Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Rev. Brent Gundlah
“Going About Our Business”
First Reading (Jeremiah 23:1-6 / NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 / NRSVUE)
When we last checked-in with the apostles a couple of weeks ago, Jesus had just decided to “send them out by two,” into the villages around Nazareth to proclaim repentance, to heal the sick, and to cast out demons. And, from what Mark tells us they managed to accomplish a lot; “they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them,” he says. By all indications, this was a pretty successful business trip for the apostles.
As the story resumes in our Gospel reading for today (after last week’s interruption courtesy of Herod and John the Baptist), the apostles are letting Jesus know about all the things they did while they were out on the road. Jesus picks up on the fact that they are feeling kind of burned-out and exhausted — discipleship can, of course, be very challenging work — and so he invites them all to jump in the boat and sail off to a deserted place for a little well-deserved R&R.
I mean it can’t have been easy for them to do all of this teaching and healing work day in and day out — the demand for their services never seemed to let up and just kept increasing. Everywhere they went crowds of people followed them, and in today’s reading we learn that the crowds now are actually arriving at the next stop before Jesus and the apostles do. We humans can be very demanding when we find themselves in need of healing and, let’s face it, there’s always been an a lot of need for healing in this world.
“They had no leisure even to eat,” Mark observes. I bet that this problem for the apostles strikes a chord with many of us today. Come on, be honest: How many lunches have you eaten at your desk while working? How many donuts and cups of coffee have you had in the car on the way to the office in the morning? How many times have you found yourself (and perhaps at least some of your family) at the Del Taco drive thru on the way either to or from this or that practice, rehearsal, or meeting? When was the last time your entire family sat down and shared an actual meal together?
The various things we do and the responsibilities we feel compelled to fulfill have always seemed to dictate even the most basic of human functions — including, but certainly not limited to, when and how and what and with whom we eat. And whether we realize it or not, this can really wear on us after a while. Jesus, with his unmatched gift of insight into human nature, recognizes his compatriots’ fatigue and calls a timeout.
But their rest doesn’t last very long. The eager crowds, as I mentioned earlier, are already waiting for them as they come ashore. I’m sure the apostles were really thrilled about that; no matter how hard they try, they just can’t seem to get away from it all.
And Jesus doesn’t seem to help them out much here — he doesn’t send the crowds away; he doesn’t even ask them to come back later; he simply puts the vacation plans on hold and gets right back to work. Mark tells us that, “he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.” In the second part of our reading, Jesus and the disciples cross over and moor their boat at Gennesaret only to find yet another crowd full of people in need. And once again Jesus focuses, first and foremost, on healing all who come to him seeking a cure for whatever ails them.
I’ve always found this passage frustrating because it presents us with such a mixed message. On the one hand, Jesus clearly recognizes his and the apostles’ need for some rest, and he actually formulates and implements a plan for them to get some. On the other hand, though, as soon as more people in need show up, that plan is immediately cast aside.
If we seek to find the meaning of this text from a purely “What would Jesus do?” standpoint, it seems to be telling us that we need to exercise self-care unless, however, someone needs something from us (which is great because someone always seems to need something from us). But I’m not sure its really that simple.
I say this because life is marked by a tension among competing needs that can often be complicated; and it defies a one-size-fits-all rule that we can follow in every situation. Life requires us to discern and to make difficult choices based upon the circumstances in which we happen to find ourselves at a given place and time. And so maybe Jesus isn’t providing us with a definitive answer about what to do in all cases, but rather provoking us into asking thoughtful questions about what happens when various priorities collide before our very eyes.
When Jesus sets in motion his plan to get the apostles some well-deserved rest, he’s balancing a series of competing needs — his, theirs, other peoples’, and society’s as a whole. Jesus needs to fulfill the mission that God has given him and he probably also needs a day off; the apostles need to learn the meaning of discipleship and they too need a break. At the same time, many people need to be cured of sickness and spared from suffering; and society needs to repent, to reorient itself towards love forgiveness and justice for all.
The world around Jesus has a seemingly endless stream of pain and suffering that would clearly benefit from his healing touch; he need not go very far to find people in need, because they’re absolutely everywhere. And yet, despite this fact, Jesus decides that it is time to take a break.
He’s clearly concerned about the plights of others — no one would ever really question that. But if curing illness and casting out demons were Jesus’s only priorities, he certainly could have done nothing but these things all the time. And yet, he doesn’t. He could choose never to stop doing these things. And yet, he does choose to stop — well, at least until he doesn’t again.
One of the curious details about this story is that Jesus doesn’t actually go out seeking to tend to the needs of people here — in fact, he actively seems to be trying to avoid them; the people (and their needs) manage to find him.
There are, of course, numerous occasions when Jesus does look to teach and heal and comfort and cure, but not right here and right now. And yet teaching and healing and comforting and curing is exactly what Jesus decides to do, right here and right now. But why?
Is he trying to tell us that we should always drop everything and help someone in need? Perhaps. Is he saying that we should universally put the needs of the stranger above our own needs and the needs of those we hold dear? Maybe, but if I’m being honest with you, I can’t really say for sure. What I can tell you is that these questions have always vexed me. And as I thought about this passage over this last week, I remembered some much-needed insight I once found in an unexpected place.
Way back in the days before COVID I used to meet every other Thursday afternoon with an interfaith clergy group at a local coffee shop. We gathered to exchange ideas, to talk about problems and to share wisdom from our various traditions. I went there once Thursday feeling fatigued (it had already been a pretty long week) and frustrated by the fact that I had not yet figured out what I was going to say to my congregation on Sunday morning. I didn’t decide to go to the meeting until the very last minute; I’m still not exactly sure what made me go.
One of my peers, a local rabbi, shared with the group some stories written by an old friend of his whose name was Lawrence Kushner (as some of you may know, he’s the author of the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”). Rabbi Kushner is very much influenced by the mystical Jewish tradition known as Kabbalah. At the risk of oversimplifying thousands of years of Jewish mysticism in just a few words, a couple of the basic tenets of Kabbalah are that everything and everyone is connected to everything else and everyone else; and all things happen for a reason, which is God’s reason.
Our job is to be on the lookout for these connections, and to discern God’s purpose amidst all the circumstances of our lives; to ask why God places in our paths what and whom God place in our paths; and to figure out how we will respond to what God presents us with. It sounds really simple, right?
During that clergy meeting, one of my colleagues was reading one of Rabbi Kushner’s stories aloud and, when they arrived at this one particular paragraph, I couldn’t help but think that I was meant to hear it right then and right there. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and continues to resonate with me today; here’s how it goes:
“You are going about your business when you stumble onto something that has your name on it. Or, to be more accurate, a task with your name on it finds you. Its execution requires inconvenience, self-sacrifice, even risk. You step forward and encounter your destiny. This does not mean you must do everything that lands on your doorstep, or that you should assume every risk or make every self-sacrifice. But it does mean that you must tell yourself the truth about where you have been placed and why.”
Maybe this is the essential truth that today’s gospel story is trying to remind us of: You need not do everything that lands on your doorstep, or assume every risk or make every self-sacrifice. But you must tell yourself the truth about where you’ve been placed and why.
And I don’t think I could have managed to say this any better than Jesus or Mark or Rabbi Kushner did.