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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 it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
FOCUS SENTENCE: The compassion that comes to us from Jesus enables us to live compassionately ourselves and to show compassion from our own hearts for others.
I
Jesus and the disciples
are ready for a quiet time.
The twelve have returned
from their missionary journeys
where they have performed acts of healing
and called the people to repentance.
They are greatly excited
by all that has happened to them,
and they can’t wait to tell Jesus.
“But first,”
Jesus says,
“we need to find a quiet place by ourselves.”
The crowds are pressing on them
so steadily
that they have no time to rest
or even to eat.
So Jesus loads the disciples into boats
and leads them to a place
he knows
further down along the seashore.
When they get to their retreat site,
what do you know!?
The crowd has followed them
by land,
and they have arrived there
ahead of them.
Jesus and his friends
get out of the boats
and meet the people
on the shore.
Doubtless
Jesus looks closely at them
to size up the situation.
These people have come
to this deserted place
on foot
wearing sandals
that have made their hurrying
all the more difficult.
Their clothes show
the dust of their rough journey.
But it is their expectant faces
and their eager eyes
that are most notable to Jesus.
Their fatigue gives way
to their longing;
they need to hear more
from this Jesus,
who may actually have come to them
from God.
And so Jesus “has compassion for them.”
Jesus’ compassion
for the needs of the people
wells up in his heart.
What he knows is
that “they are like sheep
without a shepherd.”
He right away
changes the plans for
his disciples and himself.
His compassion for the people
brings him to give up
their rest time.
Jesus pays attention
to what the people
seem to need,
and compassionately
“he begins to teach them many things.”
II
Mark must have loved this story,
because he recounts it to us
with feeling.
Mark hasn’t just stuck this event
in between the missionary journeys
and the feeding of the multitude
just ahead.
This isn’t just a literary interlude
to move Jesus from one place to another
as you might find in a novel
or a movie. No.
This story is important to the church.
It’s about Jesus’ giving up
looking out for himself and his friends
in behalf the needs
of other men and women.
We can imagine that
copies of Mark’s gospel
have been made;
and they have been rushed
by couriers
to various churches
where the story
is needed so badly.
There are scores,
perhaps hundreds or more,
of brand new
followers of Jesus Christ,
some newly baptized,
who gather weekly
at great personal risk
to eat the bread
and drink the wine.
They want to hear Mark’s report
of how it all happened.
And,
more than that,
they will be
informed and shaped
by what they hear.
These small groups of followers of Jesus
here and there
are going to learn something very important from these verses
you and I are hearing
this morning.
These brand new Christians
are going to hear
that compassion is the power
that moves from Jesus
to those who need him.
They are going to learn
that Jesus’ compassion
they’re witnessing
on the shore of the lake that day–
that compassion that brings Jesus
to set all aside
and to take care of those who need him–
is what other new
Christian men and women
are learning to do
themselves.
And they’re going to realize
what is required of them.
Mark is telling a story
from which new Christians will learn
that Jesus Christ is calling them
to be compassionate
toward one another
and to be ready to care
for the needs of others.
The disciples
have been on the road
preaching repentance.
Jesus is showing them what’s next.
He wants them
to have compassion
for the people.
III
Of course,
those hearing Mark’s story
read to them
will discover
that the disciples themselves
don’t understand it
right away.
The idea of loving others compassionately
more than we love ourselves
is hard to catch on to.
Unbridled compassion for others is hard
to come by
in ourselves.
It takes practice and work.
Look what happens.
The disciples begin to realize
that Jesus is so carried away
by his teaching and healing
that he has forgotten
the time of day.
The disciples begin to get a little jumpy
about what’s going on.
In their fledgling compassion,
their apprenticeship efforts
to consider others,
they come up with
a sort of a
“quasi-compassionate”
suggestion.
They come to Jesus and say,
“Jesus, this is a deserted place,
and the hour is now very late.
