Mark 6:45-56

A rabbi, a priest, and a minister go out fishing in the middle of a lake. The priest needs the toilet and gets out of the boat and walks across the water, goes to the loo and comes back. About 20 minutes later, the minister also needs the toilet. He too gets out of the boat and walks across the water and soon comes back. 20 minutes later, the Rabbi also needs the toilet. He steps out the boat and goes splashing into the water, arms flailing about. The minister turns to the priest and says: “Do you think we should have told him where the stepping stones were?

In our passage today, where we read the story of Jesus walking across the water, we pick up where we left off last week. In last weeks passage, Jesus was looking for some solitude, inviting the disciples to come away with him to a lonely place where they would be able to find rest.

Jesus was looking for a quiet space. But as we saw last week, his plans go awry and he is intercepted by the crowds. Now, Jesus’ need for quietness and solitude has become more pressing.

He sends the disciples back across the lake in the boat. He dismisses the crowds and he goes up into the hills to pray.

In the solitude and in the stillness of the hills, we read that Jesus is alone. And in his alone-ness in the hills, Jesus is spiritually refreshed. He is able to re-tune himself to the still presence of God at the heart of life. He is able to reconnect with the Presence of God.

I find it interesting looking at the English word, alone. It is a combination of two words: All and One.  Alone. All-one. It suggests that if we are open to it, that being alone, and being in a lonely place (like Jesus in the hills) carries with it an invitation to ‘one-ness’, to becoming ‘all-one’, to find an inner unity where all the fragmented parts of ourselves can come together again.

Introverts in particular are aware of this. Introverts, often after being in a crowd of people, or after an intense social occasion, need time alone, in order to find their centre again. In order to feel their fragmented sense of self coming back into some sense of unity.

Remembering the Jewish emphasis on the One-ness of God, ‘aloneness’ can an opportunity to find Unity or One-ness with the Holy One – God, the Divine Presence.

Jesus sends the disciples back in a boat. He dismisses the crowds. He goes up into the hills, alone, by himself, to pray.

When was the last time that you deliberately sought out a quiet, lonely place, in order to feel the presence of God in the stillness? Sometimes, I find just sitting for a few minutes, silently in the car before getting out, or driving off for my next appointment is such a moment for me. A moment to just be still in the middle of the day and in the stillness to have a sense of touching, or being touched by the Presence of God.

Secondly, we see in this passage, symbolic or picture language, are the effects of prayer and stillness in the Presence of God.

From the hill-top, Jesus looks down over the lake and he sees the disciples struggling.

“When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone on the land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn, he went out to them, walking on the lake.”

It is quite a contrast. The disciples are straining at the oars, fighting against the wind and the waves. Jesus comes along serenely walking on the water. It is wonderful and rich in symbolism.

The description of the disciples is a wonderful metaphor for how we often live our lives. Straining, struggling, wrestling with the wind blowing against us, fighting against the waves of life.

In contrast, Jesus, after a night, soaked in prayer, soaked in the stillness of God’s presence, has some been in touch with a presence that transcends the struggles and difficulties of life. In Jewish symbolism, the sea was a symbol of chaos. Jesus after a night of prayer, walks over the waters of chaos.

In Psalm 29 there is a line that speaks of God who is enthroned above the flood. Jesus is in touch with the one who is enthroned above the chaos.

I am reminded also of the passage in John’s Gospel: “In this world, you will have trouble.  Do not fear, I have overcome the world.”

In the story, when the disciples see Jesus, they think he is a ghost and they become afraid. In response to their fear, Jesus says “Do not be afraid, it is I”. It is an interesting phrase, because as the Living Translation points out, it could also be translated, “Do not be afraid, The I am is here”.

We are reminded that “The I am” is the name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush.

In the midst of the struggles of life. In the midst of the winds and waves of life, Jesus reminds us that the I am is Here. The I am is with us. God is here.

When we entrust ourselves to the Great I Am, who transcends the winds and waves of life, we do not have to struggle and strain and wrestle with life like we used to, constantly fighting with life, constantly resisting the difficulties that come at us.

And so, when the wind and the waves of life are against us and we find ourselves struggling and straining and wrestling with life, may we, like Jesus, find opportunities to figuratively speaking go up into the hills and be alone, and there, to encounter the I AM who is also here, even in the midst of the wind and the waves. AMEN.

