Resting Place

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville Arkansas on Sunday July 19, 2009, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

In doing research on this passage, one of the commentaries I read had this possible preaching theme: “Jesus demonstrates a healthy balance between having boundaries (the need for rest) and being a sacrificial blessing (caring for the crowd).”[1]

My first thought about this was, “Oh, really?” When I read this passage I never thought any such thing. I agree that Jesus demonstrates the need to keep a healthy balance, but honestly, I thought he failed in actually getting there. It’s like a long fly ball being curled foul by the wind into the stands. The long drive looks great and has plenty of distance, but other forces take over and when the ball lands it’s a strike against the batter.

Let’s take a look at the setting of our reading. Just before this point in Mark’s gospel, there are two miraculous healing stories followed by only a few tiny miracles and a whole lot of nothing being done in Capernaum. Of course, the biggest thing we remember about the Jesus homecoming episode is that the people expected nothing from him and got just what they bargained for. Then Jesus sends out the twelve in pairs. The apostles were able to do great acts of power and healing by the power of the Lord. Let me just add that this is not only the popular apostles, the high school cheerleaders of the apostles; but also the most reviled of them all, Judas Iscariot. If this were not so, surely one of the gospels would have said. Then in a sort of a sub-plot, between the time of the apostles being sent and their return, we witness Herod’s fear that John had risne from the grave ending with the flashback scene of the beheading of John the Baptist.

So as we return to our reading, the apostles, literally “the sent,”[2] gather around the one who sent them and tell him of all that they had done and taught. Jesus realizes that they have been hard at work doing just as he had instructed. I imagine he was as proud of them as a teacher is of any good student. Also, I can only assume that they had been gone for quite a while since the literary segue of the story of John’s death was needed between the sending and the returning. So after they return from time in the mission field and share all they had done; Jesus tells them it’s time they be off for a rest, a little leisure, and a bite to eat. So they went away in a boat to a deserted place by themselves.

Yes, rest is important, Sabbath is vital to life. Jesus will tell the apostles, the disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees that the Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath. Jesus decides to take everybody to Ferncliff;[3] they get away in the boat and head off to a deserted place by themselves. Of course, as we know from the reading, their sabbatical, their study leave does not go as Jesus had hoped.

Where they end up going is not nearly deserted enough because not only is the crowd there when the boat goes ashore, but people who were at their departure spot beat them to their arrival place. This, again, always bugged me. In theory, by boat is a quicker way across the lake than on foot, so how did the people beat them across? I always thought this question was on the order of the number of angels who can dance on a pin until Marie Bolerjack said something interesting at the Wednesday night Bible study.

She pondered aloud whether on the sea and in the boat qualified as the “solitary place” they went by themselves. Now there’s a thought I had never had before. The word the New Revised Standard Version translates as “deserted place” and the New International Version translates as “solitary place” is often translated as “wilderness,” “desolate,” “deserted place,” and “in the wilds.” This wilderness is the place where John the Baptist comes from. It is the place where Jesus goes after his baptism. In this case as in several others, this solitary place is where Jesus goes to be off by himself and pray.

The wilderness, the wilds are the place Christ goes to be separate from the pressures of daily life to be with the God the Father Almighty to recover and be rejuvenated. It is a place where Jesus has to go because being fully human means that he needs the recovery of the Sabbath as much as every other man, woman, and child. It is the place where Jesus wants his followers to be, to be with him and to be with his Father.

By these criteria, on the sea in the boat hardly qualifies on the face of what it means to be in a solitary place in the wilderness. But as happened so often, when Jesus wants to take a break and he can’t win for losing. He wants to go to a deserted place and “Boom!” it’s not deserted anymore. People crush in on him like a vice. He wants to take a rest but the rest of the world is weary for his help, his power, his teaching, his saving grace. Perhaps in the final analysis, on the sea in the boat is the only place that qualified as secluded.

At any rate, this is the only rest they got, because as soon as they came ashore at Gennesaret, the people were there to meet him. They met him with their sick. Those who could walk went to the middle of the town square. Those who could not walk were brought on mats to meet the prophet, the teacher, the one who could heal them. He did this because there was a great crowd, like sheep without a shepherd and Jesus has compassion for the sheep.

