The Way of Compassion

A sermon preached at Old South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Hallowell, Maine, July 23, 2006.

Text: Mark 6:30-44

The Rev. Susan M. Reisert, Minister

This summer, we have been making a long, slow, arduous journey through the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. Mark tends to raise more questions than he answers. Healings are dramatic, yet inconsistent. References are made to amazing teachings, yet Mark fails to offer much of anything regarding the actual content of those teachings. Jesus is shown having command over nature, or, at least, over the storms on the sea, yet it is unclear whether that is what we should take note of or his questioning of the disciples’ faith. The disciples are witness to miraculous healings, yet they are sometimes told to keep that information to themselves. Jesus gets rejected by his home town, yet we are left to wonder what he said to produce such a reaction. A woman is healed from a twelve-year hemorrhage just by touching the cloak of Jesus. The disciples are sent off on a mission where they are to carry no supplies, but are told that they should be prepared for rejection and that, in the event of rejection, to shake the dust from their sandals as a curse on that place. The disciples are sent on this important mission, though we don’t know where. But, while they are away, John the Baptist is beheaded by Herod Antipas who is generally known to be acting on a request from his step-daughter—even though Herod liked to listen to John and considered him to be a holy man.

Through this journey through the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, we have been reminded that Mark wrote primarily for his contemporary community of Christians in the late sixties of the first century. This was the time of the first major wave of persecutions of Christians during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Mark, the only Gospel to self-identify as a Gospel and the first written of the four in the New Testament, set out to encourage those contemporary Christians and to motivate them to remain faithful, despite the gathering storm of various dangers in the world in which they lived. The actual teachings of Jesus were not so important as to remain faithful to the One who offered the ultimate in hope. The things of this life were temporary, but the reward to those who believed in Christ and professed their faith in him would be eternal.

We have made our way through some difficult territory—with controversies, difficult images and painful circumstances and lots and lots of questions. Why so much detail about his journey to the home of the leader of the synagogue whose daughter is sick to the point of death, with the woman with a twelve-year hemorrhage touching him along the way, yet no information about what Jesus taught in the synagogue in his hometown—so controversial and so full of authority did Jesus speak, that he was rejected by the crowd that knew him best.

So many questions, so many seemingly incomplete stories. Today,, we bring those frustrating stories to this wonderful story of the feeding of the five thousand—or, as Mark carefully makes note, five thousand men. Who knows how many more, if they counted women and children?

As we see more clearly in this morning’s passage, Mark is focused on the reward—the gift of salvation for those who have the courage to follow the path of God laid out by his Son, Jesus the Christ, Messiah and Savior of the world who came to live among the people to show them the way, to suffer and die on the cross and then to be raised. For Mark, this is central. All of the rest is merely to help set up the significance of this event and God’s plan of salvation for humanity.

Today, we find ourselves at a first “mini-reward,” of sorts, in the journey through the first part of the Gospel of Mark. The passages that we have read have certainly been illuminating and interesting, provocative and meaningful in our lives of faith, but today we find a fullness in the message that has been at least somewhat lacking in the previous six chapters and twenty-nine verses. Today, we find ourselves in the midst of something of a fulfillment of what has gone before, a story that brings together much of what we have read with a brief glimpse into why it is so important, so significant.

In the previous parts of the Gospel, we have wondered about a lot—we have wondered about the teachings and the healings and the command to the disciples not to say anything about what they were witnessing.

Now, in this morning’s passage, we find that Jesus and the disciples are tired. The disciples have returned from their ,mysterious mission and they are exhausted, that they had no leisure even to eat—so Mark indicates. So, Jesus suggests that they go away to a deserted place to be by themselves, to rest and to talk about what has been going on and probably about how those missions went. So, they boarded a boat to go to that deserted place.

But, Jesus and his friends had become famous by this time, so famous that people could recognize them,. Crowds begin to follow them; they hurry on foot along the shore, even arriving ahead of Jesus and his disciples to what was supposed to be a deserted place for them to be alone to rest. Instead, they find themselves surrounded by a crowd that’s getting bigger—a regular multitude.

As Jesus went ashore himself, he saw the great crowd that had gathered in that place where he thought he was going to be just with a few of his closest friends. Because they were like sheep without a shepherd, he had compassion for them. It should be noted here that the word compassion really only begins to describe what Jesus was feeling when he looked at that great multitude. As much as he was tired and hungry and longing to spend some time resting, he found himself surrounded by a great crowd of people who were also tired and hungry—although tired and hungry in a very different way. He was so moved by this sight of people, that he felt it deep in his gut—moved from the depths of his bowels, in fact (if we wanted to convey more closely the meaning of the Greek word used here). Deeply moved, so Mark describes the reaction of Jesus; so deeply moved that he felt it in a physical way.

So, he began to teach them many things—although, as usual, Mark doesn’t tell us what he taught. Not even the remotest clue. Though this time, it seems clear that we don’t really need to know this information at all. In fact, Mark tells us everything we need to know about what Jesus taught that day. To report on what came out of his mouth would distract us from the real teaching that took place that day. We’ll get to that part in a minute.

When it grew late, the disciples approached Jesus. The ever-practical disciples know that this is a great crowd and they are in a deserted place—no convenience stores, no sandwich shop, no McDonalds.. Great crowds get hungry and deserted places are not particularly good places to feed large numbers of people. So, the disciples have come up with this great plan—we’ll send them out to the surrounding country and villages in order to buy something for themselves. I can imagine that they were quite proud of themselves for thinking up such a great plan.

