What’s a furlough?
Most of you will know that I have a close family member who works with computers and does things I will never understand. This family member is incredibly bright but never smarmy or pretentious.
At the end of the first year of COVID, the firm he worked for did something wise and very astute. They said to their very hard-working employees that as COVID had been such a wretched time for everyone in so many different ways, on so many different levels, they should have a week off. The company was quite strict about it.
No one is to log on or do any work. They are to stay away from their screens and just relax. Have some family time if they have a family. Sleep and snore, eat and drink, cuddle your special people and just forget all about the company for a week. The company called it a weeks furlough. I call it brilliant. Of course, in the short term, it might have cost the company a few bucks, but in the long term? When all these happy campers got back to their screens on Monday morning…they were enthused and energised. Their loyalty to the company went through the penthouse ceiling and all their very clever shiny friends got to hear about it and wanted to come and work for this company as well.
It was such a success that the company also did it the next year and may well continue to do it into the future.
In today's gospel, I strongly suspect that Our Lord is also looking for a furlough. A space. He has heard about cousin John the Baptist’s death and he withdraws in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
However, while he does make it to the lonely campsite his cunning plan to have some quiet time to mourn and to reflect is thwarted.
The crowds hear about it and follow him on foot from the neighbouring towns. It seems that The Master just can’t catch a break. There is no furlough for him. He is always “logged on”.
Being the compassionate teacher of course he heals and probably teaches as well. Evening comes and the disciples can see how tired their rabbi is and how hungry the crowds are.
‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’
On the surface of it, the Master's retort seems very grumpy.
‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’
Did he know the miracle that was about to unfold? Did he want the disciples to understand that they in fact were the solution to the problem, or was He just saying… No sorry guys, I’m all done here. You sort this out.’
As always, we weren’t there to catch the tone of voice, facial expression and body language.
And like the lonely place they are in, with nothing around, the disciples have to confess their poverty. Bless them, they are honest if not a little ill-prepared for the hike and The Master's request.
‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’
Well, we all know what happened next. Jesus multiplies the paltry provisions and the thousands go away with leftovers for a picnic lunch for the next day. 12 baskets full to be exact. If you look closely there is an echo of the eucharist in this miracle where Jesus does the fourfold action that we still do at the altar today. The food is taken, blessed, broken and distributed.
A couple of things struck me about this story and the week of furlough. Clergy have a furlough as well. We call it retreat. It’s a little more structured than the cyber furlough but it is a delicious week of silence, prayer and meditation. Nothing happens. Nothing … and yet at the deeper level, the level where it really matters, everything is happening. The Bishop, like the CEO of the company, is quite right to be very strict about his clergy keeping retreat, for he knows what will be best for the diocese, for his clergy, for the parishes and ultimately for God’s glory.
That’s not the most important thing I want to offer though. The most important thing I draw your attention to is the lonely place and meagre pickings.
Frequently it is in the solitude, the places and times when we are honest about just how much we need Him… in that lonely place when we ache for him, when we have no one else to turn to, then He fills us in ways and in places that we could never have imagined.
Part of the message of the miracle is the overabundance of the 12 baskets, the superfluity of what is left over. He is more than we could ever have hoped for, expected, needed or wanted.
It is in the most barren and deserted solitude that the Master does some of his finest work. All we have to do is offer our deficiencies, our loneliness and our poverty to be transformed. Then we discover that there are actually thousands around us and not only will we eat our fill, but there is always more left over.