“The most compassionate thing
we can do
for these tired and hungry people is to send them away
so that they may go
into
the surrounding country and villages
and buy something for themselves
to eat.”
We wonder whether Jesus
is thinking to himself,
“These disciples of mine
are rookies
in the compassion business.”
He has a surprise answer for them.
“You give them something to eat.”
“Come on, Jesus.
“You’re not getting the picture,” they complain.
“What do you expect of us?
“Are we to go and buy
two hundred denarii worth of bread,
and give it to them to eat?
“Why, that would be
two hundred day’s pay
for a single working person.
“Be reasonable, Jesus.”
And there follows the story we all know.
Jesus’ compassion
comes forth from his heart
once again.
From the five loaves and two fish
brought to him,
Jesus feeds a multitude of people numbering more than
five thousand men, women, and children.
IV
It’s easy to get distracted
in the Scripture
we have before us
this morning.
If we were to make the feeding of the people
the main thing here,
and if we were to marvel at Jesus’
power and cunning,
we would be distracted
from something more subtle
that’s in there for us.
It would be easy for us
to miss
that Jesus is acting compassionately, and you and I
are being called
to be compassionate
toward one another.
This is a story
about Jesus’ compassion
and about his showing forth compassion
to the disciples,
to the people in the crowd,
to the young church
for whom Mark is writing,
and to you and me.
He shows us
that whatever good we may be doing, however good it is,
needs to be done
with compassion for all humankind,
near and far.
You and I are called to be compassionate.
V
We can’t help in these Sundays
along now
this summer
reflecting on our own church today.
Not to talk about
what’s going on among us Episcopalians
is like ignoring
the elephant that’s in the room
with us
every time we come together.
The Rev. David Seger,
a consultant visiting us in this Diocese,
remarked to a group of us
about his observation
on the whole Episcopal Church.
We are no longer a “charitable church,”
he said.
We have reached a point among ourselves
at which
there is no meaningful communication toward healing.
We count others as guilty
by their association
with their fellows and their ideas.
The result is
that the Episcopal Church
is losing its middle ground,
Fr. Sever says,
and it may not be possible to recover it.
What we need
is a bridge built between the two sides,
a bridge that allows us
to be in relationship
with those with whom we
profoundly disagree.
Father Seger’s suggestion begins,
I think,
with compassion for one another.
What if one Sunday
folks in this congregation
were to go out in groups of five or so
to other congregations in Nashville,
those who disagree with us and with whom we disagree.
We would listen to
the adult discussion group.
We would go to the coffee hour.
We would be courteous,
reverent,
self-giving.
We would not honor
the points of view
we hear
when we cannot honor them,
but we would honor the people
who have
the points of view.
We would invite them to visit Saint Anne’s.
Some might even do it.
I think–I’m not sure–
but I think
we just might begin to have
greater compassion for those
with whom we disagree.
Maybe,
just maybe,
the middle ground we need among us would begin to appear again.
VI
But compassion isn’t required
just in the Episcopal Church;
Jesus requires compassion everywhere.
In my study is a plaque that says,
“Give a damn.”
(Somebody who thought I needed it
gave it to me.)
I looked at it this week,
and I realized once again
that compassion is hard work.
That’s what those rookie disciples
were discovering.
Compassion,
Jesus showed them,
isn’t telling people
to go to the store
and buy what they need.
No. Compassion
is giving them what they need
from our hearts
while caring passionately
for their well-being.
The disciples eventually discovered
that Jesus was being reasonable.
His compassion began to rule
among all who knew him,
and then in all who became part
of his church.
We remind ourselves
then
of what Jesus is saying and doing among those people this morning.
He is acting out before their eyes and ours and in the hearing of all
that God through Christ Jesus
is calling all of us,
you and me,
to become compassionate toward all humankind.
The Reverend William Hethcock, Professor of Homiletics , Emeritus
The School of Theology, University of the South, Sewanee
