The Gospel of Mark is a Gospel in a rush. It skips the nativity and starts with John the Baptist. In Mark, Jesus is always on the move. It’s as if he was scooting round the countryside on an electric bike so that he could get quickly from one place to the other without being caught up in traffic. Or on a jet-ski for continually criss-crossing the Sea of Galilee.
And Mark packs a lot into this very long chapter six. This is the 3rd Sunday in a row that we’ve had readings from it. Jesus is rejected in his hometown, then he sends the 12 Apostles out to teach, then John the Baptist is beheaded, then Jesus feeds the thousands, walks on water and does multiple healings wherever he goes.
Before and after
Our reading today is two portions joined together. The first is the bit before he does the big outdoor catering event and the second is after he’s taken an early morning stroll on the lake.
We might have hoped for something a bit more exciting – like the bit in the middle – where he’s feeding the thousands and actually walking on water. But perhaps that’s the point? Maybe we need to slow down and look more closely at these verses? The before and the after. Verses which we might often overlook because of the more eye-catching ones in between.
Back and buzzing
In the passage from a couple of weeks ago, Jesus had sent the Apostles out in pairs. They were to travel light, reliant on other people’s hospitality. And they were to teach and to heal as they go. They must have caused a stir since we’re told that King Herod had got to hear about it.
Now they’re back and they’re buzzing, eager to tell Jesus all that had happened. The analogy isn’t perfect, but it reminded me of my sister, Karen, when we were growing up. It was in the days before mobile phones but after we’d had a landline installed. Karen would spend all day with her latest forever best friend – and the moment she got home she would be on the phone to the very same friend retelling every single moment of the time that they’d just spent together. They were building a relationship. Great for them – but annoying as anything for anyone else who wanted to use the only phone in the house!
So, there they all were. Telling Jesus about the healings, the demons, the towns which had welcomed them – and those which hadn’t. They’d been out of their comfort zone, living one moment at a time, not knowing what’s going to happen next. You can imagine a mixture of excitement and exhaustion.
Do we have that same sense of excitement? In our prayers do we excitedly talk to God about all that’s happened to us? Do we share the highs and the lows, our dreams for what’s next? I wonder how much time we spend building our relationship to God in prayer.
Rest awhile
Back in our Gospel we’re told that they are surrounded by other people whilst the de-brief is going on, probably being continually interrupted. Jesus sees that the disciples need a time of quiet to rest and take stock of what’s just taken place. And a time to eat too. He suggests that they find a deserted place. To come away and rest awhile. To go on a retreat!
There’s an echo here of God looking after the physical needs of the prophet Elijah after his encounter with the prophets of Baal. God gives him time to sleep, and he feeds him in the wilderness until he was ready to move on – to move on physically, mentally and spiritually.
Recover our hearts
I came across these words from one commentator when thinking about today’s reading. If you can’t imagine yourself in a desert, then try and think about being out in our surrounding moors and hills:
- In the desert, we can have a sense of ourselves again. No noise besides our noise and the wind, no company besides the plants and animals.
- In the desert, we hear the words we speak, we hear the silence we produce, we attend to the movements of our body.
- In the desert, we recover our hearts back again from our mobile phones, our rushed lives. It acts like a corridor that functions as a way in and out of our constant work for justice.
- The world is in such a precarious situation that we need this constant movement in and out of the desert that solid spiritual practices provide. These practices become important because our presence and work as Christians in the world is fundamental to the lives of those who are the least of these.
We need to grasp those times of solitude if we get them. But we’re never really alone, for God is there with us. Jesus says to us: come away and rest a while.
Narky and irritable
So, the disciples and Jesus get in a boat (again) and head for a deserted place, a wilderness, to get that down time. But perhaps they are rowing or sailing fairly close to the shore, since the crowd see what’s happening and get their first.
And, consequently, the disciples never do get their rest and relaxation. You can tell they’re bit narky and irritable from some of the comments to Jesus during the feeding miracle that follows. It’s ironic that Jesus feeds the thousands in the crowd later that day but didn’t get the time to feed the 12 earlier.
I wonder if we recognise the need in ourselves to get away and take stock? Are we so busy ‘doing’ that we run out of puff and get short-tempered?
Sheep without a shepherd
Of course, Jesus couldn’t say ‘no’ to the crowd. He had compassion for them. They were looking for leadership, which they weren’t getting from Herod or anyone else. Perhaps Jesus was thinking of our passage from Jeremiah or from Moses who was concerned about who should succeed him: “who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep without a shepherd.” Numbers 27:17
And we see something similar in our final verses. Mark is summarising here not one particular event but lots of them. Wherever they go, crowds appear hoping for friends and family to be healed. Jesus is like one of those pop-up clinics that you get in supermarket carparks these days. And all credit to the villagers and townsfolk for looking after their nearest and dearest and bringing them to Jesus.
Clearly, the tale of the healing of the woman with the bleed must have got around since others were now trying to copy her in touching Jesus’ clothes. I wonder if he felt power go from him, each time that happened. It must have been exhausting.
Busiest part of town
And these people are brought not to the synagogue but to the busiest part of town: to the marketplaces, where people meet-up and where the buying and selling and politics are done. This is where the healings take place.
As the people of God today, are we stuck in a church building or are we in the market-places? Are we where people meet-up? Where commerce and politics are done?
As the hands and feet of Jesus on earth, our role is to look out for all that is crying for our attention and demanding our care. As God’s people now, here, in this place, we are called to discern what work of God the Spirit is asking us to do. To have the same compassion as Jesus on those who need us.
Recharge the batteries
Martin Luther King said: “At the end… most of us will have to repent, not of the great evil we have done, but simply great apathy that has prevented us from doing anything.”
But it’s a question of balance. As Jesus did with his disciples in our reading, he is telling us that, if we’re normally in a rush, then we must also slow down and pay attention to our own hearts, our own movements. To how we are living our lives. To take the time to lie down in green pastures and be led beside still waters, as our psalm would have it. Without a spiritual life, oriented by daily practice of prayer and meditation, of pause and alone-ness, we cannot do all the work that we need to do and we cannot be all that we are called to be.
Someone once said that “a heart without action is ineffective – but an action without a heart is empty”. With God’s help, we need to do, or to have, both. So, if you’re taking some holiday in the next few weeks, then enjoy! Recharge those batteries, so that you can live the life to which you are called. Amen
“In a rush” was delivered by Ian Banks at St John with St Mark’s, Bury on July 21st, 2024. It was based on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56.