Mark 6:30-44

In 2002 Norah Jones released a song called “Come away with me”

Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song

Come away with me on a bus
Come away where they can't tempt us, with their lies

And I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high

So won't you try to come
Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountaintop

Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you
And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms

So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me

In our Gospel passage today, the context is different, but Jesus words to his disciples in verse 31 echo the words of Norah Jones (or perhaps it is the other way around): “Come away with me... and rest a while”

They are words that help emphasize how important it is that we should make time to re-charge our batteries.

Jesus invitation to the disciples to come away with him and rest a while comes after two significant passages in Mark’s Gospel. Firstly it comes after the passage where Jesus sends out the Twelve. Secondly, it comes after the news that John the Baptist has been beheaded.

In response to the disciples missionary journey, Jesus points out the need for them to rest and to be recharged. Jesus is in touch with their humanity. He is not a slave driver. Jesus is concerned about their well-being. Jesus knows that it is not possible to keep on keeping on without a break. He is in tune with the rhythm of life. There is a time to work. There is a time to be out engaging with the world. And there is a time for retreating from the world.

There is a time to come away and rest a while.

Even computers need to defrag once in a while. And if we never take out cars in for a service they no longer run efficiently.

This is true even of Jesus. In this passage, we encounter something of Jesus own human need. He has just received news of the death of John the Baptist. Jesus needs to take time out in order to sit with his pain and his grief.

It is a reminder that grief is not something we can escape. The only way out is through. A hospice nurse once said that grieving is like digging through a mountain with a teaspoon. And there are no short-cuts to the other side of the mountain.
Jesus draws aside to sit with his pain and grief. He does not try to avoid it.

It is a reminder that we too have inner work that we all need to do that cant be avoided.

Secondly we see that even with Jesus his plans can go awry.

While Jesus is making plans to get away, the crowds are making plans to find Jesus. In verse 32-33 we read that Jesus and the disciples left by boat for a quiet place where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them.

It sounds a little bit like the paparazzi.

Or imagine wanting to get away for the weekend and when you arrive at your destination your clients are waiting for you in the hotel lobby!

Jesus’ response is quite remarkable and reveals that there was something remarkable about him. It reveals his enormous capacity for compassion.

We read in verse 34 that when Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

The Greek word for compassion in the text ('splanchnizomai') refers to being moved in one’s gut. The Hebrew word for compassion is taken from the root word 'rechem', which means womb. Both words suggest that Jesus is moved and touched in the depth of his being. There is a maternal instinct in Jesus. It is as though Jesus considers each of those in the crowd as though they were his own off-spring, his own children. They are part of the circle of Jesus love.

Though most of us might have been tempted to tell the crowds off or to send them away, Jesus reaches out to them in love and compassion. Jesus expresses God’s heart of love where all are embraced and included.

There were plenty of other religious teachers like the Pharisees, who told the crowds that they were unclean and not good enough for God. In what follows, out of compassion Jesus begins to teach them, communicating to them in his words of God’s love and compassion to the crowds.

And then at the end of the day, rather than sending the crowds away as the disciples have suggested, again out of compassion, Jesus wishes to see everyone fed.

For the past 150 years or so, debate has raged around this text whether a physical miracle occurred with Jesus multiplying 2 fish and 5 barley loaves, or whether the real miracle was the miracle of sharing.

Some have pointed out that it was the custom of Jews to carry around woven food baskets whenever they left the house in order to make sure that they had kosher food if they were far away from home. Some have suggested that undoubtedly, many who were in the crowd would have had food baskets with them. It took Jesus’ willingness to share what little he and his disciples had in order to open the hearts of others to do likewise so that in the end there was more than enough for everyone.

I don’t know for sure how to interpret the passage, but what I do know is that even if one had to speak in terms of a miracle, it would never have happened in the first place without the risk of sharing with others.

In Paul' s first letter to the Corinthians (11:17ff), it is clear that Holy Communion was originally a community meal where people brought food to share so that even the poorer members of the community could eat and be fed. When Paul in Corinthians says that we must eat mindful of the body of Christ, he is talking about being mindful of the Church community, and especially those who do not have enough.

In the end, the miracle that God wishes to achieve is not ultimately the multiplication of loaves and fish, but rather the transformation of the human heart into a heart of love and compassion. A heart that is able to make room for others and not simply exist for itself.

