Mark 6:30-44 – Driven by Compassion

Lectionary Readings for March 07, 2021     Third Sunday In Lent, Year B
Exodus 20:1-17          The Ten Commandments
Psalm 19 v1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 v24 But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
John 2:13-22   Jesus Clears the Temple

But this week we’re reading Mark 6:30-44 where “Jesus Feeds Five Thousand.”

Peace through Leadership Quotes

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.”  ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Where there is no vision, the people perish. – Proverbs 29:18

May our vision for peace drive us to continually re-create nourishing love around us.

Any time I preach or lead a group, regardless of age, I start the same way. I’m going to say three short sentences. Please repeat each sentence, with enthusiasm.
God made me.           God loves me.            God has plans for me.

Preface to Today’s Scripture Reading

Last week a woman’s faith in Jesus healed her body which prompted Jesus to bless her. Jesus then brought a young girl back to life. Simply amazing!

We’re now getting into the sixth chapter of Mark and everything to this point has been happening – to use Mark’s favorite word – immediately. According to Mark, Jesus and the disciples have been on a non-stop tour of northern Galilee preaching, teaching, healing, and debating with Pharisees. Add in calming one storm, brining one young lady back to life, as well as the unexpected execution of John the Baptizer, and what you have are a bunch of physically and emotionally exhausted guys. Showing empathy for His companions, Jesus decides they need to rest and recover.

But as Jesus sees crowds chase them seeking healing and wisdom, Jesus is moved with compassion and decides to end the day with additional teachings. But according to modern Greek scholars, the word compassion here is a woefully poor translation of the original Greek word which graphically describes someone’s bowels churning. You or I might say Jesus’ heart broke with compassion for the people He saw chasing them. This Greek word is used by Matthew, Mark, and Luke “to depict Christ’s feelings of compassion, moved by the sight of people in distress” (Matz, Robert J., and Thornhill, A. Chadwick, eds. Divine Impassibility: Four Views of God’s Emotions and Suffering. Westmont: InterVarsity Press, 2019. p91).

At the end of today’s reading, note the similarity between how Jesus “officiates” this meal compared to the Last Supper. In both cases, Jesus looked up to heaven, gave thanks to God (i.e. said a blessing), “broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples” (v41). What strikes me about both situations is that Jesus included and blessed everyone who was present. Nobody had to qualify for the provision Jesus offered. Today’s reading seems most appropriate for a Sunday that includes communion.

Rachel Held Evans writes beautifully about this: “No questions asked. No prerequisites demanded. No standards of holiness to meet first. ... In the story of the feeding of the 5,000 we see Jesus once again addressing the most essential, physical needs of his fellow human beings – hunger, thirst, companionship – and once again, breaking down every socially-constructed barrier that keeps us from eating with one another. ... All who feast on the Bread of Life are family. All who dare to feed the hungry, fellowship with the suffering, and befriend sinners are companions of Christ. This, after all, is the Kingdom: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered together, not because we are rich or worthy or good, but because we are hungry, because we long for more. And just as the fish and the loaves continued to multiply, so have the companions of Jesus. The family just keeps growing and growing.” (https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/lectionary-feeding-five-thousand)

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be a part of our great and growing family here at Susanville UMC.

Let’s open our ears, minds, and hearts as we consume today’s readings.

Read Mark 6:30-44.

Today’s story kneads several themes into an inviting loaf of spiritual nutrition: compassion, participation, provision, and abundance to name a few.

If we put ourselves in Jesus’ shoes, we are encouraged to give ourselves and those who labor with us rest. Today’s story presses us to allow ourselves to pay attention to how our bodies react to our environments. Jesus noticed and was sympathetic to the disciples’ need for rest. Then Jesus’ heart broke for the crowds he saw. Rather than dismiss the crowd OR his gut-wrenching feeling, Jesus let his physical response lead Him into an opportunity to share the Good News of God’s love with people desperate to hear it. That opportunity led to the next moment – providing for people’s basic needs – which Jesus saw as yet another opportunity, not a burden.

Rather than wave His hand and magically make their hunger disappear, Jesus used the people’s need for food as a teaching moment for His disciples and for the crowds. He taught that everyone was welcomed and included. He taught that He was genuinely concerned about their needs. He taught that they were worth His time. Granted, it would have been a more efficient use of the disciples’ time and energy (which was already low) for Jesus to immediately solve the problem with a miraculous “your hunger is no more; now go home.”

But Jesus was not concerned about efficiency, rather, He chose the more time and labor-intensive path of hands-on participation. His disciples organized people in groups of 50 or 100 – that took time and energy. Yes, Jesus broke the bread, but the disciples handed it out – more time and energy. They, the disciples, were the connection between God in the flesh and flesh in need. The disciples were key participants in the miraculous provision, a personal experience they would never forget.

And what provision it was! Jesus didn’t give people just enough to kill their hunger pains for an hour or two. Quite the opposite, Jesus provided enough for people to eat their fill. Recall that the vast majority of people in that time and place were, in today’s language, desperately food insecure. Compared to their typical meager meals, Jesus rolled out an all-you-can-eat fish fry! Jesus fed their minds, their souls, and their bellies. In doing so, Jesus gave everyone a glimpse of God’s abundant generosity – yet one more characteristic of the Kingdom of God.

Here are a few lessons I believe we can learn from today’s story.

1 – As modern-day disciples striving to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and His disciples, God calls us to share the Good News of God’s love with others. And God calls us to rest and renew ourselves. One of today’s lectionary readings is Exodus 20:1-17, The Ten Commandments. You’ll recall one of the commandments instructing us to rest one full day each week. A day of rest each week is almost a fantasy for modern people either working multiple jobs to pay the bills or, at the other extreme, high-income earners working 70+ hours each week. Regardless, God knows we need time to rest and intentionally renew our relationship with God. Led by todays’ story, we must ask, how can we create moments or even hours of rest and renewal for ourselves and others?

2 – Another lesson is that we need to always be sensitive to opportunities to share God’s love with others. As we do, we must be alert for whatever basic needs may be preventing people from really hearing and receiving that love. As you all know, our HOPE Food Pantry has made tremendous strides toward providing people both physical and spiritual nourishment. As Jesus showed us, we must simultaneously adjust for attending to people’s basic needs and their openness to receive encouragement and love. 

3 – Today’s story also teaches us that God wants to work with and through us. What a beautiful blessing that God invites each one of us to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our homes, our workplaces, and our communities. And despite our modern culture, we would do well to remember that God is more concerned with effective ministry rather than high-efficiency ministry. The Christian faith is fundamentally one of experience – each of us experiencing God and then creating experiences of sharing God’s love with others. The Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 helps us see that we create Kingdom of God experiences for people when we share love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

4 – Finally, let us acknowledge how generous God has been with us. Despite the headlines you may see on the evening news, by simply living in America in this decade, we have more peace, more security, more wealth, and more opportunities than ever before. God has truly blessed us abundantly. If we can filter out the sensational headlines and focus on the opportunities and resources at our fingertips, we can bless others more than ever before. If you find that filtering or focusing difficult, please contact me; I’ll be happy to help you with either or both.

Jesus’ overwhelming compassion for others was a core, driving element of His entire ministry. To those who came to Him with sincere hearts, He always responded with open arms, endless mercy, and unexpected generosity. If we allow ourselves to receive God’s embrace, compassion, and generosity, our lives will be forever changed. If we in turn offer the same to others, both our lives and theirs will be changed all the more.

This is the interactive, hands-on dynamic of God’s Kingdom. And this is how we change lives.

Amen? Amen!