Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
53 When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. 54 As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. 55 They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.
What do you suppose Jesus said to them?
We can be safe to say it would be a word of encouragement, not a word of judgment or guilt. Like his words in the Sermon on the Mount...or his parables.
They were ‘like sheep without a shepherd.. He would speak to them as a Shepherd.
On behalf of a God who cares. And a people who care.
To know that there is a God who cares we need a people who care. As a poor tenant once said. “If your God doesn’t care about the rats in my apartment; I don’t care about your God.”
The Church is people who care, share, and congregate - come together to be the people of God and to do together what we could never do alone.
There is a shepherd and there is a flock.
There is a God who cares and a people who care. - and they are us!
“And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while."
There is a tension between “being alone” and “being compassionate”.
We can try to live with no compassion or we can try to live never saying no.
The first can be cold and indifferent; the second can be exhausting and draining of all energy. Both extremes are dangerous; both ways have their strengths and weaknesses.
In either we need to get away and be recharged for living as God would have us live - compassionate and responsible.
We need to spend time alone so we can truly be with others in compassion.
Alone time feeds our souls; energizes us; fills us; renews us.
If I don’t take time for myself; I don’t have much to give you either.
To be compassionate is to be with someone; it is to help them so they can do what only they can do to make life what God meant it to be.
For as Henri Nouwen writes,
“Compassion is the fruit of solitude and the basis of all ministry. ...
Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. It is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others where they hurt, were they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure." .
“What becomes visible here is that solitude molds self-righteous persons into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced of their own sinfulness and so fully aware of God's even greater mercy that their whole lives become ministry. In such a ministry there is hardly any difference left between doing and being...our whole being witnesses to the light that came into the darkness." The Way Of The Heart, pp. 20,22
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