First Reading:
1Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of
my pasture! says the Lord. 2Therefore thus says the Lord,
the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It
is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you
have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil
doings, says the Lord. 3Then I myself will gather the
remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and
I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and
multiply. 4I will raise up shepherds over them who will
shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor
shall any be missing, says the Lord. 5The days are surely
coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous
Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute
justice and righteousness in the land. 6In his days Judah
will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by
which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness.
Second Reading:
30The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that
they had done and taught. 31He said to
them, Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves
and rest a while.
For many were coming and going, and they had no
leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a
deserted place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going and
recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and
arrived ahead of them. 34As he went ashore, he saw a great
crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep
without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
53When they had crossed over, they came to land at
Gennesaret and moored the boat. 54When they got out of the
boat, people at once recognized him, 55and rushed about
that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they
heard he was. 56And wherever he went, into villages or
cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged
him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who
touched it were healed.
It's interesting the way stories are told… We had some friends come into town to visit this week. We hadn't seen them in almost 4 years. A lot's happened in our little world in the last four years. We talked well into the evening getting caught up on what had been going on in each other's lives. And when we told stories, I couldn't help but notice that we mostly talked about the big things, changes… babies being born, building a house, moving across the country, getting settled into a new way of life. By the end of the night, I think they knew about all of the big things that happened in the last four years in our lives… and they told us about the big things that had gone on in their lives. And I got to thinking: isn't it interesting the comparison between the way stories are told and the way stories are lived. When we tell stories, the big things get most of the time, most of the focus. They're what we talk about… but when we live stories, on the other hand, the big things matter because they shape our understanding, but the vast majority of time is spent in the space between the big things.
There are two gospel texts today and they're really the in-between verses; little snippets, that are transitions between major stories in the gospel. Before today's text, Jesus got rejected in his hometown, and he sent out the disciples, and then we hear of how John the Baptist was killed by Herod… these are major stories, but they're not our focus today. In the middle of our text there's a gap of almost 20 verses and what's left out are benchmark stories of the Christian faith: Jesus feeds five-thousand people with just a little bit of bread and a couple of fish and Jesus walks on water, out into the middle of the lake in the middle of the night. These are stories that shape our faith; we grew up with them and we've heard them a million times, but they're not our focus today either. Immediately after our passage, Jesus challenged the religious leaders of the day. He confronted them and called them hypocrites… again exciting stories, but not our focus for the day… Our focus today is on the space between the major stories. Because that's where so much of our lives are lived.
Last week, Jesus sent the disciples out to engage in the ministry of sharing the gospel. They were sent to heal, to teach, to preach. They were sent out with no food, no extra clothes and no money. They were sent out vulnerable because they, themselves, were everything that was needed to share the good news. Now we don't get to know how long they were gone and we don't get to know exactly what they did, but we do get to know some of the results of their endeavors because our passage today starts as they come back together to debrief their venture into ministry.
They gathered around Jesus to tell him and to tell each other about
what they had seen and what they'd done. And something amazing
happened while they were out doing ministry: a transition occurred in
the relationship between the disciples and the people who became the
crowd. Apparently their ministry was pretty popular. The text tells
us that They had no leisure even to eat.
The text also tells
us that many people saw them as they got into the boat, and recognized
them… it may seem like a small thing… the change from a
singular pronoun to a plural pronoun. It wasn't just him [Jesus] that
the crowd recognized but it was them [the disciples]. They had been
sent out with the authority and power of Jesus Christ and the people
who eventually made up the crowd had begun to see the disciples as
agents of ministry. They healed. They spoke the truth. They
encouraged connections between people in community… they
fostered connections between people and God. They were empowered to
do ministry in Jesus' name and when they did, people saw something in
them. It was a different crowd than earlier in the gospel… Not
everyone in the crowd knew Jesus, but because of the disciples' action
which happened in the time between the major stories, between the big
things, people had gotten to know the disciples. They saw something
special, they saw something real, they saw something powerful, and
they didn't want to risk losing what they had experienced so when
Jesus and the disciples piled in the boat, the crowd ran ahead along
the shore to where the boat was going: wanting to learn more and
wanting to get a better picture, wanting to know the source of what
they had seen.
When the boat pulled up on the shore of the lake, to the place Jesus
and the disciples thought would be deserted, there was already a crowd
of people there waiting for them. Jesus had invited the disciples to
rest for a while after their time of reaching out and serving in the
community, but there was no rest to be had. The needs of the crowd
kept coming. It's easy to think the crowd would have been an
aggravating interruption… getting in the way of much needed and
well deserved R and R.
