“Today, do you, ‘Get it?’
The Rev. Dr. Linda M. Kapurch
Pntcst 9/Proper 11, RCL/Year B, (MK: 6:30 – 34; 53-56)
I get it.
He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile. (v, 31.) Curious as to just what had so upset Jesus to make Him want to withdraw, I remembered further back in Mark’s Gospel—to where we had left off last Sunday (MK: 6: 14 – 29.) Seeing what that was, well…I can understand it.
Jesus had just received the heart-breaking news that His closest kin, His cousin, John, was dead. The head of John the Baptist had just been brought out on a platter, and given to Herod’s wife at her bidding. And John’s disciples had come and taken the body away and buried it; then (they) gathered around Jesus, and told them all they had done and taught (v. 30.) I get it. All Jesus wanted to do was to slink away…to just fly away…if only the earth could open up and just swallow Him whole. I get it. Maybe you’ve also felt this way, when such a devastating experience has happened to you?
In her Commentary for the July issue of The Christian Century, (July 2024, p.26),
The Mennonite Pastor and author, Joanna Harader, has another take on this desire of ours: ‘for a little bit of a break.’ Only, she turns the focus in on herself: as a Pastor saying, once people find out she is a Pastor, she can never get out of role: ‘as someone who will listen, help, guide, teach, comfort, and heal…’ This is what she wants/needs a break from! Do you ever feel this way: just wishing you could stop being a parent/caregiver/supervisor…even for just a moment or two?
So, which is it for you today: wishing you could escape from it all, because of a devastating experience? Or, because of everything: that generalized, homogenized, vanilla reality of needing to be all things to all people—which never seems to go away?
At times like this—esp. when time or circumstances don’t allow us to retreat to our go-to Bon Secours in MD.), or Shrinemont, or Roslyn—we yearn for some…comfort food: of the kind we find in much of the narrative ‘left out’ of today’s Gospel…the story line that we perhaps know so well, and return to again and again: Jesus’ miraculous feeding and subsequent, equally miraculous walking on water. But no.
Jumping back to v. 34 we read how Jesus was roused back to reality, to the real world—to the stampede of sick and hungry people, clamoring for His attention. As He went ashore, He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them… (v.34.) That always seems to be the way of the story: no rest for Jesus, no rest for His weary disciples. Jesus’ invitation to a withdrawal proved to be very short-lived, indeed.
No comfort food for us today. As if to underscore that today’s Gospel Challenge is not meant to be nice and comforting, we’re left in the end with this message: …people at once recognizes Him, and rushed about…to bring the sick on mats to wherever they hear He was. And wherever He went, they laid the sick…(at his feet.) No. No Retreat-ing today…We are to remember something else:
He had compassion for them…
Those disciples—as per usual—didn’t get it. But, as Jesus disciples, we DO…get it. In our life of faith—tried and tested as it has been these past few weeks—we still know that we are the recipients of a far greater compassion. And it is this compassion: Jesus’ abiding Presence with us, which we are to go out and multiply—and bring to this bruised and aching world.
Surrounded as we have been, with all of our own pre-occupations & problems, we may feel exactly as Jesus did: that we just want to withdraw to ourselves. Jesus does get it—about us. He does ‘get’ that we are tired…cranky…lonely…and starved—And He’ll swoop in: as He always does.
But, likewise, He doesn’t leave us there: Instead, we are to go out from this place, and spread that over-flowing, richly abundant, always available
Compassion…that we know we’ll always receive—from Him.
Got it?
Thanks Be to God! Amen!!