I think Jesus would understand about vacations. St. Mark gives us this interesting little parenthesis in the life of our Lord. He says that Jesus knew the disciples’ need for rest. He knew that we cannot be everlastingly at it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Jesus knew that, and so, immediately after He sent forth His disciples on that first evangelistic mission, (a mission which was crowned with success); we read that “The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.” (6:30) But as result of their doing and teaching, the crowds pressed in on them so closely that “they had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:312) (And we thought that we invented the overcrowded schedule!) So Jesus said to them:
I. “COME AWAY BY YOURSELVES TO A LONELY PLACE, AND REST AWHILE.” (6:31) The “lonely place” was undoubtedly part of “the deserted places of Bethsaida” in the northern corner of the Sea of Galilee. It is a barren place, strewn with rocks and boulders, with little rivulets of water trickling down through them toward the Sea of Galilee. It was Jesus’ favorite place of retreat. Of course, some of us don’t need a “retreat” - we haven’t advanced far enough to need one! But Jesus’ disciples needed one, and so Jesus suggested that they come away with Him for awhile for a rest.
When our children were growing up, our family’s favorite method of taking a vacation was camping, using a travel-trailer. At various times we owned a 16-foot Shasta, a 17-foot Shasta, and a 20-foot Shasta. One advantage of the bigger travel trailer was that it had a bookshelf on one wall. One summer we were packing and preparing to leave, when our family physician stopped by to drop off his daughter, who was a friend of our daughter’s and who was going to accompany us as we went to the East Coast. We were showing our doctor-friend around the trailer, and he was admiring the little nooks and crannies - amazed at how much stuff you could take with you on vacation. Then his eyes fell on a shelf of rather heavy (in more than one sense) books of theology I had planned to take along to read. Without further ado, he picked up the shelf of theological books and unceremoniously dumped them outside of the trailer. “You’re going on vacation,” he said - “leave your work behind! And that’s an order from your doctor!”
That event came to my mind the other day when I came across a sermon by Dr. John Killinger, pastor of First Congregational Church in Los Angeles, titled “A Vacation from God.” Killinger tells of speaking at a pastor’s conference with a head cold, and trying to save his voice as much as possible, so he excused himself from the dinner table by saying that he was going to his room and read awhile. “What are you reading?” asked one of the ministers present. “A Graham Greene novel,” he replied. “What?” responded another minister. “Not a theological book?” “No,” Killinger said, “sometimes I like to take a vacation from God.” Of course, he went on to say, it is impossible to take a vacation from God. You know that. I know that. He knew that. What does Psalm 139 say: “Though I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost arts of the sea, Thou art there!” But what he meant was that he needed time away - not from God Himself, of course, but from the godly trappings that go with the job of being a minister. Killinger writes: “Sometimes being a minister is almost more than I can bear, because it tends to limit one to religious associations and to being around piety all the time. You sort of get ‘altar burn,’ if you know what I mean. Everything in life becomes restricted to religious consciousness, and there is a stained-glass pallor about the people you meet. People open their mouths to talk, and you see little balloons coming out and all the print is in Old English....(sometimes) I need to be immersed in a world where the signs aren’t all printed in Old English and people’s hands aren’t all folded in prayer. I need a freshness that will revive my God-asphyxiated soul.” (Pulpit Digest, July/August 1988, p. 30)
Jesus and His disciples needed a time for rest and relaxation; re-creation of body, mind, and spirit. And so do we. So don’t feel guilty while you’re doing nothing but lying on a beach somewhere this summer with a good book. But (as the Moment of Mission reminded us) “keep those cards and letters coming” - your church needs your support in the summer - perhaps more than any other time - for, while we are on vacation, the church is still here, working away at bringing ministry to persons in need, week after week.