But that wasn't how Jesus saw it. He
was much more interested in connecting with the people than in turning
them away. He looked out at the people with compassion because he saw
that they were like sheep without a shepherd… Now, I've told
you before that sheep imagery is all over the bible, and I've also
told you that I don't know too terribly much about sheep… so I
spent some time this week thinking about the phrase sheep without a
shepherd
and I began to wonder what is it that sheep do without a
shepherd. I'm not 100% sure but I imagine that even if there's no
shepherd around, there are some things that sheep know… When
they're hungry I imagine they'd eat. When they're thirsty I imagine
they'd drink. When they've got to go, I imagine they'd go. Even when
there's no shepherd around, I imagine sheep know what to do when they
feel threatened. But it seems to me what sheep can't do without a
shepherd is visualize greener pastures… they might be able to
make the best of what they've got, but they can't find their way to
something better than their current reality. Sheep without a shepherd
wander aimlessly, perhaps even desperately, but a shepherd gives
direction to the sheep, a shepherd guides them and nurtures them so
that every one is valued; every one cared for… The people in
the crowd came because of what they had seen in the disciples. Some
might have come hoping to be healed, others might have come hoping to
be inspired; or because there was finally someone who was standing up
against the Romans, or even the temple authorities… there may
have been a thousand reasons the crowd showed up, but they each hoped
that what they had seen was only the beginning what might be. When
Jesus saw them, he had compassion on them and began to teach them many
things… he became their shepherd. They may have come because
they saw something in the disciples, but they stayed because they
connected with Jesus Christ.
Now, we don't know what became of this particular crowd. But I get the sense that this crowd has something in common with every church in the history of the Christian faith. You see, people are drawn into faith communities for lots of different reasons, but now-a-days, at least in our culture, I'm convinced that people stay in any particular faith community because they find there some connection with the living God, connection with other people, and meaningful connection with the world around them. In a couple of moments I'm going to stop talking, I'm going to invite you to remember and then to share with one another a couple of things… first, what was it that drew you into this particular faith community and second, how have you been able to connect with God here? I recognize that for some of you it was a long, long time ago that you became part of this faith community and for others it's a much more recent question. For some of you, connecting with God comes naturally and it will be hard to limit yourselves to the time we have available… For others it might be the first time you've ever thought of this question and it might be hard to come up with anything at all. I want to assure you that wherever you are in the process and wherever you are in your relationship with the church, and wherever you are in your relationship with God, it's OK. We're all on a journey. And part of the wonderful thing about the church is that we get the privilege to walk with each other on the journey for a while. In sharing our stories, we open our lives and we open our hearts to make connections with each other and to be the body of Christ. So when it comes time to share, I'll invite you to share, but first let's remember.
Let's take about a minute, maybe a little less, to highlight and remember two things from your own story: what drew you into this particular faith community and where have you connected with God here?
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Now let's turn toward a sharing time. Feel free to move around if you want and preferably meet with people you didn't come with this morning. Arrange yourselves in groups of two or three and we'll take a few minutes to share the bits of our stories we just spent time remembering… What drew you into this particular community of faith and how have you been able to connect with God here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I suspect that if we listened to everyone's responses to the first part of the sharing time, we would find that people came for all sorts of reasons… there would be some unique stories, some mixed motives, maybe some un-met hopes as well as some exceeded expectations. And there would also be quite a bit of mundane, ordinary story. I came because my friend invited me. I came because I happened to find the website and it looked like a place my family might feel at home. I suspect that if we listened to everyone's answers to the second part of the sharing time, there would be are all sorts of ways that people have connected with God here: everything from connecting with God in prayer to connecting with God through serving the community. From thought provoking Christian education classes to inspiring worship music. And if I've learned anything about the United Parish in my seven months here, much of where we've connected with God has probably taken place in the context of a loving community because day in and day out, that's a big part of who we are…
And that's really what the message of today's lesson is... the day in and day out matter. The big events definitely shape the overall story of our lives… but the story isn't only written in the big moments. It's also written in the daily decisions. The choices we make of whether to invest by building connections with God, building connections with other people and building connections with the community in which we live… These are the little things, the stuff that happens between the big things. They're the part of the story that often goes untold, but they're also what makes us who we are and they're what enables us to share the love of Christ with people we know as well as with people we don't yet know. So I encourage you, friends, to be intentional about the little things and spend as much time as possible build connections and because that just may be where God's at work in each of us, every day. Amen
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on July 12, 2009.
© 2009 Daniel Holland
