A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. When our lord heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew by boat from there, that's over by Capernaum probably, to a deserted place all by himself. He wanted to be alone. The crowds heard of it and came after him on foot from the town, which meant they had to go around the lake, the top of the lake north. When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast throng, his heart was moved with pity, and he cured their sick.
Then as evening drew on, his disciples came to him with this suggestion. Lord, this is the deserted place, and it's already late. Dismiss the crowds so that they may go home or to the villages and buy some food. At this, Jesus said to them, there is no need for them to disperse. Give them something yourselves.
They replied, we have nothing to give them but five loaves and a couple of fish. Bring them here, our lord said. And then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed and broke them, and gave the loaves to the disciples who in turn gave them to the people, the thousands of them. All those present ate their fill.
The fragments, which remained, when gathered up, filled 12 baskets. Those who ate were about 5,000, not counting women and children. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. The obvious target of this reading this morning, of course, is this one of the most famous miracles of the New Testament.
This is one of what you call a first class miracle. See, they have they have categories of miracles, and this is the this is one of the best. But I wanna pick up just one little thought from this, and it's the beginning. You may overlooked it. That our lord left the western shore of the lake and got in a boat to cross over eastward to be alone.
Why? Why did he wanna be alone? Well, it's tied in with the beheading of John the baptizer. According to the reading today, our lord has just heard that John has beheaded. Of course, she's known by his very good and dear friend, Herod, and thanks to Herodias and her dancing daughter.
And our lord's reaction is to wanna be alone. Alone. Have you real have you ever thought how difficult it is today to be alone? You can't even get in an elevator by yourself and be alone because the darn thing is shouting out some kind of crappy smooth music as you go from floor to floor. You can't even be alone in a in an elevator.
In some houses, there's a television on, I've seen this in some rectories from the first man who gets up in the morning to the last man who goes to bed if he remembers to turn the thing off. It's on all day, shouting and blasting along. Only it was Saturday. We stopped at a Jack Shaw and I, we were coming back from our mission to the bay, and we stopped at a at a red light. We generally do that.
When a car comes up beside us and also stops at the red light, but we heard them before we saw them. This was a a car. The windows were down, but it was it wasn't it was not an open car. There were a couple young guys in it, and they had that a radio blasted. And we it was just even for us in our car, it was just awful.
It's very difficult to be alone today. Second thing is a lot of people don't want to be alone. They can't stand it. You know how it is when you go in a dentist office, a doctor's office, a lawyer's office, or go down into the sewer and somebody's playing a radio or something or other. You see these people jogging.
They're the grimmest looking people I've ever seen. You never see a smile on their faces jogging in Rock Creek, things over their ears. They're not even alone. We're in that beautiful park. They're getting some of these being blasted into their ears.
But people a lot of people don't wanna be alone. Have you ever maybe it's you. Have you asked yourself why? Why? Why is it that we're so surrounded with noise?
It used to be the kitchen of a house was a nice, quiet little place where all you heard was a steam kettle, you know, steaming away. Now it sounds like a foundry with about four or five different appliances running at full speed, not counting the vacuum sweeper. That, of course, takes care of the whole situation. That drives you crazy. Why is this?
Why are we fleeing ourselves? Can't we stand ourselves? The two points I wanna leave with you this is our lord is human. He's struck with grief. His friend, his predecessor, his precursor has been beheaded, and he wants to be alone.
That's all we're told. We're not told why. He wanted to be alone, and that's the way it is with some people. When things hit, they don't want to be surrounded with a lot of noise and all that. The second thing is this what I've already bring up.
Why is it we are afraid to be alone? What does being alone mean? I was never so lonely as I landed in Venice on a Saturday night, not even with a hotel room. I was surrounded with thousands of people, everybody laughing and having dancing and music all around, and it was one of the loneliest evenings I ever had. I was saved by one of the merchants.
So being alone is not a matter of being surrounded or not surrounded with people. And being alone does not mean loneliness. Think it over. Because unless we have time to be alone once in a while, to face ourselves in the presence of god, we will never know who we are. In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit.
Amen.