Sermon by Pastor Marc Kolden
July 23, 2006
The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the Sixth
Chapter. (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 market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today marks the third Sunday in a
row that we have been reading from the Sixth Chapter of the Gospel of
Mark. And this puzzles me because
when you read it all at once, as I did earlier this week, it seems to be mostly
a hodge-podge of different stories.
Two weeks ago, we heard about Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth and
teaching in the synagogue there, and the people had all heard about his growing
reputation and were wondering, surprised what was happening. But when they heard him, all they could say
is: “Who does he think he is? We
know his parents and brothers and sisters.
He was just a carpenter.” It
says, “They were offended by him.”
And Jesus was upset with them, as well.
He said, remember, “A prophet is respected everywhere except in his
hometown.” Then it says, “He
could hardly do any mighty works there because if their lack of faith.”
And so immediately after that he and the disciples
went to other towns. And then he sent
out the twelve, in groups of two, to proclaim the kingdom of God and call
people to repentance. They were supposed
to travel light, taking no extra food or clothing or any money and to stay with
those who offered them lodging. And if
the people wouldn’t listen, they were just to leave and not try anymore with
them. In addition to preaching, they
were to do healings and exorcisms—the same things that Jesus had been doing.
Well, it seems like a pretty clear passage, and we
expect we would go on to hear what they actually did. But all of the sudden, without warning, it
shifts in this Sixth Chapter of Mark to the awful death of John the
Baptist—about which we heard last Sunday. Right out of nowhere, it says that King Herod, the Roman ruler,
when he heard stories that there was a prophet with disciples out calling
people to repentance and doing all kinds of miraculous deeds, thought to
himself, “This must be John the Baptist, back from the dead.” Now, if we had been reading Mark’s Gospel, we
wouldn’t have heard anything about John the Baptist since right after he
baptized Jesus and was put in prison; we wouldn’t even know he was dead. And here is Herod, thinking (wrongly, of
course, because he confused John and Jesus), that John was risen from the
dead. And then we have this lengthy
story about the trickery and treachery involved in beheading John the Baptist,
coming right in the middle of the account of sending out the disciples.
And then just as quickly, when that’s over, we’re
back with the disciples today, returning from their mission, excited
with what has been happening, eager to tell Jesus of their success. But the crowds have followed them and joined
with the crowds that are around Jesus, and they are being pushed and pulled
from every side. And Jesus says, “You’ve
got to get some rest. Let’s go to a
place for some peace and quiet.” And
so they get in a boat and go around the sea, but it’s not very big—it’s like a
big lake—and the people aren’t stupid.
They realize if they follow on the shore they’ll keep up with Jesus and
the disciples. And so when they put to
shore again, there are all the people and the disciples haven’t gotten much
peace and quiet. And then Jesus
relented. It says that “He had
compassion on the crowd, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
And so he began to teach them again. The
crowds continued to come; Jesus’ miraculous work continued. And that’s our reading for the today. Five verses.
It seems mostly like an interlude, especially because if we were to read
even a few more verses we would see that what comes next is the feeding of
the five-thousand, something much more interesting and exciting and
marvelous. But that’s for next
Sunday. And so for this Sunday we have
these few little verses about the disciples coming back and the crowds and
their going and coming. And you wonder, What
is all this about? It seems
somewhat mundane. It seems like that
story of John the Baptist is just put in there, you know, to titillate the
viewers or something. It’s not a very
nice Bible story, that’s for sure. And
yet we believe that this Chapter too is the written word of God, “the cradle
in which Christ lies,” as Martin Luther put it. And so we had better take a closer look.
When Jesus went back to his
hometown, to preach in the synagogue there, the people who have known him the
longest not only didn’t believe what he said, but they wouldn’t even listen
him. Even though strangers all over the
countryside were having their lives turned upside-down when they heard Jesus
and witnessed his healing works and were saying that someone sent from God was
in their midst. In Nazareth, his
hometown, the people who had known him since he was a little boy were blind to
who he was, which is to say they were blind to God’s revelation. They could not see God in anything so
ordinary as a human being, or in the words that he spoke, or the things
that he did, even though the crowds saw and believed. And even the disciples, for all the
misunderstandings and failings they sometimes have, believed and followed.
Do we see ourselves in any of this? Do you
see God in Jesus’ life on earth? Or
does this seem preposterous? Yet if God
was in Jesus, as the Christian church has claimed all these years, then perhaps
we need to rethink how we have imagine God to be if we don’t see God in Jesus
and in all that happened to him.
When Jesus sent the disciples out two-by-two and
authorized them to preach what he had preached and perform his works as well,
does that have importance for us? The
Second Lesson we just heard (from Ephesians 2), talked about, “Once you were
outsiders, you were strangers, you were aliens, but now you have been brought
together with God’s ancient people.” It points out something to us—since I
think most of us are Gentiles, that is, we were not raised as Jewish
people—that if not for Jesus’ followers doing just what those disciples began
to do back then, we would still be outsiders; we would not be believers.
We say that the Holy Spirit called us, to be sure,
but how? Through the Gospel, through the
proclamation of and about Jesus Christ. Faith
comes by hearing, the Bible says (Rom. 1).
