On The Run

When all you want to do is escape

Over this series of writings I have reflected on the themes that emerge from the life-shattering events that happen in our lives, moments when the unthinkable takes place, the irreversible, the nightmarish.  I have explored images of darkness, loss of identity, grief and fear.  In this reflection I turn to the theme of escape.  You who are reading this are surely not surprised by this, for we are all aware of those moments in our life when we just want to get away from it all, even run away.  Over my four decades of being a pastor I observed this response countless times in the lives of those I cared for.  It could be a job that has turned into a nightmare, and all one  wanted to do is get a new job.  Or it may be a marriage that has gone on the rocks, that brings no joy but only agony, creating a longing for a forbidden romance with another. We may want to escape a neighborhood that has turned sour, or a friendship that has become abusive, or even a church that has become toxic.  Of course, it may simply be life itself that brings no delight, a day in and day out repetitious drudgery that has no rainbows, just storm clouds.  And for some, a despair of life can lead to the ending of that life.

This is a pretty serious way to begin this writing, and so let me confess that I had times when I wanted to escape long before COVID so drastically altered my life.  As joyful and fulfilling as it can be to be a pastor, it can also be a tremendous challenge.  Though most of my experience in ministry has been positive, there have been those times, and those people, who could make life miserable.  In seminary we read a book entitled Coping With Difficult People – all kinds of personality types were listed, and the book was helpful, but in the end I struggled with the image of  “coping with” or “dealing with” others, as though all I was doing was putting up with them, avoiding them, or even running away from them.  When I taught the seminary course as an adjunct, I used a little known book by Wayne Oates entitled The Care of Troublesome People – that set the right tone for a pastor, and a single sentence maxim I read somewhere shaped my pastoral life, that we are to “heal some, remedy others, but care always.”  I don’t know that I always pulled it off, but I tried.

Even so, there were times I wanted to escape.  In fact, within my favorite prayer book, The Psalms, I found a perfect prayer, Psalm 55, verses 6-7, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!  I would fly away and be at rest – I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and the storm.”  During an especially tough time in ministry I confided in one of our lay leaders my fondness for this prayer and how often I was praying it.  This leader looked at me for a moment, and then simply said, “Is that all it says?”  Well, no, it says a lot of other things, some angry, some confident, but toward the end it says such things as “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you” and “But as for me, I trust in you.”  A perfectly good prayer, ruined!  No, of course not, a perfectly honest prayer, reflecting the fact that all of us at some time or another seek escape.  All we want to do in that moment is run away.

If you are feeling that way, or even now in the midst of running away, I want you to know you are in good company!  Where to begin, that is the question…

Let me start with Moses.  You remember his story. As an infant he was set afloat in the river to escape the death decree of the Pharaoh, only to be rescued and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter.  He received the best of what a royal family could give in terms of education, wealth, and comfort, but forty years in Egypt also sensitized Moses to the plight of his kinfolk held in slavery.  One day he decided to be a deliverer – maybe he was even thinking that God had brought him to this place for such a task, and so he killed an Egyptian taskmaster to save a fellow Hebrew.  When word got out, Moses ran for his life, flying on the wings of dove, stuck in the desert raising sheep.  Not the life he had envisioned, a reluctant retirement that went far beyond anything I knew.  Had he run only from Egypt, or was it from God as well?  Whatever, his encounter with the presence of the Almighty in a burning bush changed the remainder of his life, and back to Egypt he returned, only this time to be the type deliverer God had in mind. 

There is Moses, and of course there is David.  As a youngster he seemed to have an outstanding faith in God.  While others trembled in their boots, young David faced a giant, bringing him down with a single stone and the bold proclamation that this was the Lord’s doing.  A tremendous moment in David’s life, a nation’s champion before the age of twenty, and yet David was often on the run.  Thumb through the Psalms and look at the headings that hint at historic moments recorded in 1 & 2 Samuel and Kings.  David is mostly on the run, from Saul, from those who hate him, from his own son, and in one memorable Psalm 51, from his own marriage vows and the seventh commandment of God.  David knew what it was to seek escape, and what he leaves for us are the kind of gritty, honest, soul searching prayers that help us know how to pray when we are on the run.  When David prays in Psalm 139, “Where can I go to flee from your presence,” we know the answer, and it is a relief. Whenever you feel like running and wherever it takes you, know this, God will be there to meet you.

