Imagine you are snoozing away, in that lovely land of
Nod when suddenly the phone rings and you are called out of sleep to deal with
stuff. Your rest is over and the demands of life crowd in. It happened to me a bit ago – I went for a nice lie down about 5pm after a long day, indeed a
very long week. At 7pm the phone rang and I suddenly had to respond to a
crisis.
That’s where Jesus is in the lectionary Gospel reading for this week. (Mark 6: 30 - 34 and 53 - 58)
He has decided the disciples need a break and something to eat, they had no
time, like many pressurised workers today to take a lunch hour. So he says “the
busyness must stop, you need to sit down and be for a bit.”
But soon, like my phone call, the people come… And
Jesus is moved to be amongst them. The break, the sleep is soon over.
This passage in Mark’s Gospel is one that summarises
for me the heart of Jesus, and therefore the heart of what we should be about.
So, I want to use three words I see in it, to help us try and work out how like
Jesus we are. He calls us to rest, but then to respond when the need is there
in front of us.
First, verse 34 of Mark 6 – for me what we are as a
church: he had compassion for them. Compassion. Literally suffering with
people. No wonder if Jesus is compassionate he wakes up and goes back to work.
I don’t know if you heard the maiden speech in
Parliament this week of the 20 year old SNP MP Mhairi Black. I am not about to
suggest we all vote SNP, but it was a passionate speech about not just sitting
there but about compassionate politics and opposing what is simply wrong. She
quoted Tony Benn: in politics there are
weathercocks and signposts - weathercocks will spin in whatever direction the
wind of public opinion may blow them, no matter what principle they may have to
compromise. "And there are signposts, signposts which stand true and tall
and principled.”
Let’s make that quote about Christianity shall we? We
need to be signposts for people, to stand true and tall and principled. People
need to see us do something. I am tired of sitting listening to great speeches
telling me why nothing can be done. In my past I have had people say to me when
things have gone wrong as a minority who make a noise and are making life
difficult seem to win and things go pear shaped: “we didn’t do anything” like
they are being punished. But it is precisely that that is the problem. Jesus is
a signpost, true, tall and principled. He is moved with compassion. Note that
word – moved.
Who are we moved to be compassionate about in our
church today?
Secondly, Jesus cares in this passage. Why? Because
there are sheep in his world without a shepherd. Both us in the community and
people outside of it who need bringing into the fold.
We need to know that compassion, that shepherding for
ourselves before we can do anything else. If we don’t take it in, then we will
have nothing to give anyone. If we don’t feel safe, secure and loved, how can
we give to others safety, security and love?
I went to Edinburgh last month to hear my heroine in
contemporary spiritual writing Barbara Brown Taylor, a priest in the Episcopal
Church in America and a University lecturer. Some of us have studied her
writing in our spirituality writer. In her lecture, she spoke about Jesus being
there for us when we need him most. And she had a phrase that has stayed with
me since I heard her. She talked about suffering and hurt and emptiness in us
and reminded us there is nothing we face that Jesus hasn’t faced first.
She talked about communion and the cup, and said
always remember “there are other lips on the chalice.” The compassion of Christ
leads to him getting up, suffering with, dying for, getting messy and bloody
for us. This is the grace of God and it is mind blowing. Jesus is Immanuel, God
with us, present in all circumstances, with transforming love. For sheep
without a shepherd. We are those sheep and we need him today. So as well as
thinking about our world we also need to think about what builds us up as a
people in order to be useful in it.
Then finally perhaps something about touch. There is a
lovely hymn from Iona called “A touching place” – to the lost Christ shows his
face, to the unloved he gives his embrace, to those who cry in shame or
disgrace, Christ makes with his friends, a touching place. To have your hand held is a sign of solidarity and loving presence.
Two elderly people in one of our residential homes have started courting, one is a resident, the
other a volunteer. They sit holding hands in the service – it is so sweet! People
want to touch the presence of Christ – the passage tells us people wanted to
touch even the fringe of Jesus cloak, and all who touched it were healed.
Perhaps this isn’t about people coming to church, it is about the church
allowing people to touch it by it entering the world, to wake up, to put our
own cares aside and get on with engagement.
Pope Francis has a radical view of church and I wonder
whether he was thinking about this Gospel passage when he shared these words in
his writing: The Joy of the Gospel.
“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty
because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy
from being confined and from clinging to its own security. More than by fear of
going astray, my fear is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up
within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which
make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door
people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us “Give them
something to eat.”
What difference having found compassion and a shepherd
will we make? How credible is our church today? We have to make a difference.
And it is about relationships and being where people are, more than expecting
them now to enter our strange world.
A week last Friday I went and did some chaplaincy at
the Kent County Show at the church tent. In the tent were all sorts of
activities, but in the main people weren’t going in it, and some of the folk
staffing it were bemused. There was nothing to attract them in and what was
offered was a bit deep really. Meanwhile I was outside the tent chatting to
people. Most weren’t interested in the theology and evangelistic methods within
the tent, more wanted to chat about life and the day and their story and what
was going on in life. I larked around with one lady and she said, “If you were
my vicar, I would come to church.” All of our work, all of Jesus work is
relational. He loves people, chats to people, and takes people seriously as he
takes us seriously. The unloved, the unwashed, the different, the starving, the
lonely, the difficult. He takes on the things that need a different approach –
benefit sanctions, the gap between rich and poor getting bigger, a tabloid
press that is scandalous and needs dealing with if you saw The Sun on Saturday, (Surely if we all stopped buying the Sun it might go away - 7 pages of nonsense) might be things he would tackle today and invite us to. Healing the streets is
where this Gospel passage ends.
In Jesus’ concern for the well-being of the people he
encountered, in his meeting us at his table of welcome and plenty, we learn
that the whole of creation lives from the inexhaustible generosity of God. And
we discover that in this Shepherd who feeds us, himself the sacrificial lamb
who lays down his life for us, we lack nothing.
And through us, and our work, knowing that, we have to
make a difference to others.
