Gospel Mark 6.30-34, 53-56 & Sermon
” Compassion & Humanity.”
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 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. 32 And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34 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.
53 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54 When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, 55 and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 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.
SERMON:
What attracted people to Jesus in those days when he was walking and talking, visiting and eating, were not traits that you would normally associate with effective and successful leadership in our day: self-awareness, innovation, self-confidence, creativity, strategic thinking and planning.
His personality may well have encompassed any of these if not all.
But when people followed Jesus, they were drawn by his compassion as much as anything else. His compassion and his presence.
Jesus did truly process what Frederick Buechner described as the” fatal capacity of felling what it is like to live inside someone’s else’s skin.”
At the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus touched and cleansed a person with leprosy, moved as he was with compassion. Jesus cared for the individual and for the crowds as we hear today. And he from the deepest parts of his being. It is quite saying that the Greek work for compassion derives from the words that refers to the bowels or entrails, or what we might speak as “of his gut.” Jesus had a deep deep feeling for what others were experiencing which he then acted upon kindly and promptly. He could not ignore his gut feeling.
Compassion was central to who Jesus was. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that if we want to be” Christian, we must share in Christ’s large heartedness, his liberating love for all who suffer.”
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
One way to nurture compassion in our own lives is to practice it: and to be honest about the adversity in life. In our own lives and others. In other words, acknowledge the pain around us along with the blessings. To be emphatic is to live compassionately…. It is our humble way of trying to imitate Christ.
Christians are not the only people who cultivate or preach compassion, but we do so for a distinct reason: to be like Christ, to imitate Christ. Because Christ was Compassion.
Sometimes we hear the words “Oh, I am only human” as a bad excuse of not doing enough or anything at all.
But if we fail to be compassionate, we are not human at all. Then we are inhumane and acting against our inner sovereign human instincts: that deep gut feeling of compassion and empathy.
If we dis-engage and become more indifferent, less involved or aware of others’ pain and suffering, then we do indeed become less human and less compassionate.
Sometimes we might almost want to sign out of all the constant flow of bad news and tidings of war, violence and illness, and just be in our own little bubble, safe and sound from doom and gloom.
But as Christian, we are called out of our comfort and out of ourselves into compassion for the world and others. We are called to be human in relations.
There is no such saying as “Oh, we are only human” which is only a poor excuse and dangerous inhumane. We are indeed only human – but that is indeed a privilege and a call: to be human, to be compassionate, to be fully human in the world.
In today’s Gospel an exhausted Jesus responded to the crowds with compassion. Even if all he wanted was to take his faithful disciples to a deserted place, to get away from the busy life and rest for a bit. Recharge. Relax. Reignite. Renew.
Away, alone, a deserted place, some time off, sounds wonderful, right? That might be our definition of vacation or time off, right?
But it turned out the crowds were waiting for Jesus, because the people recognized Jesus and his disciples and hurried ahead to meet them on the other side of the lake in the now not so deserted place.
Jesus’s plans for getting away and being alone were ruined by the needy crowd, because Jesus had compassion for them.
Compassion amid his own exhaustion. In his own exhaustion, he recognized the weariness of the others. In his own need for renewal, he recognized their need for healing. In his own longing for time away to pray, he recognizes their prayer to connect with him.
Jesus recognized not with a sigh or irritation, but with compassion. He was indeed a good shepherd. A good compassionate present human being with divine patience, which is hard for us to copy and imitate. But we are called to try….
“So, and what do you do?”
That is one of the questions that many pastors’ dreads to be asked when they are undressing in the gym, Monday morning shopping and standing in line, or sitting at the festive table with total strangers. Some dread it, others delight in it. And it can be quite funny too!
There are of course many creative responses to this question to avoid an awkward response or even silence.
You can say that you are.
“A Director for a non-profit.”
“A Carpenters apprentice.”
“A Compassion Champion.”
“A Shepherd or a Fisherman” or you just say as I usually do: “I am a pastor.”
Sometimes, particularly for those of us who are not male, this revelation even in 2024 can elicit hostility or awkwardness. But mostly it results in excuses for bad language or bad explanation for why they did not attend service or stories about the horrible Confirmation Pastor.
Despite discomfort or awkwardness, when people find out that I am in the business of Compassion and Shepherding, they often then want me to be their pastor on the spot at the dinner table or in the line at Staters. Telling me about their husband’s infidelity, when I am in the locker room or asking me to pray for the cousin while I am bagging my groceries.
It is not that I cannot be their pastor – but sometimes I also need to be just me. And sometimes it is needed and nice to get aways from my ministry role, where I truly am someone who will listen, help, guide, teach, comfort, heal and pray.
Along with the disciples in the gospel today, I relish in Jesus’ invitation to come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.
After a busy pastoral week of 3 memorials, hospital and nursing home visits, sermon writing, telephones calls, hundreds of emails, moving a cow, meeting with scouts, families, city, synod and more, I recharged Monday afternoon at the beach. With a book. Listening to the waves. Diving in the waves. Solitude and Silence. Rest for the soul and renewal for the Shepherd.
But then a little kid was crying at the beach. And then an elderly lady tripped in the sand…...
Life calls on us even when we think we can retrieve to a deserted quiet place – because we are human. Who hopefully continues to be only human who can feel the ache in our gut, the sovereign instinct to help and act.
As Dalai Lama said:
“Love and Compassion are necessities not luxuries without them humanity couldn’t survive.”
So, look at Christ and go and do likewise.