16th Sunday of Ordinary Time
July 19, 2009
Mark 6: 30-34
St. Timothy,
Banksville, N.Y.
“The apostles gathered together with
Jesus and reported all they had done and taught” (Mark 6: 30).
In last Sunday’s gospel, Jesus sent
the apostles out to preach repentance, heal the sick, and drive out demons—with
a warning that not everyone would accept them and their message (6:7-13). Today they return from their mission. We can’t tell from Mark’s words whether they
return elated by some success and warm receptions, or dejected by
rejections. But it seems they had plenty
to say—“they reported all they had done and taught”—and maybe there’s a hint
here of pride, of losing sight in whose
name and by whose power they’ve been
doing and teaching. Some commentators on
this passage take note of their reports on what they have done, rather than on what God has done thru them.
The better to understand what’s
happening in today’s gospel, we note what precedes this return of the apostles
and Jesus’ taking them aside “to a deserted place” (6:31), and what’s about to
happen when the crowds follow them to this place.
Sermon on the Mount (Ivan Makarov) |
What’s going to happen, and you may
already know this, is that Jesus will feed them miraculously. That’ll be our gospel next Sunday.
What has happened just before the
apostles return—our lectionary cycle skips over this—is that King Herod has
imprisoned and executed John the Baptist (6:14-29).
Jesus
and the apostles, then, have good reason to take a break, to try to go on
retreat, as it were. They have plenty to
reflect on: the apostles’ mission, all
that they did and taught, and what it means for them and for Jesus; and the
implications of what Herod has done because of what a prophet has taught. Jesus has warned them that they and their message
might be rejected, and boy! have they seen the gravity of the warning, if not
in their own travels around the villages of Galilee,
certainly in the fate of John.
Coke
used to advertise with the slogan “The pause that refreshes.” (Most of you are old enuf to remember
that.) That’s Jesus’ intent here, for—as
Mark comments—“people were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no
opportunity even to eat” (6:31). This
before the age of telemarketing —all those annoying phone calls at dinnertime!
Pausing,
reflecting, stepping aside with Jesus is necessary for every disciple. Our lives are full of doings, of
conversations, of travel, or human interactions, of stress. Our world is chaotic and confusing, sometimes
frightening and dangerous. That’s why
businessmen and congressmen make professional retreats. We
disciples of Jesus have to do some of that too.
We need to stop and think about
our lives, our actions, our words, our relationships and how all those bear on
our being disciples of Jesus. Are we
doing and teaching as Jesus wants us to?
Do we have a personal relationship with Jesus? In the words of a poster from the 1970s, “If
you were put on trial for being a disciple of Jesus, would there be enough evidence
to convict you?”
Furthermore,
we need to stop and reflect about the world we live in, and our place in it as
disciples of Jesus. There are plenty of
King Herods around, people who are unfriendly to the Christian message. Do they tempt us to trim our Christian sails,
to cut moral corners, to be less obvious Catholics? On the positive side, how are we making the
world a better place, a more ethical place, a more humane place, a more just
place, a happier place? A Christian
who’s not salt and light for the world, Jesus says isn’t worth anything (Matt
5:13-16).
Jesus
and the apostles’ plan for a little down time doesn’t quite work out. “People saw them leaving and … hastened there
on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them” (6:33). Bummer!
So
does Jesus tell them all to go away, as you and I probably would do? Can’t we have a little privacy, folks? If he let out a primal scream, or even
groaned, St. Mark doesn’t say so. “When
he … saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were
like sheep without a shepherd” (6:34).
There’s a contrast here between Jesus’ sentiments and those of King
Herod. In the Hebrew tradition, going
back to King David, the shepherd boy who became king, the king is the shepherd
of his people. The king stands in God’s
place, God being the true King of Israel.
And “the Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Ps 23:1). King Herod doesn’t give a hoot about the
people, as we’ve just witnessed in his treatment of John the Baptist. Jesus feels compassion for them. Herod takes care of his pals—John’s destruction
came at a lavish party. But the people
are hungry, and as we’ll see next week, Jesus is the one who feeds them. Herod is no shepherd—which is why Jesus’
“heart was moved with pity for [the crowd], for they were like sheep without a
shepherd.” Jesus is the good shepherd.
But
feeding them with bread (and fish) isn’t the 1st thing Jesus does. There’s something even more fundamental than
food for the body. “He began to teach them many things” (6:34).
The 1st thing Jesus does in his compassion for the crowds is to teach
them. People hunger for sound teaching,
for truth—which obviously they don’t get from their Jewish king, who murders
prophets; nor will they get it from their Roman overlord—Pontius Pilate will
ask Jesus scornfully or perhaps skeptically, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).
When
we were children, we certainly longed to be fed—and to be held and loved, and
to be entertained. But we also had
insatiable curiosity, didn’t we? We were
always asking our parents questions about the world, about people. We all have an inbuilt desire for truth,
which begins with wondering how things work and such, why is that man doing
that or that woman saying that. But
eventually we get to the real meat: we
want to know who we are, why we’re here, where we’re going. Those are the sorts of things that Jesus
addressed, and what the crowds hungered for.
Those are the sorts of things for which we still turn to Jesus and to
those whom Jesus has commissioned to do and to teach in his name: his apostles, the successors of his apostles,
our Catholic bishops. We call them
shepherds of the flock of God because they nourish us with the Gospel and with
the Gospel’s implications for our own day—with the truth, in other words. The Church is the continuing compassion of
God for the crowds of humanity.
At
least it’s supposed to be. That’s what bishops and priests are supposed
to be. And all of us. For all of us are the Body of Christ. We’re all supposed to hunger for the truth,
and to do and teach the truth: to our
children, our co-parishioners, our neighbors, our fellow citizens. We’re all supposed to try to shape our
families and our society according to the truth: to who God is, who we are as human beings
made in God’s image.
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