But, Jesus doesn’t like the plan. He wants them to give the people something to eat. The disciples are understandably concerned. They know for sure that they didn’t bring enough to feed such a multitude and that the money required to buy provisions would also have been beyond their capability—or so their practical and conventional way of thinking told them. But, Jesus is not a practical and conventional kind of guy—that’s our first big lesson and reminder today. Again, we’ll get to that in a minute.

So, the disciples here the command that they are to provide the meal. But, when the disciples go to see what kind of food they are carrying, they find only five loaves and two fish.

If Jesus were around now, he would call this a great teaching moment. What a great time to show them where he’s been trying to lead them! To get the most from such a moment, he orders the disciples to get all the people to sit in groups on the green grass.

Jesus then took the five loaves and two fish. First, he looked to heaven, and blessed the loaves. Then, he broke them. Then, he gave them to the disciples who gave them to the people. All ate and were filled. And, then, taking up the leftovers, they found twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

He blessed the bread, broke it, gave it and then received it. This is the teaching moment that offers the correct posture for following in the path. This is the model for our lives of faith; this is the path to where Jesus leads—to hope and salvation no matter how strong the storms rage in our lives. This is the way of compassion.

These days, we are beset by images that move us from the depths of our being—sometimes the images and stories may actually be too much to really move us. But, the world presents many moving stories, many painful images and circumstances. So many in the world in desperate need of a shepherd, perhaps no more so than those who think that they do not need a shepherd or those who claim such a hold on their relationship with the shepherd that they are drawn to violence and hatred and misunderstanding. So many are in real need of the real shepherd.

This wonderful story from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark tells us almost everything we need to know in pursuing our relationship with our Creator and with our Shepherd. First, we recognize the importance of blessing. We look to heaven and ask for blessing to be upon us and upon our seemingly small amount of gifts and talents. We look to heaven and ask for blessing. Then, we recognize and accept the gift of blessing upon us. We understand that through the power of blessing, our small gifts are multiplied in ways that we probably cannot even recognize or imagine.

Second, is the breaking part. We are a broken people. In this, we first recognize our own brokenness, our own inadequacies and our own shortcomings. We acknowledge our imperfections, our weaknesses. Our brokenness is not a liability; it is part of who we are, part of what actually connects us to each other and to the rest of the world. Our brokenness is a critical part of how we understand our need for the shepherd and what keeps us from making too great a claim on how think the Shepherd is leading us. The breaking part is the part that reminds us of the necessity of humility. A little humility can keep us from a lot of trouble.

Then, it is time to offer and give of ourselves. We do not always know what will happen when we offer ourselves, when we give of ourselves. That is not for us to understand. We are to give, to offer ourselves. In faith, we accept the blessing, we recognize our brokenness and, though the crowds of those in need seem so great and overwhelming, we give of ourselves anyway. In faith, in hope and in trust, we give of ourselves. We offer the little that we have, knowing that it will be multiplied.

We are living in a time when this kind of giving is especially important. Across the world and even in our own small part of the world, there are great crowds in need of a good shepherd. There are many that are lost, that are hungry, that are tired. But, just to give of ourselves is not all there is. We first present ourselves for blessing and then offer our brokenness. And, then we offer—and, perhaps most difficult for me, we offer without condition and without control of where that offering is really going to go, how that giving will move and do its own work away from me.

If we ask for blessing, if we acknowledge our brokenness, if we give of ourselves in faith and in hope, we then receive. We receive more than we can imagine. We receive more than we can dare to expect. We receive more than we can hope for or dream about. We receive more than what we at first sent out. We receive

This is the great teaching moment. This is the way of compassion that Jesus set out and Mark so ably characterizes for his readers—whether they be his contemporaries in the first century or Christ followers many hundreds of years hence. The actual words that came out of Jesus’ mouth as he taught the great crowd that had assembled, despite the fact that Jesus and his disciples were exhausted and hungry, don’t really matter. We would likely focus on them and not on the rest. And, then we would miss the great teaching moment.

Jesus looked at the crowd, and likely on the disciples who were with him as well, and knew that this was an important opportunity to show these lost and lonely people, these people so bereft of a leader, so in need of direction and hope in their lives, to show them the way—to model for them what God wishes for them as they relate to God, to each other and to the rest of the world.

Blessing. Brokenness. Giving. Receiving. This is the way. This is the way of compassion, of faith, of hope, of trust. This is the way.

We present ourselves for blessing and acknowledge that we are blessed; our seemingly small and inconsequential gifts and talents are blessed. That God seeks to make use of them, even though they seem so inadequate. We present our gifts, we present ourselves for blessing and we recognize that, in turn, we are blessed.

We offer our brokenness. We lift up our doubts, our fears, our weaknesses, our arrogance. We lift them up. We recognize and offer our own brokenness, that it may be used as well, that it may not hinder, but inform, our relationship with our Creator and our following of the path of faith, hope and trust.

We give. We give of ourselves. We offer our blessed gifts and talents, our acknowledged brokenness. We give all of the little bit that we think we have. We send it out in faith, in hope and in trust. We send it out into the world.

When we have done all of these things—ask for blessing, present our brokenness and give of ourselves, then we receive more than we can imagine. More than we can hope for.

A great teaching moment for those very first followers of Jesus, those who were not even sure of how this guy was, as well as for those early Christians who were tested, persecuted and martyred. A great teaching moment for us as well—as we continue to move along this path of hope and faith, this path of compassion, this path of life, of fullness of life.

Blessing. Brokenness. Giving. Receiving.

Thanks be to God. Thanks be to the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to our Shepherd. Amen.