And so may we, like Jesus, make time to come away and rest a while in order that we might create room in our hearts for others and to respond to them with compassion and love in their time of need.

Amen.

​Mark 6:14-29 and Psalm 42

Our Gospel passage today is one of those in the Bible that should have an R-rating for violence and bloody images. Perhaps we have heard the story too many times so that we have got used to it, but it is one of terrible and gruesome violence.  The image of John the Baptist being beheaded and his head being presented to Herodias on a platter is what we would call today an example of gratuitous violence. 

It reveals the depravity of what human beings are capable of. 

Having someone killed is the stuff of mafia bosses, but having a person’s head presented on a platter is barbaric and grotesque. 

The passage raises important questions though. It raises questions about Divine protection and suggests faith is not a guarantee of Divine protection.  

It is a difficult thing to hear. We all want God to keep us safe, but the truth is that faith is not a guarantee that bad things wont happen to us. Faith can be an enormous gift in the midst of struggle, but it is not an insurance policy that life will go smoothly.  John the Baptist’s faith does not save him from the treachery of Herodias. In fact in this passage, it is John’s faith that gets him into trouble.

On the trip home from South Africa I was reading a book by a Dutch Jewish woman, Etty Hillesum, a woman of deep faith and openness to God, who came to a very similar conclusion living in Nazi occupied Holland. 

Etty Hillesum grew up in what she describes as a very chaotic home with no religious upbringing of any significance. Her parents were not bad people, but they had their own emotional issues and their marriage was never a happy and harmonious one. Her two brothers grew up with quite serious emotional and psychological struggles. 

In her diaries she speaks of her own emotional life that sometimes threatened to overwhelm her with darkness. 

In her 20’s Etty began a therapeatic relationship with Julius Spier a leading psychologist..

Through his work and influence she was able to process a lot of the emotional baggage that she carried with her from her upbringing. Through his influence, she also began a profound spiritual journey that more and more became the focus of her life.  Upon his suggestion, she began a regular practice of sitting in silence everyday… a practice of listening deeply to the silence. A practice she called ‘hearkening’. 

In this practice of silent listening or hearkening, she became aware of a Presence and a peace within herself that was capable of holding and containing the inner chaos that she had often felt might overwhelm her. 

Over-time, as someone who had not been in anyway religious, Etty began to refer to this Presence and Peace, by the name God. 

Through the further influence of Spiers, Etty also began to read the New Testament and the Psalms, having a special love for the Gospel of Matthew and the person of Jesus. 

Over time, as Etty grew in this newfound experience and faith in God, for reason’s she did not know, and to her own embarrassment, Etty began a practice of kneeling on the rough straw mat in her bathroom where no-one else could see her. 

For quite some time, in her journals, this practice of kneeling remained an embarrassment to her. She had grown up as strong and independent and this practice of kneeling was something new and vulnerable, something even more intimate she wrote than the intimate relationships she had been in. 

But as she knelt in silence in this way, she felt a deepening experience of the Presence within that she had begun to refer to as God.  She felt a deepening sense of reverence for the sacredness of life. She began to experience a growing love in her heart for people, even strangers that she met.

It was about this time that Nazi persecution of the Jewish community began to escalate. Life became more and more restricted. Already, some were being shipped off to concentration camps. 

The tighter and tighter the noose of Nazi occupation grew, the more Etty felt moved to kneel in silence and open herself to the quiet Presence of God that she had discovered within. 

While some Jews were still hoping that Western powers would intervene and save them from destruction under the Nazi’s, Etty Hillesum realised that there was an inevitability about their looming destruction under Nazi control. She realised that not even God was able to save them from what was going to happen to them. 

Etty turned the idea of God’s protection on its head. Rather than believing that God would save and protect her from her fate, Etty wrote of how she, and all people needed to guard and protect this silent Presence of God that she had discovered in the depth of her heart for she realised how easily it could be lost or covered over with hatred and anger.  It was she who needed to guard and protect this Presence rather than God protecting her from what was to come.

While many of her fellow Jews understandably began to express their hatred towards the German Nazi’s, and though at times she was tempted to do likewise, this Presence of God  which she had discovered within, prevented her from doing so and she found that inexplicably there was a love inside of her, even for their Nazi captors.  Writing in the concentration camp on the theme of hatred Etty Hillesum wrote: “It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place.”