Jonah found that out – what an example, a prophet, a preacher, on the run from God, praying for the wings of a dove!  In all fairness, we can’t completely blame Jonah, his assignment was a difficult one. Nineveh was the ultimate godless place to fulfill a calling.  Allow me to make a confession – most pastors when they are called to a church believe God is calling them to great places of opportunity and ministry, places of adventure and prosperity like ancient Tarshish in the Jonah text.  Oh, we will say to God that we will go wherever He calls us, but deep down we really want to have a say.  Eugene Peterson has written an outstanding book in this regard, Under the Unpredictable Plant, reflecting on Jonah and relating it to all this pastor/church business.  When I first read his words almost thirty years ago, my life and calling was changed.  First Peterson talks about the pastoral vocation:  “Pastoral work consists of modest, daily, assigned work.  It is like farm work.  Most pastoral work involves routines similar to cleaning out the barn, mucking out the stalls, spreading manure, pulling weeds.”  I know, not very glamorous, but Peterson says more:  “There is much that is glorious in pastoral work, but the congregation, as such, is not glorious.  The congregation is a Nineveh-like place:  a site for hard work without a great deal of hope for success, at least as success is measured on the charts.  But somebody has to do it, has to faithfully give personal visibility to the continuities of the word of God in the place of worship and prayer, in the places of daily work and play, in the traffic jams of virtue and sin.”  Jonah wanted to escape all of that, but in the end, most reluctantly he went and God used this petty, pouting prophet to change some lives. 

Jonah is not one of our heroes of faith, but Elijah is.  1 Kings is peppered with his activity, this mighty powerhouse for God who could command fire to fall from the sky.  1 Kings 18 is a wonderful, way to envision God’s work, the way we want to live life.  But turn to chapter 19 and Elijah is on the run, running for his life and wishing he was dead.  “I’ve had enough, Lord!” and he prayed that he would die.  Did he mean it?  Do you mean some of the things you say under your breath?  Whatever, God had something else in mind, and so Elijah runs, he runs, he gets more exercise than he has gotten in a long time.  And he rests, sleeps like the dead, something he had probably been missing.  His diet?  Food of angels, you would think, daily bread given by God.  All very good when you are so worked up you are seeking escape – get some exercise, pay attention to your diet, get some rest.  In the forty day journey things became clear to Elijah – time will do that if you take the journey with God, He travels with you to your destination.  And in the end, Elijah asks his questions of God and receives what?  A gentle whisper.  Silence.  A still small voice. But more, clarity as to task, things to do, time to get with it, you can’t run forever, I have things for you to do.

Do you understand?  The Bible is full of stories where one is seeking escape, running away, longing for the wings of a dove, longing to put their plight behind them.  Be encouraged, God knows what is kicking around inside of you.  He is not appalled, His mouth is not ajar in shock and disbelief.  For many months after my health was damaged I wanted nothing more than to escape – get away from the doctors, the dialysis, the hallucinations and nightmares, the sense of powerlessness and grief.  But one other story came to my mind that has a strange twist, one I share briefly now but reserve the right to return to in a future writing.

We call it the parable of the prodigal son – Luke 15 tells the story, it is well known, this young man who got tired of living under his father’s thumb, working the fields sunrise to sundown.  He decided to escape, to run away from it all, to go where he could have the freedom to do what he wanted the way he wanted to do it.  However, what looked like liberty turned into a trap, a wasting of potential and opportunity, a self-imposed slavery that led to the far country.  You remember what happened next, his decision to return home, hoping against hope that he might at least find a job with his dad.  This is where the story takes a turn, and this is where writer Helmet Thielicke famously says we have misnamed the parable.  It is not the parable of the wasteful, empty-headed prodigal son, but the story of a waiting father who each day gazed in the distance, hoping, hoping, hoping for his son’s return.  What does he do when he sees his runaway son coming back home?  This father runs – do you see that?  He runs with all of his might, his garments flapping, his body straining to embrace this one who, at last, stopped running and came home.

I hope you who have been seeking escape understand – there is a Father waiting for you as well. Running home to Him is the best thing you can ever do, and guess what?  He already has His eye on you, and He’s running…