

Can anything good come from a place that feels so empty?

Those aren’t just our questions...

They’re the very questions people carried with them into the deserted place where Jesus met them.

God: Illumination

Let’s see what happens when Jesus enters a deserted place.

St. Matthew begins with a detail that’s easy to overlook...

The apostle writes: “When Jesus heard about John, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”

John the Baptist had just been executed.

We all remember John the Baptist from back in January and February?

John was the one who had prepared the way for Jesus...

He was the one who had baptized Jesus in the Jordan River.

John was Jesus’ cousin...

Jesus wasn’t looking for a scenic retreat...

...he was grieving...

So he withdrew to a deserted place.

...and I think that’s where Matthew wants us to pause...

Before we ever get to the miracle...

Before the five loaves and two fish...

Before twelve baskets are gathered up...

Jesus enters a deserted place himself...

He enters it carrying grief...

...carrying loss...

...and the crowds hear where Jesus has gone...

...and they follow him on foot.

Imagine that scene for a moment...

Jesus has come looking for solitude...

...and the crowds come looking for hope!

When Jesus steps ashore, St. Matthew tells us that Jesus doesn’t send them away...

He doesn’t tell them to come back tomorrow...

He doesn’t protect his own time...

What the apostle describes is a compassionate Jesus.

The text says… “He had compassion for them.”

Everything that follows begins from this place of compassion...

Throughout Scripture, deserted places are rarely places where God is absent.

More often, they become the very places where God draws near.

When Israel wandered in the wilderness, God gave them manna from heaven.

The prophet Hosea even imagined God saying to Israel...

“Therefore, I will charm her, and bring her into the desert, and speak tenderly to her heart. “

You see what the prophet is saying here, friends?

It’s the very same picture Matthew is painting for us...

What looked like a place of abandonment became a place of renewed relationship.

This is an important teaching. The disciples have gotten it wrong…

The apostles look around and see scarcity when they say..

“This is a deserted place… Send the crowds away.”

I gotta be honest with you, it sounds reasonable to me...

...there’s no grocery store...

...no bakery...

...no way to feed thousands of people...

...all they see is an empty place…

But… Jesus… sees a place where God’s compassion is about to become visible.

He takes the five loaves and the two fish.

He looks toward heaven.

He blesses them.

He breaks them.

He gives them to the disciples.

Those words should sound familiar...

...because St. Matthew wants us to remember another meal...

...another table...

...another time when Jesus would take…

...bless...

...break...

...and give...

Friends, the miracle in the deserted place points us toward the table where,

Christ continues to meet hungry hearts with grace.

We: Inspiration

St. Matthew never tells us that the deserted place disappeared.

It was still a deserted place.

There were still no bakeries...

Still no markets...

Still no easy answers...

But after Jesus entered it...

...it was no longer defined by what it lacked.

It became known for what God did there.

Perhaps that’s God’s promise for us.

Christ enters our deserted places with compassion...

...and refuses to let deserted places have the final word.

Because whenever Christ enters...

…grace begins its transforming work...

Places of grief become places where compassion is born.

Places of scarcity become places where grace is discovered.

Places that seemed empty become places where God’s abundance is revealed.

Perhaps Rita understood something long before I did...

When she said her boys “needed the whole church,” she wasn’t simply talking about Sunday school...

She was describing the very way God works...

...God forms us through one another...

...God meets us in community...

...God gathers us around grace...

Isn’t that exactly what Jesus refused to let the disciples miss?

The disciples wanted to send the crowds away...

...but Jesus gathered them together...

He fed them.

He formed them into a community gathered around God’s abundance.

...and that is why we come to this table today...

Not because every problem has been solved...

...or because every prayer has already been answered...

...we come because this table bears witness to the same truth.

Christ still meets people in deserted places.

Christ still feeds hungry hearts...

Christ still reveals holy places that the world sees as abandoned.

So we’re invited to come...

...because in God’s kingdom...

...there is enough grace...

...enough mercy...

...enough compassion...

...and enough Christ...

...for everyone.

St. Matthew proclaims that they all ate...

...and they were filled.

Friends...

That is still God’s desire.

That hungry hearts would be filled.

That deserted places would become places of grace.

That Christ’s compassion would always have the final word.

So… come  to the table

...and be filled.

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.