The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost ---- 22 July 2018

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
   When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 

·       What did Jesus teach them? Mark doesn’t say. For the most part, Mark focuses on the cross and the sacrifice of Jesus there. He doesn’t focus on the miracles and he tells only a little bit of what Jesus taught. For example, the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (or on the Plain) in Matthew and Luke are not found in Mark. Still Mark says Jesus taught the crowds out of compassion for them.

·       It is odd, though, that Jesus has taken his disciples to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while. When they get to that “deserted place”, Jesus immediately begins to teach the people met them there and who were like sheep without a shepherd… It seems like a mixed message.

·       It appears that way, IF we look at one side of the life of a disciple and one side only. The role of a disciple is to take on the teaching, the “discipline”, of the teacher. To do that, the disciple is required to listen, to learn, to absorb the teaching of the master. Then the disciple has to act, applying the master’s teachings.

·       Yes, Jesus taught the crowds out of compassion. They had no direction, no path to follow, no center on which to build their lives and actions. His teaching was just as much those people who were already his disciples as it was for the crowd that had chased them around the lake.

·       We need to look again at what the disciples had been doing. Today’s Gospel reading takes up where the Gospel from two weeks ago ended. The disciples had been sent out two by two on a mission to preach repentance, to cast out unclean spirits, and to heal people of their diseases. When they returned, it appears that even Jesus felt it was too busy; he and they needed a rest.

·       (Some of the narrative is missing; it’s being held for another day since those passages are important by themselves. We’ll hear them soon.)

·       Rest in the Gospel sense of today’s reading is not just down-time… or wasted time as some see it. For the disciples, it would be time to recover their energies and time to hear and see Jesus, their master. Maybe they shared their experiences of their mission and heard more of what they were to preach. The point is they were not alone but they were with Jesus.

·       In our own day, we are called to do the same – to spend time with Jesus, in prayer, in reading the Word, in the community’s worship. This leads us to be compassionate with one another and with the world that so needs the compassion of Jesus. Such service of the other will turn then to a time in such a “deserted place” to be with the One who has taught us.

·       And so the circle turns again and again… and always again. A modern theologian and Scriptural commentator wrote A heart without action is ineffective, and an action without a heart is empty.

·       I have no message on how to get rich or raise our children or how to be successful or what kind of politics are Godly. Lots of preachers talk about that. I don’t think I’d dare. I’ll just attempt to preach Christ and him crucified, as Paul wrote. This is not an easy lesson or a popular one, but it is a true, powerful, and saving lesson.

·       The message for us today then is listen, take care of ourselves, and ever be compassionate… even with ourselves. Not because it’s practical or proper (whatever that means) or enriching or successful, but because it’s the imitation of Jesus himself.

he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.