Somebody—probably many people—parents, teachers, pastors, other
relatives, friends, who knows—spoke of Jesus to each one of us, and faith was
created, or we would not be here today.
And so in that sort of simplistic or literal sense, the sending out of
the disciples finally was very important for us, because people kept doing it
for all these years. It is said that the
church is always one generation away from extinction because if we
don’t tell the story, how will the next generation have faith?
In another way, perhaps Jesus’ instructions to the
disciples way back then still have relevance for us, because one of our tasks as Christians is being
witnesses to those who have not yet heard the good news, or who need to hear it
again. Travel light; don’t expect to
get paid for it. Depend on your message,
not on your skills or on anything else that you bring, but depend on the word
about Jesus.
That was a big challenge for the disciples, as I think we all realize it is for us, too, because when they or we bring a message calling for repentance. That’s not only good news—telling people that God gives you a chance to acknowledge your sins and be forgiven—but it also brings judgment. When you call on someone to repent, that means they’ve got something to repent for. They need to be forgiven; they’re guilty. The word “repent” is a very big concept. It doesn’t only mean to admit our sins, but to turn around, to change your mind, to be born anew to a different way of life, and to turn your back on your old faithless way of life. The good news is that it is never too late. But the accompanying bad news is that all that is old needs to be left behind.
So it’s seldom popular to bring a word of Gospel and judgment. John the Baptist found that out in the most harsh way, as had most of the prophets before him. And Jesus and his disciples, just a few chapters later, will experience that as well. People were offended, and they were blind to God’s presence in Christ’s words and deeds and in the words of the disciples. Even many of those enthusiastic first followers, who were still in the crowds, fell away when the authorities brought Jesus to trial and condemned him to death. They want nothing to do with him. “I don’t know the man,” Peter said, and swore an oath to emphasize it.
And there is more than a bit of irony at the end of that story of John the Baptist when it says that, after he was beheaded, John’s disciples came and got his body and put it in a tomb. Yet, when Jesus was crucified, his disciples were nowhere to be found; and a stranger that we have never heard of before had to take the body and put it in a tomb.
The cost of following Jesus is that we will be joined
to him in a death like his before we will be raised with him. Evangelists and witnesses need to know that
and include it as part of what new life means.
That won’t be easy, as we all know in our own lives, nor will it
necessarily be well received. But to
be raised to newness of life involves the crucifixion of the sinful self.
Finally, in today’s reading, there
is a word of particular importance in the midst of description of Jesus seeing
the crowds who have come to him again, even when he and the disciples have
tried to escape them in order to rest.
(And as we read that, we need to remember what the New Testament always
assumes, if it doesn’t always say it, that Jesus is the one sent from
God. When he says or does something,
it’s not just like you or I did it. It
is that God was in Christ doing it.)
So we look and see, what did he say?
Did he greet them? How did he
greet them? With irritation at
not being left alone? Or with
arrogance to having all these people in the palm of his hand? Of course not. It says, he meets them with compassion. He feels for them, deep in his soul. The word comes from—it’s very crude, slangy
word— “guts.” He felt for
their situation from “deep in his guts.”
We would probably say, “in his heart.” But the point was that he was moved. Compassion is a mixture of kindness,
and understanding, and love: empathy, feeling for someone else’s hurt, a
deep connection with their needs.
Because, it says, he saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd. They were like lost sheep, confused,
defenseless, uncared for. Worse than
that, those who were supposed to be their shepherds had been bad shepherds,
unfaithful guides, unreliable leaders, undependable guardians, as we heard
today in the First Lesson from Jeremiah.
In having compassion on the crowd, because they were
like sheep without a shepherd, Jesus
is revealing (to us, also) that he has come, that God has sent him to be the
Good Shepherd, the one promised by Jeremiah, the one talked about in Psalm
23. .”The Lord is my shepherd.” And now Jesus is Lord. The one who leads us to green pastures and
good water, guides us into right paths, and is with us in the valley of the
shadow of death, in suffering and death, in the presence of our enemies. The disciples and the crowd did not fully
realize all this at that point. Yet, it
is there for us to see and believe, because we know the rest of the story—when
the shepherd becomes the Lamb who was slain for us, for our transgressions, and
the one whom the Father raised from the dead to be our Eternal Shepherd, and
Lord, and Friend.
This Good Shepherd is present today in our midst, as
he promised to be, speaking to us in the words he once spoke, hearing our
prayers and praise, leading and guiding and caring for us, forgiving our sins,
and nourishing our faith. And, yet, his
presence is still hidden, for just as he once came as a human being, and
God’s revelation in him was not seen except by faith, so today he is hidden
in human words and actions and in water, bread, and wine.
What’s not hidden, though, what is clear are
his promises that he will be with us always—wherever two or three are gathered
in his name—and that as we receive the Lord’s Supper, this bread is his
body, and this wine is his blood, given and shed for us, for the forgiveness of
our sins, life and salvation.
As we receive these ordinary things, we receive
Jesus. He will abide in us, and
we in him. That’s his promise.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.