THE NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST | July 21, 2024 | A Sermon Based On Mark 6:30-34, 53=56 (RCL) | by David Zersen |

The apostles gathered around Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. He 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. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As 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.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And 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.

GETTING IN YOUR BOAT

My grandfather loved to fish and sometimes he would take me with him, early in the morning. He could fish for hours—and I would be bored stiff. He knew it, so he would row me ashore and tell me to go back to the cottage. Then he’d go back out to secret fishing holes and not return until dark. As a child, I had no grasp of the meaning of those experiences for him. In reading today’s text, however, I think I now understand. It was not the number of fish he was after, but the time away. He was the pastor of the third-largest congregation in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Situated in urban Milwaukee, he faced many challenges: administrative, pastoral, and personal. Getting in the boat was his time alone, time to work out problems, develop visions, and pray. I was in the way in those hours, but I didn’t know it.

Today’s text relates well to that setting in my life so long ago. The apostles had been sent out on a bold mission. We learn in other settings (Matthew 10 and Luke 9) how challenging their work was. They were to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, take no money, no extra clothes or sandals. They were to expect those they visited to care for them. And if local authorities beat them, they weren’t to worry about it. God would help them along the way. Add to that the political scene was complicated. Their ministry was at odds with the religious authorities. One of their popular leaders had just been beheaded by the king! Wow! Theirs was a challenging life. In our text, they had just come back from a difficult mission trip and Jesus invites them to join him in a deserted place and to rest a while. Given the setting in Galilee, what better-deserted place than to huddle in a boat. Or maybe take a boat to a quiet spot on a farther shore. The people who were constantly after them were, like sheep without a shepherd. People wanting their attention were everywhere. But there was this moment, alone with the shepherd, alone in the boat. And they longed to have this time alone away from the crowds. My grandfather would have understood that—and so do you.

This is the month of July, a big-time vacation month, when in our advantaged society many people seek to “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile” Yesterday while waiting in the lobby of the physical therapist’s office, I took a moment to peruse an issue of the April 2024 Conde Nast Traveler with its cover story on “The New Secrets of Luxury Travel”. I do have the impression, as one who has traveled a great deal in his life, that increasingly the proposals for a vacation have come a long way from getting in a rowboat to discover a deserted place where one can rest for a while.  It would be interesting to survey today what “getting in a boat’ means for you. What is your favorite “get-away” experience? Does it have to cost a lot of money? Does it need to be far away? And, for that matter, what are you trying to get away from—and what do you hope to get away to?

Things to get away from

In many ways, the political, social, and religious scene is as complicated today as it was in Jesus’ time. I have longed for political campaigns that lift visions of what can be instead of denouncing what is. Finally, the denunciations in the U.S. have led to an attempted assassination, vast handwringing, and attempts to blame the other political party. Our economic problems include inflation, insistence on higher wages, and lower taxes. Our social problems include questioning whether medical vaccinations can be mandated and whether higher education has any value at all. The religious problems include questioning whether long-accepted morals and values should still be cherished, especially in the light of the new atheism that questions the existence of God himself/herself/itself!! The troubling landscape of change and confusion encourages us to give up watching the news and debating the controversies. We’d like to get away from it all because it is not positive, affirming, or hopeful. We may well like to go to a deserted place and rest for a while.

It was even true at Jesus’ time that the very things that had once provided stability and focus for faithful Jews were being undermined by the strictures and finite distinctions made by authorities in a religious-cultural system that had become legalistic. The common people heard Jesu’s preaching as emancipating because it questioned whether all the rules that the religion of the day tried to enforce didn’t squash what could have been appreciated as the love of God.

Generations of people, including the younger ones, complain today that the structures of society are too intimidating and that real freedom encourages us to do what we want when we want to do it. While an anything-goes mentality is hardly what Jesus is encouraging, many of us indeed feel overwhelmed and trapped in the rigid structures of society, politics, and religion. We rightly wonder whether there is a boat somewhere that can take us to a deserted place where we can experience freedom from all that constrains us.

Things to get away to   

There are two interesting words in our text that tell us about Jesus, the one who encourages us to get away with him to a place where there is true freedom and fulfillment. One word is shepherd, the person who watches over a flock that likes to wander. In the old 18th-century hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, there is the great line, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it…” We like sheep, says the Scripture (Is. 53:6), have become lost in the chaos that society creates. Using language from the agrarian society of the Bible, it takes a shepherd to call us back to a proper understanding of who we have been called to be– in our baptisms and our relationship with the God who waits for us in a desert place.

The other word is one I have known since my seminary days when I studied Greek and the instructor found it important that we appreciated it. The Greek word is splagchnizomai, and                                   it occurs several times in the New Testament, always referring to Jesus or to God the Father. It means “compassion”, but compassion at such a level that it proceeds from the gut. It is a boundless compassion that hurts to express it. This is the emotion that Mark says Jesus expressed when he thought of those people who were trying to flee from a troubled society, from their illnesses, and their fear of the future. Jesus saw that in them and he wanted to help with his teachings, his healing power and his forgiving love. That’s why he would say things like “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28)

These words from the Shepherd and compassionate one are spoken to us as well. In our personal and societal problems, Jesus is the one we want to get away to. Have you thought about that when planning a vacation, a retreat, an escape? Conde Nast may suggest luxury resorts, but that may not be what you need. There are numerous places around the U.S. that provide a way to reconnect with the one whose goal it is to set you free from your burdens, to help you be at peace with yourself and others. Have you given any thought to the boat that will take you to a place where reflection, contemplation, and prayer can give you a new lease on life? Places like Holden Village in Washington and Camp Arcadia in Michigan are famous as retreat centers for individuals and families. If you talk to your pastor, she or he could make you aware of many other places like this.

For that matter, the boat that may take you to a new place or give you some directions can very well be a prayer retreat in your home, a weekly time with a Christian friend at coffee, or a men’s or a women’s group at your church. Much of our weariness, our dead-ends and our frustrations can also be relieved by remembering that God is with us and speaking to us through Christian friends. The one who is with us always to the end of our days waits for moments to engage us just as Jesus did with his disciples on the shores of Galilee. Set some time aside for meditation or prayer or conversation during your vacation this summer or during a day this week.

Plan it now. Pick your boat and then the place. Just go.

—

David Zersen, D.Min., Ed.D., FRHistS                                                                                                                     President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas                                                                                                     zersendj@gmail.com