A sermon on compassion in the interruptions for Sunday 21st July 2024

 

Compassion in the Interruptions 

Sunday, 21 July 2024                     The Eighth Sunday after Trinity

In this church year, the lectionary guides us through most of Mark’s Gospel, as a result we get a chance to see what it means to live like Jesus.

We are guided by what he does and what he says. Even before we consider his miracles and resurrection.

Living like Jesus can mean having a purpose, to aspire to be intentional about being Christlike.

Despite his intentions, Jesus is often interrupted, healing a woman who touches his cloak, or as people stop him in desperation, perhaps a reminder that we need to pay attention to interruptions, because that’s what Jesus would do and is where God often shows up.

At other times, we must really look for God in order to see God at work, because it’s in the silence or contemplation where we meet God.

Now Mark brings us back to Galilee, as the disciples return from their preaching expedition.

It’s been a good trip, and they are eager to tell Jesus all about it, but they are also really tired.

For those who noticed the Gospel verse numbers just now, there was an intentional gap in the lectionary,

but it’s okay, the verses we skipped over just tell us of the feeding of the 5000 and of Jesus walking on water, so nothing to important.

Instead, today, we are going to look at what happens before and after those miracles, and this means we can focus on a word which sums up most of Jesus’ ministry: compassion.

Verse 34 states: “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.”

Jesus shows a lot of compassion throughout Mark, and it’s worth noting that this is more than pity, or even empathy, because compassion really means suffering with one who suffers.

The Ancient Greek for compassion translates as, “to be moved in the inward parts,” it’s something felt in your heart or gut. It’s what bubbles up when we see someone experiencing a pain we have experienced and know too well. We internalise that pain in the very core of our being.

Compassion is how someone who has been bullied feels when they see someone else being bullied.

Compassion is the pain of watching a friend mourn a parent or friend when you’ve been there and done that.

It’s the pain of seeing someone struggle with their health, physical or especially mental, when you’ve been there as well.

Modern life tries to harden us to these things, it’s easy to think, it’s not my problem or it’s their own fault, or that to be compassionate risks being vulnerable, which is either a big no no in society, or risks opening up old wounds to pain which may not have healed in the past.

If we step back because peer pressure or society might disapprove, then our peers and society are wrong. But if you need to step back to stay safe, if your trauma is unresolved, then that’s perfectly reasonable.

And I’d caution against saying, I know how you feel, or, its God’s plan (it isn’t) or God doesn’t give us more than we can handle (well sometimes it is more than we can handle and not coping doesn’t make you a bad Christian, just human). Instead try, I can’t imagine how that must feel, God is always with us in our troubles, even when He feels far off.

When Jesus looked on these crowds of people who had chased him around the lake, he felt their pain and confusion, their deep desire to know God in a way they had never been shown before. He felt their need to know God’s love for them. He suffered as they suffered, in the very core of his being.

When Jesus looks at us, he has compassion too. He feels our pain, our sorrow, our frustration, and our worry. He suffers with us in our losses, our confusion, the change we don’t understand or our need to make ends meet, and our deep desire to be right with God. He sees us running around like sheep without a shepherd, and he calls us to walk with him, as he walks with us.

Before this though, Jesus had compassion for the apostles, he could feel their tiredness even in their excitement of all they had done.

So that when Jesus says, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while (v. 31)” instead of taking a journey to a quiet place, like going to a retreat centre in Devon or mid-Wales, on reading this again, I think he meant the middle of the lake as the most deserted place around.

And while this seems to make sense, personally, I’m not sure a boat would be the most relaxing place to be, but that’s just me.

On this occasion though, it was the only place Jesus could be alone with his disciples without crowds pressing in on them. The time it took to row from the area around Capernaum to Gennesaret (Tabgha) was the time Jesus gave his disciples to rest from their ministry, to be alone with him in the boat. A few hours of peace before meeting crowds again.

I may have mentioned this before but where most of us are now, is nave of the church. The word nave is from the Latin word navis, meaning ship. If you look up, the vaulted roof, with the central beam, is rather like a keel and the roof beams, look rather like an upturned boat.

This space is a visible reminder that here is a symbolic boat, to be with Jesus, where we can find rest for our souls. This is a place where we can come away to rest awhile and know that Jesus is here with us.

St Cyr, Stinchcombe and it's vaulted roof

Meanwhile, the people on shore ran ahead to meet Jesus, to where they thought he would land. They were like sheep without a shepherd, running ahead instead of following.

How often do we try to second-guess Jesus, running ahead to where we think he will land, instead of staying with him in the boat!

How many times have I been wrong about the destination he had in mind for me!

Yet Jesus suffers with me in my foolishness. He sees my struggle, and patiently meets me where I am and shows me compassion.

But look at the way Jesus shows compassion to all us sheep, as we try to anticipate where Jesus is going. He knows us better than we know ourselves and he expresses his compassion is to teach.

Almost all of Jesus teaching is about how to live today, how to be his disciples, how to build the Kingdom of God. When Jesus taught his followers to follow his example and preach repentance and offer healing and wholeness, he was inviting those apostles into partnership with him, so that his ministry could expand.

In turn we are offered us that same invitation. We are called to share good news with people we know, to offer solace to those whose pain arouses deep compassion in us.

When we accept this invitation to discipleship; amazing, miraculous things happen. And the Kingdom of God grows.

But we can’t be partners in the boat with Jesus if we keep running along the shore, trying to get where he’s going before he does. Sometimes it’s what we assume we should be doing that keep us from actually being what Jesus asks us to be – compassionate followers that he sends into the world to expand his ministry, after we have rested in the boat with him.

We also need to be mindful that scurrying around, trying to meet every single need that comes to our attention may not truly help, except to throw sticking plasters around and burn ourselves out. Personally, I’m often frustrated at not being able to help as much as I’d like or feel I should, but compassion never dims and I do what I can.

Real compassion is for those Christ calls us to reach out to, and its usually the person right in front you that day. And it doesn’t matter if that person is of another faith, nationality, gender type or political persuasion.

And perhaps if you are burnt out, the person who most needs your compassion is yourself. That it’s okay to rest a while. That sometimes compassion and vulnerability in ourselves needs to be accepted first, before we can help others.

And perhaps we just need to be ready for the gentle, uncertain interruption, when someone says to you, I need help. Then we listen, offer rest and that there is always hope, forgiveness and grace. Because today may be the new beginning you or they have been waiting for, after you have rested here, in the boat with Jesus, ready to be compassionate followers of Christ.

Preached at St George's, Cam.

Adapted in part from: https://pastorsings.com/2018/07/21/gut-wrenching-compassion-sermon-on-mark-630-34-53-56/

Psalm 23
1  The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing.
2  He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.
3  He shall refresh my soul 
   and guide me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4  Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
      I will fear no evil; for you are with me;
      your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5  You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; 
   you have anointed my head with oil and my cup shall be full.
6  Surely goodness and loving mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, 
   and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Ephesians 2.11–22
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision’—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.

Mark 6.30–34, 53–56
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹He 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. ³²And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. ³³Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. ³⁴As 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. ⁵⁴When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, ⁵⁵and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶And 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.