July 19, 2009
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Psalm 89:20-37; Ephesians 2:11-22;
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
In our old testament reading for today the story of David continues. We can take it at face value and just enjoy it or we can analyze it and seek parallels to today’s world and even to Jesus’ world. David has been declared king; the Lord has given him rest from his enemies, so he starts to think of what marvelous things he might do. Ah-ha, the Ark , the Law, it needs a permanent home; it has been dragged around from place to place, lo, these many years, and housed only in a tent. David says, “I’m living in a house of cedar.” The implication is clear, and the Prophet Nathan agrees with him, “Go, do what you want; the Lord is with you!” He says.
But then that same night Nathan is confronted by God – how often that happens, at night, in bed, at our most vulnerable and least busy, God comes knocking! And in this case God literally said to Nathan, “Not so fast! I have traveled with my people ever since they left Egypt and I have never complained that that they didn’t build me a house of cedar, a permanent home. No, Nathan, go and remind David of his roots and how I will give him a great name and a great kingdom and eventually it will be for his offspring to build me a house, a temple.” The way is paved for Solomon! David’s God traveled with him; it was David’s responsibility and distinction to take his God along with him wherever he went. He could not put him in a building and say, “See you next Sunday!”
In Jesus’ day the temple towered over the city of Jerusalem . The devout made their pilgrimages to worship there. Jesus made that journey with his parents when he was twelve years old and later he went there for the Passover celebration. The Ark no longer traveled with the people as they went about their daily business. Their God was now literally as well as figuratively in a Box. Jerusalem was the holy city; it was the home of their God. – I am reminded of a time when I picked up my children from a local Vacation Bible School (not here) and my young son looked back at the church building and said, “That’s God’s house!” He said it in such a way that it sounded as if God was in that building, and only in that building, not out on the street or in the car with us; God was somehow contained! NO! NO! NO! – I was – offended!
And I think Jesus, too, saw God in another way. In fact I think that was the one thing that distressed him most, the limitations set upon God by the Law. So he worked in the trenches; he sought to bring God back out into the fields, the deserts, the highways and the byways and into the homes. And he sent his chosen few out to preach, “God is with you.”
Today’s gospel is a prime example of Jesus at work, teaching and healing, the big picture, but also about caring and comfort of the individual. Yes, the first half of the reading is, I’m sure some of you have recognized, the setting for the feeding of the five thousand. But if you want to hear specifically about that, you’ll have to come back next week and hear what John, rather than Mark, wrote about it. Instead, the emphasis today is first on the disciples who two by two were sent out by Jesus (6:7-8) to teach and heal; and they did; and they were quite successful apparently. So now they have returned and like anyone who has been off on a business trip, they are undoubtedly tired and hungry. And they need to debrief. And Jesus wants to give them a chance to re-coop and probably share their experiences, with each other and with him. “Come away to a deserted place,” he says, “ . . . and rest a while.” Lesson number one, we all need to take time for R & R. regardless of who we are.
But it was not to be! And how like life that is! We make plans for one thing and something unexpected happens and we have to make changes; we have to compromise, sometimes do totally the opposite of what we had in mind. And so it was here! The disciples piled into a boat, but the crowd saw them go. And, whether the wind was against them or maybe not blowing at all, whatever the reason, the crowd beat them to their destination! This past week I was checking public transportation in London, taxis and the underground, and I came across this comment in small print, “Sometimes it’s quicker to walk!” It sounds as if maybe that was the situation here!
However, they all arrived, the people and the disciples and Jesus, at the same place at the same time, and Jesus, so it says, “had compassion for them [the crowd] . . . and began to teach them.” So much for much needed rest!
Now, for the rest of today’s gospel, we have to fast forward to later that same day. The people have been sent on their way fully satisfied in mind and body and spirit. And Jesus again gets the disciples off in a boat while he goes up on the mountain to pray. He will join them later. – My own need for continuity made me fill in the gaps in our reading. – So they all arrive at Gennesaret, not the intended destination; they had been blown off course by another storm. And I’m not sure if that isn’t a true metaphor for disciples, past and present, being blown off course! As I said before, doesn’t that happen all too frequently as we go about living our lives? Plan this; do that!
So they arrive at Gennesaret and Jesus is immediately recognized and once again people from all over the region come to him for, it seems for one thing and one thing only, healing! So much healing was needed then and still is today it seems!
We all get caught up in storms at one time or another, storms in the church, storms in the work place, storms at home; they can be storms caused by illness, disease, by conflicts with associates, theological differences, by misunderstandings among family members, by breaks in relationships brought about by a lack of communication, by things just not being the way we want them to be.
Jesus in these two stories we’ve heard this morning brought calm to those storms. He couldn’t get away from the crowds. He couldn’t find a time and a place for him and his disciples to get that R & R he thought they all needed. Instead he answered the call to serve. He brought God out of that box where David wanted to put him; the box that Solomon did put him in; the box that had become a liability, a place of confinement, a place of rigidity, rules, laws, rather than a home filled with love and conversation and interaction, relationship, grace, and above all healing.
Jesus went about teaching and healing, yes, and feeding; he allowed himself to be touched. He brought the power of God to the people and made it accessible. He brought compassion and love and healing to a people who were, as it says, like sheep without a shepherd! He brought God out of that Box! He brought the people back into a personal relationship with their God.
The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church has just ended and I’m sure Gale is bursting to tell us all about it either on Sunday mornings or in the Shepherd Staff or for that matter at any other time. I’ve read her Blogs and I have found it absolutely mind-boggling to hear of the amount of work the National Church was doing. But one thing in particular caught my attention, the theme of the Convention: “Ubuntu (pronounced “oo-boon-too”): I in You and You in Me.” The word itself comes from South Africa; it is Zulu and inspires us to learn from others as we learn from ourselves.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2008 further explained Ubuntu as follows, he said:
“One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself . . . .”
He continued,
“We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”
Isn’t this exactly what Jesus was doing those days on the mountain and beside the lake? Ubuntu! “I in You and You in Me.” By the grace of God we are all in relationship with one another, caring for one another, listening, loving, touching, healing, praying. And by the grace of God we are all in relationship with our God.
And as a reminder that we are not in a box and that God is not in a box either, I think it is very appropriate to end with the prayer from the covenant that was presented to the vestry and parish earlier this year: “Jesus is the Good Shepherd. God, help me to be Jesus' love in what I say and do.”
God is with us; God is in us! And by the grace of God may we continue to go about God’s holy work.
Amen.
Sonia F. G. Stevenson, M. Div.
Church of the Good Shepherd