Finding the Wrong Jungle

We are reading through the first chapter of Mark, and we are also
coming to the end of Epiphany. Next Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday,
the last Sunday before Lent, and then the season of Lent begins on the
following Wednesday.

In our text this morning, we see Jesus beginning his ministry in
Galilee. At this point, he is becoming famous. Crowds are following
him, asking for healing. And here, Jesus goes to Simon’s house, Simon
whom he later renames “Peter.” And at the house, crowds gather outside.
Mark writes that the “whole city was gathered around the door. And he
cured many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many
demons.”

Then the next morning, “while it was still very dark, Jesus got up
and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” Jesus had been
surrounded by people. The crowds were everywhere. And so, he needed

to get away, to find time alone in a deserted place, a quiet place where he
would not be disturbed, and where he could pray and rest in silence.

Why? My guess is that Jesus needed to remember who he was and
what he was doing. He needed time and space to return to his mission, to
make sure he was on the right track, to pray to God the Father for
wisdom and direction, in other words, to get clear again, to get centered
again, after all the confusion from the day before, so that he could be
clear about what he was being called to do.

He must have prayed by himself in that deserted place for a long
time. Finally, the disciples found him, and they said, “Everyone is
searching for you.” And because he had been praying and meditating in
silence all morning, even before the sun was up, in the quietest part of
the day, his mind was clear, and he knew what his direction was.

I have a story for you. This comes from Stephen Covey, who wrote
the classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. You may
remember it. In the book, he tells the following story:

There’s a group of people traveling through the jungle. This group
is from a big company, you know, like IBM or Exxon, or Chrysler. So,
there they are, moving through the jungle, pushing their way through,
trying to find their way through the dense vegetation. And the people at
the front are the producers. These are the problem solvers in the
company. They are cutting through the jungle. They’re on the front line.
They have these big machetes, and they’re cutting and clearing all the
undergrowth. Working so hard. Cutting and cutting. Solving problems.
And next, Covey writes, are the managers, trudging along behind
the producers, “sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure
manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved
technologies and setting up working schedules and compensation
programs for machete wielders.”
Meanwhile, the leader of this whole group, the leader of the
company, is the one who climbs the tallest tree in the jungle, looks out
on the entire situation, and yells out to everyone, “Wrong jungle! We’re
in the wrong jungle!”

But the busy, efficient producers and managers down on the ground
shout back up to him: “Shut up! We’re making progress.”

Covey tells this story to illustrate the difference between
management and leadership. And what I find interesting here, and really,
this is my point, is that the leader has to get away. The leader climbs up
into the tallest tree, to see the bigger picture. He needs to get away from
the group, to have space, to see the larger perspective.
This is what Jesus is doing when he wakes up early in the morning,
before the sun comes up, and he finds that quiet time, that precious quiet
time alone, in solitude; his time for prayer and meditation. This is
precisely the same thing that Covey describes in his story about the
jungle. Jesus escapes the crowds and noise, so he can know his direction.
We are each the CEO of our own company, the CEO of our own
life. We are also the manager and producer. We embody all three roles in
Covey’s story about the jungle. And the lesson from the Gospel reading
is clear. Jesus goes alone to pray. Like the leader climbing the tallest
tree. Each one of us needs to do that, too. And through this method, we

will find an epiphany, the new insight we need, the new perspective with
which to see the entire situation.
Last year, I sat with a friend in the hospital emergency room. He
had been in the hospital so many, many times, and he was getting tired.
He looked at me and said, “You know, Ed, early this morning, while it
was still dark, and I was lying here in this emergency room bed awake, I
asked myself, “What am I doing? What am I doing?” “And then,” he
said, “I realized I was doing the wrong thing, and it was time for me to
let go.” That was the moment, right there in that hospital emergency
room, when my friend saw his direction, the direction he needed to take,
and he saw that it was time for him to go into hospice care, that his life
was coming to an end, and that morning, he made peace with it, and he
made his decision.
We go to into prayer for many reasons. Sometimes we face a
decision that no one else can make for us. Let’s remember Jesus in this
example, going to a quiet place by himself, before the sun came up,
going into prayer for discernment, for wisdom, for epiphany, and to find
the direction he needed to take. May it be so for us. Amen? Amen.