Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Today. Our guest reader is Fr. Burt Gome, a senior priest from the.
[00:00:18] Speaker C: Diocese of Saginaw in Michigan.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Father Burt was a priest in the.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: Diocese when Bishop Ken was its shepherdess.
[00:00:33] Speaker D: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark.
The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.
He said to them, come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.
People were coming and going in great numbers and they had no opportunity even to eat.
So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.
People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherdess. And he began to teach them many things.
The gospel of the Lord one of the striking things about this gospel passage is that we see Jesus dealing with an unplanned event.
He and his disciples had planned a couple of days of quiet together in the desert.
They probably got three or four days worth of food, put it in the boat and happily sailed off.
But when they arrived, a crowd is there waiting for them.
It's like parents planning to go away for a few days and one of the youngsters gets sick.
And you know the rest of the story that got me thinking.
I wonder what percentage of our lives is made up of unplanned events.
Think of the unplanned events that are common in your life.
Sickness, death, automobile accidents, alcohol or drug use, divorce, arguments, losing something.
Those are just a few ideas.
Could we say maybe 25% of our lives are unplanned events?
Now lets look at Jesus life and how much was planned and unplanned.
We should start with the understanding that Jesus is truly God and truly human.
As a human being. He is like us in all things but sin.
He couldnt as a human being fast forward the tape and look ahead to see what was going to happen.
Which means that from time to time he was surprised, happy, angry, moved to tears.
As a human being, Jesus couldn't plan everything in his life any more than we can.
Let's look first at things in Mark's gospel that Jesus clearly did plan.
For example, choosing and calling his disciples, getting up early in the morning to pray, going to the countryside or into the synagogue and preaching or teaching, sending the twelve out on mission, cleansing the temple, the last Supper, all obvious examples of things Jesus planned to do.
But what about the unplanned?
Early in Mark's gospel, Jesus is preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. This was planned. And a man with an unclean spirit starts yelling at him.
That was unplanned.
Jesus deals with this and drives out the unclean spirit.
Most of his cures were unplanned.
Right after the incident in the synagogue he goes to Peter's house for the Sabbath meal. And Peter's mother in law is sick with a fever, so he heals her.
At other times people with leprosy come up to him unexpectedly.
Remember the paralytic lower down through the roof? That was a surprise to Jesus.
Most of his healings were on planned events. They weren't setups.
There were disputes with the Pharisees and other religious leaders.
These were unplanned.
Jesus didn't pick a fight.
Usually Jesus was in the middle of a talk or a supper in someone's house and they challenged him.
Remember the time they were in the boat and Jesus was asleep and a great storm came up and the disciples were terrified.
Jesus awoke and calmed the storm.
That was unplanned.
Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth and preached in the synagogue and the people rejected him. That was not a happy or planned event.
The feeding of the 5000 wasn't planned.
The woman who came into a dinner and began to anoint Jesus with expensive oil.
That came as a surprise.
And finally his arrest, trial, crucifixion and death.
This wasn't something that Jesus himself as a human being designed to. He clearly saw storm clouds brewing as his disputes with the religious leaders increased. But the arrest and death happened suddenly, all in about 18 hours.
Most of the events in the life of Jesus as described in the gospel were unplanned events.
Perhaps we can learn something from Jesus.
When you look at those unplanned moments in his life you see that they turned out to be graced moments.
He cures sick people, he feeds hungry people.
He calms an unexpected storm.
Even his terrible death turns out to be a graced moment.
He entrusts himself to the father and the result is the glorious resurrection for him and for us.
Maybe we need to change our attitudes toward the unplanned. Things that break in on life.
Things that are not only unplanned, but which interfere with the plans I had.
The unplanned events in our lives aren't easy or even pleasant.
Maybe we could see them as graced moments or times when the Lord makes himself especially present to help me do something very very good.
It may be small, but still something very good.
The Lord can take anything and produce goodness.
The Irish have an expression, thin time.
It's a time when the veil between this world and the other world is thin and God is close.
They see death as one of those moments when someone who is part of our lives dies. The veil is thin and God is especially close.
I'm beginning to think that unplanned events are thin times.
Our first reaction to an unplanned event should be to look for the presence of the Lord who is there helping us.
That could give me a whole different way of dealing with the unplanned events in my life, large and small.
Instead of looking upon them as intrusions that ruin my plans, I'll see them as thin times and I'll see the special presence of the Lord.
And I'll ask the Lord to help me do my part to make it not only a thin time, but a good time, a time of God's special love and goodness for me and whoever else is involved.
You may want to think about that yourself.
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