I Will Never Desert You

AM Psalm 16, 17; PM Psalm 22
1 Kings 5:1-6:1,7; Acts 28:1-16; Mark 14:27-42

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples that they all will become “deserters,” He nonetheless instructs them to stay awake while he goes off to pray. When Peter protests that he himself will not be a deserter, Jesus says Peter will deny him three times. Sure enough, each of three times Jesus returns from an agonizing time of prayer, he finds the disciples have fallen asleep. We know in the verses that follow today’s selection, that Peter will deny even knowing Jesus. Three times.

Tomorrow is the 21st anniversary of the murder of my teacher John Robert Locke, Chair of the Comparative Literature Program at the University of Arkansas. He was shot in his office on August 28, 2000, by a sad, terribly disturbed student who had been dismissed from the program. This student then turned the gun on himself. I get anxious to varying degrees every August around this time. Sometimes I can’t even bring myself to say that John “was murdered.” Recently all I could say was John “had died.”

Call it survivor’s guilt. I had known that John would be keeping office hours at noon that day. But instead of going to his office to discuss progress on my dissertation (or lack thereof), I was at Dillard’s buying shirts on sale. If only I had been there in John’s office, I have lamented for twenty-one years, I could have done something.

My guilt has been compounded by the “progress” on my dissertation having been very, very slow. For that matter I have always suspected I was at Dillard’s buying shirts because I hadn’t wanted to go see John.

I have been told by any number of people, some of whom were actually close by John’s office that day, that there would have been nothing I could have done, that we were lucky that only two lives were lost.

It’s interesting in today’s reading from Mark that Jesus says: you are going to desert me. But he never says I am going to desert you. In Matthew, Jesus says “surely I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20).

Over the years there have been times when I haven’t followed through on my responsibilities, when I have let people down, sometimes resulting in people getting hurt. But as Henri Nouwen reminds me again and again, we are all beloved of God. Jesus never deserts us. John Robert Locke never deserted me, either.

Written by James Gamble

...who, with the aid and encouragement of many people, not to mention a considerable boost from the Almighty, finished his dissertation and earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 2006 at the University of Arkansas. He worked as a Senior Instructor in the English Department there until his retirement in 2020.

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