FINDINGS III By Harry T. Cook

Proper 11 - B - July 22, 2012      

Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56 

Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook
7/16/12 

The Revised Common Lectionary omits from the reading for July 22 Mark's version of the feeding of the multitude (vv. 35-44) and the oft-remarked upon and just as oft-misunderstood "Jesus walking on the water" passage (vv. 45-52), leaving us with what could otherwise be considered a seamless story beginning with Jesus having got himself and his associates away for a breather from the action, only to encounter the crowd that had earlier pursued them. Mark depicts Jesus as -- perhaps a bit wearily -- understanding the hunger of the crowd for his teaching, saying "He had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd."

It is important to note that Mark wasn't equating human beings with sheep, but that the people had no adequate or dependable leadership -- allegedly not from the traditional leaders of synagogue Judaism, of whom Mark clearly took a dim view.

At v. 53, Jesus and his assistants are back in the boat and, once back on the other side of the lake, the same kind of mob scene occurs as people are said to have rushed to Jesus with friends and relatives who were sick in hopes that he could cure them.

In Mark's eyes, the whole of Galilean society was "sick" due to corrupt and uncaring religious and civic power structure that in one way or another oppressed ordinary persons at the same time as offering no clear moral leadership. The "sick" who encountered Jesus, as Mark envisioned the scene, thought that merely touching "the fringe of his cloak" would make a difference in their lives. (In another source, Jesus is credited with saying, "Give up your cloak as well as your coat." Hmmm.)

The story is clearly a rebuke to the religious establishment immediately post-70 CE, when, because of the dismantlement of the Temple's sacerdotal apparatus, as well as the Temple itself, all was confusion with little or no able or honest leadership apparently having emerged from the chaos. Mark's "Jesus" figure is depicted as just such a leader who presided over anxiety and confusion in his own time with a shepherd-like gentleness -- what the late Rabbi Edwin H. Friedman called a "non-anxious presence."

A little hint at how the different evangelists saw things differently: Mark in the passage at hand depicts Jesus being attentive to his disciples' need for rest after their exertions (6:31). Luke only hints at it (Lk. 9:10b). For Matthew it was Jesus who needed the time and place apart after hearing of the execution of John the Baptist. Keeping in mind that the gospels are as much about the life of Jesus Judaism post-70 CE as the events that may have occurred in the first third of the first century, the suggestion is that the row of the new movement was an exceptionally difficult one to hoe.

Nonetheless, we are told that the crowds kept coming, and that could not have pleased the movement's detractors, which would have added yet another level of difficulty. The crowds kept coming for healing ("θεραπειας)," the connection to our English derivative "therapy" being obvious. The "θεραπων" was an attendant or servant -- comparable, we might say, to the nurse's aid in a modern hospital: the bedpan emptier, the bed changer, the kind of person many people remember from hospital stays as caring in very basic but important ways.

Maybe Mark imagined Jesus as being, in addition to a "non-anxious presence," an empathetic presence who did more by just standing in solidarity with the "sick" than waving any magic wand after the dramatic fashion of the modern-day "faith healer."

One is helped along in that stream of thought by paying attention to the Greek word from which "compassion" comes.  "He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd" (6:34). The Greek root of "compassion" is "σπλαγχνον," meaning "of the inward parts, e.g., the viscera." Thus the line might reasonably be heard in our contemporary language as, "He had a gut-wrenching experience as he saw the crowds without leadership the leadership they needed and deserved."

It would be reasonable to conclude that Mark thought of Jesus as having had the same gut-wrenching experience as the "sick" of Galilee came to him for surcease.

+The Jeremiah reading pivots on the figure of the shepherd, both the good and the bad shepherd -- the latter scattering and the former gathering. The flock, Jeremiah says, need not be put in a position to fear or to be dismayed, much less should any of them be found missing. The real leaders are ones who "deal wisely" and execute justice and righteousness."

+The psalm accompanying the Jeremiah reading is the familiar 23rd with its compelling image of the shepherd who leads the flock to green pastures and still waters, along the right path and even through death's valley.

+The Pauline-in-spirit reading from Ephesians employs the figures of the "far off" and "the near" -- one entity, really, brought from the former state to the latter by a reconciler. One might discern the shepherding function in such an action.

The readings are more than a hint to the homilist that she or he has a fine opportunity dilate upon the need for leadership in all areas of society, the religious community included -- leadership that is, of course, intelligent, but also leadership that does not proceed from a hunger and thirst for power so much as "from the gut," that is to say out of compassion.

At issue just now in America is the question of how much responsibility does "government" have for the material well-being of its people, especially those at severe economic disadvantage. As hard as it is to believe, the answer for many who worship the idol of free-market ideology is "None." President Obama and many of the millions who voted him into office think otherwise.

Health care and health care insurance are at the heart of that argument. For aspiring Christians who want to live out their commitment -- as the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer puts it -- by "striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being" the answer to the question is: "Plenty." We have a great deal of responsibility for those at economic and social disadvantage. If we do not feel it in our gut, then we have not read, marked, learned and inwardly digested the gospel.

Churches have pastors and bishops who do not live up to the shepherd image -- even though the term "pastor" derives from the Latin for "herdsman" or "shepherd." Too many church leaders perceive themselves or are expected to function as CEOs and therefore become distracted from their real vocation by details of administration and management.

The term "executive minister" has become popular in some of the larger or mega churches. A member of one such church told me recently that if he wanted the attention of an executive, he could find plenty of them around the company he works for. When he goes to church, he wants to interact with a pastor.

So the key homiletic phrase for preaching on this Markan passage is: leadership with compassion.