What are the three words that realtors use all of the time as the most important aspect of buying a home or a business? Location, location, location. Choosing where to live or even work is all about location.
When you think about it, location features quite prominently in our lives. Many of us have chosen to live where we are. "Where are you from," we commonly ask when getting to know someone. It is as if we can locate someone in our mental geographical landscape when we know where they are from or where they were born. I think we believe that we learn something about someone's character from where they live. Whether we actually do learn something truthful is a whole other question.
Then there's the whole aspect of the landscape of your town. When I was growing up in Kenora–I was born in Hazelton in North-Central BC, by the way–the CPR went right through our town dividing those who lived on one side of the tracks from those who lived on the other side of the tracks. Some parents wouldn't let their children play with other children if they were from the wrong side of the tracks. In Vancouver, people make many assumptions based solely on where you live, and mostly these assumptions are incorrect. We use location sometimes to label and pigeon-hole, which is not a useful exercise at all. Location. Location. Location.
Matthew used this idea of location also. He wanted to underline what the Commonwealth of God is about, that it's not about where you are from, where you live in a town, where you locate yourself in terms of society, or where you live in the world. The Commonwealth of God is an inner and outer dawning location, as it were, of peace, of justice, of abundance, of service, of community, or grace. In terms of physical location in Israel at the time, Matthew's Chapter 13 had Jesus telling a bunch of parables about the Commonwealth of God: the Mustard Seed, the leavening parable, the pearls, and so on. Some of these parables, according to Matthew, were publicly spoken in and around the Sea of Galilee for all to hear in public; and other parables were spoken privately, in a private home or in a grove of trees close to the sea of Galilee, only for the disciples and close followers of Jesus to hear.
At the beginning of chapter 14, the location shifts from this parable-telling about the Commonwealth of God to history-telling of the Empire of Rome and physically to Herod's grand palace. Matthew tells us that John the Baptiser, the fiery prophet who baptized Jesus, was murdered by Herod Antipas. The location is the high court of the king of Israel and all of the intrigues that accompany such a location. This is the location of power and might, the location of suspicion and double-dealing; this is the location of Empire and Rome.
And then Matthew changes the location again in the passage we heard. Jesus, upon hearing of John's death, retreats to the wilderness. His community goes with him, his close followers and many others who want to know more about the location of which Jesus is speakingÉ the location that is the Commonwealth of God. They want to know why, when Jesus heard that John had died, he went out to the wilderness.
I suspect Jesus went out to the wilderness because he needed to regroup; he needed to think things through, to pray, and to be assured that the location of the Commonwealth of God was real and present. Prophecy, renewal and wilderness are often tied together in Israel's thinking. Elijah went out to the wilderness to regroup after his encounter with the priests of Baal, to hear again the still, small voice of God. Second Isaiah spoke of wilderness and God making the rough places smooth and creating a way in the wilderness for the Jews to return home. Amos spoke powerfully from the wilderness about the economic injustices of Israel. Moses led the people as they formed a new identity in the desert, in the wilderness, an identity not borne out of slavery but one born out of freedom. John the Baptiser, came out of the wilderness, wearing a camel hair shirt and eating locusts and wild honey. Jesus himself spent time in the wilderness after his baptism. In the location of wilderness, there is clarity about God's agenda for the world, about compassion, about justice, about love!
So upon hearing that John had been murdered, Jesus went to the wilderness. His community went with him. It was almost as if Jesus was saying to the world around him, we are seceding. If this is the way we treat our prophets, if this is the way we treat one another, we are leaving to form a new society of peace, love and mutuality. We are declaring independence from the empires of fear and hierarchy! God's Commonwealth is not based on the values of empire, power or might but on love, grace, reconciliation, forgiveness and peace, which will be the hallmarks of our new world.
Janet and I have been watching old TV episodes of MASH. It was a wonderful series about the Korean War and a mobile army surgical hospital unit. In this one particular episode that we saw recently, after a long stint of surgery, putting soldiers back together again, Hawkeye and BJ and the crew take up residence in Rosie's Bar, a tavern just outside of the camp. Another soldier, tired of the killing, Sully by name, has walked off the line and has sought refuge in Rosie's as well. They decide to secede from the war and declare their new land, their new location, Rosieland. They have decided that there has been enough killing, enough blood, enough hate, and enough war! Their new location, their new land was going to be about peace and camaraderie, community and mutuality.
The location of the Commonwealth of God, of course, isn't a location. It is where ever we are at the moment. It is based on the values that Jesus taught in his parables. Jesus highlighted the difference in the location of the Commonwealth of God with the Empire of Rome or the intrigue of Herod's court. Empire and King Herod are about death and destruction. They are about keeping order so that only a few will prosper. They are about scarcity.
To make the point, Jesus enjoys a meal with his community. The disciples aren't sure about this, perhaps thinking that the people should go home and eat, perhaps still caught up in the location of empire and power. But, Jesus points to the Commonwealth of God as their new reality; he blesses the small amount of food they have collected and they share a meal together; it's that old Jewish understanding of dayeinu–it is enough! There is always enough. The meal, as we know, left twelve baskets at the end. This is a living parable of the Commonwealth of God and of God's lavish promise of life, love and abundance, a stark contrast to the scarcity of love and grace in King Herod's court.
Sadly, we are witnessing something of this contrast between the location of scarcity and empire versus the location of peace, common welfare, and basic living rights in the Horn of Africa. There is so much of politics in this disaster–factions fighting with other factions, religions being too sectarian, not accounting for climate change, civil war, a denial of human rights. And the people caught in the middle are just simply searching for a location that they can call home, where there is water to drink, food to eat, shelter in which to live and peace to enjoy it all. Our location found within the Commonwealth of God leads us to offer aid–which we are trying to do, but our location within the Commonwealth of God leads us also to advocate for fundament al change in our world, to promote an intercultural common humanity, to stand for justice and basic human rights, to advocate for a world that is not based on coercive empire but on love, kinship with all, grace, forgiveness and reconciliation.
We are in the midst of the Commonwealth of God. And where ever we go, that location is always now and present. And together, with people of faith and hope and love around the world, we can make that a present reality in locations like the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Burma, Nelson, and in whatever location where ever we might find ourselves. We are called to let our lives–individually and collectively–be living parables of God's Commonwealth of life and love and abundance.
Amen.
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