This is a good moment to revisit Jesus needing a rest. He needed the rest because he is fully human. But when he comes ashore he comes with compassion, compassion which is fully divine.[4]

Jesus had compassion, and compassion in this case is more than just a feeling. Compassion is a messianic characteristic. Often the word used for “having compassion” is also translated as “having pity,” so what’s the difference? I believe that the difference is that to have compassion demands a response; to be compassionate demands action. Jesus shows this by serving the people; serving bread and fish, serving healing and justice, serving as the one who bridges the gap between heaven and earth.

Pity may come with no strings attached, but it also comes with nothing else. Pity is something we keep to ourselves; or when we share it, pity doesn’t do much to help others. Compassion serves, compassion acts, compassion saves. Pity says, by “By God, that’s tough.” Compassion says, “Let me help.”

Still, true compassion, compassion in its fullest brings out the totality of mercy with which God claims creation in Christ’s saving act.[5] Compassion is in the divine nature, it is not just something we feel, it is more than that. Jesus was compassionate toward the people; more than feeling pity, Jesus exhibited compassion.

Christ healed. More often, this word in the Greek scriptures is not translated as healed, it is translated as saved. The healings, the compassion of the Lord is far beyond anything we could ever hope or imagine or especially accomplish. Yet, Jesus sent out the apostles with instructions to go. They went and by his power were able to cast out many demons and anointing with oil many who were sick the apostles healed them. For us; to be compassionate is the basic and decisive attitude in all Christian action.[6]

This is the call of Christian action, the vocation we are called to continue today. We are sent into the world as the apostles were two millennia ago. We are called to go and make disciples. We are to share the Good News of Christ with the world starting in our own backyards. It is not by our own power, our own charisma that people come to know the Lord; it is by the power of God which we carry like power is carried by copper wire. We are not the source, we are the conduit. This is our call, by our work we carry the Word to a world that needs it.

When living in Colorado, the church Marie and I attended sponsored a girl on a mission trip to Belize.[7] I don’t remember many of the details; I don’t remember what she did while she was there. I do remember that before she left there were several days of training at the mission’s camp in Orlando. Particularly, I remember hearing they were taught how to handle people trying to sell drugs to them on the streets. When I heard this, I decided that whatever they were doing, they were doing it in a dangerous place.

After this, they spent a couple of weeks in country. Upon returning home, they spent a day or so debriefing, and then they went to Disneyworld.[8] I don’t begrudge anyone a trip to EPCOT, but I did wonder what a ride on Space Mountain had to do with spreading the gospel. After some thought, I trusted that the folks who organize these trips knew what they were doing, and that was enough for me to mentally sign-off on a trip to the Floridian version of “The Happiest Place on Earth” after spending a couple of weeks doing whatever they were doing all the while dodging drug dealers.

I like to think that because of this passage I understand better now. After returning from the cities and the jungles of Belize they had a time together to discuss what they had done and what they had seen, just as the apostles did in the beginning of this reading. Then they went away together for leisure and something to eat. In accord with scripture, these American kids needed some time to rejuvenate and return to the normalcy of their way of life, and what’s more American than Mickey Mouse?

The Lord calls us all to a resting place, a place where we rest and recover from not just the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but from the work of serving God. That place is in His presence. We have to plug into the source of compassionate power to recharge ourselves too. It may be on a boat, it may be at some Mission camp in Orlando, and it should also be right here and right now. In worship, on the day the Lord set aside as the Sabbath, we are called to be together to praise and worship the one who comes with compassion and gives us a place to rest.

To rephrase the preaching point from the commentary, we need to practice a healthy balance between having boundaries and being a part of Christ’s sacrificial blessing. As the girl who made the mission trip, we are called to go and share the good news. Then we are to share what we have done in Christ and then be refreshed in the glory of God. We are called to go and make disciples. By the word, by the power of the Lord, we are called to cast out many demons and help those who are sick and heal them. Then after we are Christ’s resting place for others, when we return from doing God’s work in the world we are called to Christ’s resting place our selves.

[1] “G Force,” HomileticsOnline.com. http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040467, retrieved July 14, 2009
[2] apostolos, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[3] A PC(USA) camp, http://ferncliff.org/.
[4] Splagxnozomai, Kittel, Gerhard, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. vii, Gerhard Friedrich Editor, Geoffrey Bromiley Translator, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971, pages 553-554.
[5] Ibid. page 554
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hi Nicole! Hello too to Bob and Nadine.
[8] I am sure every Disney reference is copywritten or registered in one form or another and the rights to these references will eternally belong to the Walt Disney Company.