Unbounded care.
Ordinary Sunday 16: 20th July, 2003
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Jesus said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile". For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. (Mk 6:31)
These last few weeks, our gospel readings have been about the call of the Twelve, the first disciples. They were sent out to preach the good news and to heal the sick. Slowly and steadily they were growing in their understanding of what it might mean to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. Now today they report back on this beginning of their ministry. All of them were being run off their feet. In some places they had been well received and in others there had been rejection. John the Baptist after all, had just been executed. The Lord reasonably enough suggests a quiet break. But that was not to be. Even going across the lake to somewhere completely different did not help. The need and the demand was ever present. And the Lord, having pity on those who had such need, responded to it. He taught the crowds, and later saw that they were adequately fed. So it was that the disciples themselves were being helped to understand the never-ceasing care and compassion that is God. There is to be no holiday from love. There is to be no break from the realities of being a person of faith in a developing community of faith. Of course eventually there would have to be rest, but not when the need was great and pressing. The touching image used is that of the pastor, the shepherd, in the context of the flock needing protection and care and direction. That remains a most powerful model.
The epistle this morning from St Paul's letter to the Ephesians addresses perhaps the greatest point of division in the first generation of the early Church: the clash of background and expectations between on the one hand those Christians who were of Hebrew background, who lived by the precepts of the Old Testament law of Moses and further considered it impossible that others could not, and on the other, those Christians of a Greek or Gentile cultural and religious background, with a whole different set of behaviour patterns and traditions that were to be the context for their living out of their newly found faith and understanding of God. From the earliest experiences and teachings recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, it is made abundantly clear that God's grace and blessing was being equally offered and received across these cultural barriers. This divide included the response to practices, beliefs and religious customs that were deeply significant to the Jewish community. Obvious examples were male circumcision and the extensive dietary laws. These were seen to be religiously defining. And yet, in the end, they were seen to be second level issues. They would not have seemed so at the time.
Peace to those who are far off.
Peace to those who are near.
In other words, grace and mercy to those who have been so close to God in the unfolding story and experience of the people of the Hebrews through all those centuries from Abraham. But also grace and mercy to those coming fresh to the faith from completely different traditions and understandings.
If anyone could argue this persuasively, it was someone from a background like Paul. Certainly, no Greek Christian could have got away with it. It would have been seen just as special pleading. But the results of this transforming insight were everything to the mission of the Church. The good news of God in Jesus Christ was for everyone, for all cultures. This is a universal message, open to any who would respond. The Christ who hate tried to break and destroy on the cross at Calvary, instead, broken yet risen, proclaims forever compassionate bridging reconciliation. In Christ those formerly far apart can find oneness, it is for the followers of Christ to find the way to live this out.
Who then may not receive and experience the grace of God at work in them? No one.
Ephesians 2 immediately after the lesson for today continues:
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together...."
This surely is indeed the sort of vision to offer those who have no sense of place or belonging, no idea of direction and hope. And that is what we have in each of our lessons today. In turn, this is the hope and the promise to be offered and received through all the generations, right down to our own.
Every generation has a particular way of responding to God. The context changes. Life experience can be very different. Needs are many and varied. But we Christians do believe that in Jesus the Lord we have a way into the very heart of God. In a human and historical sense that is the one in today's gospel getting off that boat into that dusty desert place so full of the pressing needs of the crowd all around him. in the continuing experience of that same Lord, he rises to meet the needs that are in the dusty desert places in our own hearts, especially when times are hard.
We do not have a God who suffers from compassion fatigue. We do not have a God who stops offering care and grace and mercy. Again, the gospel story today holds up the model. This goes on and on. After this section it goes on to the Mark version of the feeding of the five thousand – there in a desert place with no immediate or obvious provisions available. All of this together is a clear statement, a proclamation, of God's continuing care and God's abundant provision.
Followers of this Jesus would seek to live this out as well. So the apprentice disciples had a thing or to to learn here. They are both to teach and to provide for more basic needs. The spiritual and the material are of importance. So of course Christians in every age and every type of community have been encouraged to to share acts of worship, reflection, teaching, service, provision for the needy, mission beyond. But above all, to care. And this across barriers that may otherwise have been perceived to be too great a divide.
Peace to those who are far off.
Peace to those who are near.
In these present very difficult times there are some very mixed messages coming out about what it is to be a Christian, what it is to be a Church. This is not worthy. There is anger, bewilderment and grief. There is confusion and bitter division. There is individual hurt and pain. At times like this, it is as much as we can sometimes do, just to get from one day to the next. For many, this is indeed a time of great trial – just that sort of time that in the Lord's Prayer we pray that we may be saved from.
So how are we to respond? This will be the measure of us as individuals and as a community of faith. There are burdens that together we can bear, but that are too much alone. It is my prayer that we will be given, individually and together, that measure of grace and strength that we need. And further, it is my prayer that both individually and together we will be people of care and compassion, one for another. Let that be what people see first of us here at The Hill.
We have issues and concerns that are particular. There are also issues and concerns of the Church and the world at large. This is a time of great challenge, that is confronting to our faith and our hope. But even as we name that for what it is, let us never forget also, that love which is always ours in Jesus Christ. That, we remember, is a love without boundaries, a love that is open ended. We are not excluded from the scope of that love, or from the obligation to try ourselves to live it out, however absent it may seem to be, wherever we look. That shall not be so with us.
Jesus said to them,"Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile."
The Lord be with you.
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