It was in 1942 that Etty was taken off to the concentration camps. There in the camps she continued to read the Gospel of Matthew and find time to kneel in silence. She continued to guard and protect this fragile Presence of God within her, even though she knew that this God would not save her from the fate that was to come. 

Etty Hillesim died in a gas chamber in Poland on 30 November 1943. Those who remembered her from the concentration camp said that she was a radiant presence in the midst of the daily suffering and struggle in the camp.

Although God had not saved her from her fate, she had discovered a Presence within that was more precious even than life itself and that not even death could take from her. 

Mark 6:1-13
 
In our passage today, we find Jesus being rejected in his home town in Nazareth. Very early in the Gospel at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus set up a new home for himself in Capurnaum.  In Mark’s gospel, this is his first trip back to his home town of Nazareth. 
 
At first the people of Nazareth seem to be impressed. They are amazed. They ask the question: Where does he get this wisdom from?  But very soon, their compliments turn to contempt. Who does he think he is? He is just a common carpenter, a handyman, as one translator puts it. Who does he think he is, preaching to us? We know his mother… we know his brothers and sisters.
 
Rather than listening to the wisdom that Jesus has to share, we read they are offended by him and they reject him.
 
The theme of rejection is one that has already come up in Mark’s gospel. We have already seen Jesus rejected by the Pharisees who have taken offence at him. We have also seen Jesus in a sense rejected by his closest family members: his mother, brothers and sisters, who were so embarrassed by him that they had come to try and take control of him.
 
Now Jesus is rejected by his home town.
 
Firstly it is a reminder that if Jesus suffered rejection, then we shouldn’t think that we should be exempt from suffering rejection too.  Jesus own life shows us that we cannot live in this world and not encounter difficulty and suffering of some kind or another.
 
Difficulty and suffering in this world are unavoidable.  In a world of impermanence and change there is going to be difficulty. In a world where others have different opinions from ourselves, there is going to be conflict, challenge and even rejection. When we feel rejected, we are not alone. We have a Master and teacher who also experienced rejection.
 
Living in this world requires that we accept that difficulty will come.
It also requires that we find the courage to face difficulty and to make our way through it.
 
And that is how we see Jesus responding to rejection. For most of us, rejection comes as an enormous blow to our self-esteem and can often send us into a downward spiral of depression, breaking us down.
 
But Jesus remains undeterred.  In fact, he seems to double his efforts.  He is even more determined than ever in his mission.  In the passage, directly after his rejection in his home-town, Jesus makes a plan to reach even more people than before. He sends out the 12 apostles to spread his message to as many people as possible.
 
Sylvester Stallone once said: “I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.”  That seems to have been Jesus response in this instance. 
 
Jesus does not allow rejection to deter him.  He has a purpose in his life that he is determined to fulfil whether he is rejected or not.
 
Being rejected by others, especially his home community must have been heart-breaking for Jesus.  We read that he was amazed at their unbelief. That word amazed suggests that their rejection had come as something of a surprise. But rather than being broken down and crushed by it, his heart was broken open by it.  The message of God’s love for all humanity had to be shared even more widely than before.
 
And so the 12 are instructed to offer their message to all. "Go to any house and stay in it…" They are not to pick and choose. The message is not just for one group of people. The message is for all. They must accept hospitality from anyone. It goes beyond social and religious barriers.
 
But in verse 11, we see that the message will not be welcomed by everyone. In face of such rejection, what is important is not to be discouraged. “Shake off the dust” and continue the journey.
 
But there is a promise, that the lives of those who do welcome the good news of Jesus can be transformed. The disciples are given the same authority as Jesus: to heal the sick and cast out demons.
 
What can healing the sick and casting out demons mean for us today? Perhaps it means liberating those who are imprisoned by sadness and discouragement, giving hope to those who think that their lives have no meaning and no purpose.
 
In order to do this we ourselves must trust and remain rooted in the message of God’s infinite and boundless love for all humanity.
 
May rejection not break us down and limit our love, but break-open our hearts and make us even more determined to share it with everyone.
 
Amen.
 
 
What are the moments in your life where you have experienced rejection?
How did you respond at the time?
Did the rejection help you to grow? Or did you feel yourself being crushed under its weight?
How does Jesus response to rejection influence or inspire you?