II. “AS HE WENT ASHORE HE SAW A GREAT THRONG, AND HE HAD COMPASSION ON THEM.” (6:34a) That’s Jesus for you. He had compassion. One might understand if He had become irritated. I probably would have. Here was a chance to get away for a rest...they even went to a lonely, deserted place to get away from the crowds...but when they arrived, the crowds had beaten them to it! Jesus might have become irritated. But when he saw them, and saw their enormous needs, he put his weariness aside for awhile and began to teach them. He never turned His back on a real need, even when his shoulders were drooping from the load of care. He saw the people “wandering as sheep without a shepherd,” and had compassion on them. They had such great needs. And so do we. As William Barclay says in his commentary on this passage: “Life can be so bewildering. We can stand at some cross-roads of life and not know what way to take.” (Daily Study Bible, p. 157)
There are people all around us who hurt. Do we know? Do we care? I came across a reference to the fact that there was a Michigan high school in which the students designated October 1, 1986 as “Nerd Day.” One freshman was bright but sensitive; since entering high school, he had been harassed and teased for being a “nerd.” One day before “Nerd’s Day,” this 14-year old boy hanged himself in his own home. He simply couldn’t stand any more. Although that school will no longer have a “Nerd Day,” it is too late for one boy. (from David W. Richardson, pastor of College United Methodist Church, Warrenton, Mo.) Was anyone sensitive to his pain before? Are we sensitive to the pain of those suffering around us now? Insensitivity is not limited to high-school students. We are all guilty of it at times. Sometimes it seems that the burdens of the world are simply too grievous to be borne. We have hard enough time keeping on top of our own lives, what room to we have to share the burdens of others? We are already staggering under our own load. How can we be reasonably expected to help shoulder the load of others?
Retired Bishop James Henley of Florida said wise words a few years ago. He said: “There is enough sorrow in every congregation, in every community, to break the heart of an archangel. There is enough sin to make the blood of the saints run cold.” Do we care enough to do something about it? The strange paradox about the Christian life is that is is only by sharing other’s burdens that our own are lifted; by giving away love is our own love replenished. As the familiar prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assissi puts it so eloquently: “O Divine Master., grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; not so much to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, (and) it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.”
III. “(JESUS) HAD COMPASSION ON THEM, BECAUSE THEY WERE LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD.” (6:34b) What an apt description. People tossed to and fro (as the writer of the Letter to the Ephesians puts it) “by every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.” A very apt description of millions of people in our day,too.... people who are latching onto this or that straw to save them (and their world) from drowning. A short while back, George Gallup, whose polls periodically take the pulse of society, says that there are four trends which undermine the effectiveness of the church in our day: (1.) A serious lack of knowledge about the central tenets of our religion and religious heritage. (2.) An easy credulity or gullibility among North Americans that allows for regular churchgoers to hold contrary beliefs. For example, on average, church goers believe in astrology just as much as do non-church goers. (3.) A lack of spiritual discipline as seen, for example, in prayer life which lacks the structure, focus and intensity required for effectiveness; and (4.) An anti-intellectual tendency which promotes empty emotionalism rather than the blending of mind and heart. Gallup emphasizes that Christians in the United States are highly vulnerable in their religious life and easy prey for false prophets. (From the church bulletin of Metropolitan United Methodist Church in Detroit, May 24, 1987) Recent news events seem to substantiate his findings, don’t they! We appear willing to try almost anything...but the one thing (the one Person) who can make sense of it all. Left to ourselves, we get lost in life. “(JESUS) HAD COMPASSION ON THEM, BECAUSE THEY WERE LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD.” (6:34b) Reading those words, we immediately think of Jesus’ words in John (10:11) “I am the Good Shepherd...” and in our mind’s eye we can see Him standing with arms outstretched, yearning to draw all of humankind into His fold.
In an article in “The Circuit Rider,” Dr. Donald E. Messer, president of Iliff School of Theology in Denver, writes: “Recently I have become fascinated with a figure of speech known as an oxymoron. By definition an oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous thoughts used together.” (The Circuit Rider,” Dec.1987/Jan. 1989 p.4) It is a great dinner topic to have people share their favorite oxymoron. Here are some examples: cruel kindness; authentic reproduction, down escalator, jumbo shrimp, proudly humble, (or humbly proud), pretty ugly, postal service, airline food, military intelligence, United Methodism. Dr. Messer says, “The value of this type of speech is that it jars the reader to new awareness or startles the listener to new understanding. In the hands of an artist, an oxymoron like ‘thunderous silence’ paints an unforgettable word portrait.” (Ibid., p. 4) