Sunday, July 22, 2012

Sermon - Quiet Desperation

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Quiet Desperation
James Sledge                                                                                       July 22, 2012

Jesus and the disciples needed a little R and R.  They had scarcely had a moment’s rest for weeks.  It had been a nonstop preaching, teaching, and healing tour. The crowds were everywhere, pressing in on them, demanding access to Jesus.  Perhaps that is why Jesus had sent the disciples out in pairs on a tour of their own.  He needed surrogates to help in the face of so much demand.
When the disciples returned from their mission trips with tales of their own crowds and of teaching and healing many, everyone was exhausted.  But still people swarmed around.  And so Jesus said, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.” And like celebrities escaping the paparazzi, they got into a boat and slipped away.
But the crowds were as persistent as paparazzi.  Jesus and his entourage had not made their getaway completely undetected.  They had been spotted, the direction they were headed observed. Word quickly spread, and by the time Jesus and his crew came ashore at their deserted hideaway, a huge, clamoring crowd was waiting for them.
Time to make another break for it. Time to give the crowds the slip.  Send a couple disciples one way, a few more the other, then slip out the back.  Except that Jesus looks into the faces of the crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
How pathetic those folks must have been. They were so desperate that they chased after Jesus like pre-teen girls chasing Justin Bieber.  They were so desperate for help that they begged just to touch his clothes. The disciples could have made a fortune if they had known about mass marketing.  “Get you own piece of Jesus’ cloak for only $19.95, plus shipping and handling.”
I’m sure glad I’m not like those pitiful Galileans.  Sure, I’ve got my problems, but I’m not going to come unglued over them.  I don’t need to push and shove and beg.  I have things under control. I have resources as my disposal.  I’m not going to let myself get in a situation where I need to act like those folks who chased after Jesus, begging for him to help.
Feelings this way may be why the images out of New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina were so disturbing. 
We saw people who were trapped, who were helpless, and who were begging for someone to help them.  Crowds congregated at the Super Dome, a symbol of wealth and opulence, but there was no food and no water, and they pleaded with anyone who would listen to help.[1]  That’s not supposed to happen.
It wasn’t nearly so bad a few weeks ago when many of us were without power.  But some of us felt a hint of desperation.  We were hot and sweaty, our food was spoiling, and there wasn’t much we could do about it.  I imagine that more than a few utility repair trucks were swarmed by crowds when they came into a neighborhood as people rejoiced, begged, and pleaded.
When I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever come to church with much sense of desperation, with the longing I felt a few weeks ago for electricity and air conditioning.  Even as a pastor, faith is just one of many things in my life, all those pursuits and activities that I cobble together in the hope that they will add up to a full and abundant life.  And yet I often feel something is missing.  I often feel unsatisfied, hungry.
Most all pastors at times hear people complain about how worship left them unsatisfied, how it didn’t “feed” them.  I’ve often dismissed such complaints as a misunderstanding of what worship is supposed to be, something we give to God.  But it makes sense that if people are spiritually hungry, they would be disappointed if they came to church and did not feel fed. Disappointed, but certainly not desperate.  We have too many other things, too many other resources.  We’re too much in control to get desperate.
When I do actually experience moments of desperation with regards to faith, they are private, quiet moments of desperation.  I’m too good at being in control, or at least at seeming to be in control, to act desperate. 
I wonder if this isn’t common in our age; quietly desperate people longing for something but not sure what it is.  We don’t seem desperate, but we run ourselves ragged acquiring all those things that are supposed to make us happy and fulfilled.  We have more things, more experiences, more activities, more entertainment, more TV channels, more knowledge, more information… but all too often, we still feel empty.  And the horrible shooting in Colorado this weekend only adds to our sense of unease, our sense that things are simply not right.
At least we can be sure that when Jesus looks on our quiet desperation, he aches for us, longs to help us, sees us as sheep in need of a shepherd.  And he wants to teach us and guide us, though I wonder if we have to admit our desperation before we can learn much.
On those days I come to worship feeling spiritual empty, I’m inclined to agree with John Calvin, the founder of our theological tradition, who said that worship without the Lord’s Supper is deficient.  In moments of quiet desperation and deep hunger, it might be reassuring to point to the table and say, “Here is bread; here is wine. Come to the feast!”
Interestingly, our gospel reading this morning leaves out the feast as well.  It includes two stories about crowds but skips over the feeding miracle in between, saving that as a separate reading for next Sunday.  But when Jesus began to teach the crowds, those shepherdless sheep, he taught for a long time. And he decided he’d better feed them before they went home, even though all he had was a bit of bread and a couple of fish.  He looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people.”  Here is bread.  Come to the feast!
Growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I don’t recall thinking of Communion – that’s all I ever heard it called – as much of a feast.  It was a curiosity that we did a few times a year, and the dried out little cubes and thimble full of juice that came down the pew did little to point to a feast.  But if Jesus fed thousands with a little bread and a couple of fish…
I wonder sometimes if those desperate Galileans don’t have an advantage over me.  In their desperation, they could see Jesus as a Savior, as the one person, the one thing they desperately needed.  Me, with all my resources, all my sense, or at least pretensions, of being in control, I have difficulty really turning to Jesus, really giving myself to Jesus.  He’s just one resource among many, one strategy among dozens, one little piece of a giant pie that is supposed to add up to happiness, fulfillment, security, meaning, and so on.
I’m suspicious that we all got sold a bill of goods somewhere along the way when the world convinced us that “more” was the answer.  We just need a little more, and all will be well; more income, more time, more possessions, more rooms in the house, more investments, more interests, more enrichment activities for our children, more education, more choices.
But more can be a cruel task master, keeping us running to and fro constantly.  We’re less sheep without a shepherd and more sheep with hundreds of shepherds, all pushing us this way and that.  But Jesus looks at us with the same compassion he had for those differently desperate Galileans, longing to be our true shepherd, longing to feed us with food that really satisfies.
As I was working on this sermon, I kept hearing a phrase over and over in my head. It’s something Jesus said in a different gospel in a completely different setting.  It was originally addressed to someone named Martha, but it now seemed addressed directly to me. “James, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”
Take compassion on us, Jesus, and give us the one thing we truly need.


[1] Thanks to Cheryl Bridges Johns for pointing this out in her “Homiletical Perspective” article in Feasting on the Word: preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 265.

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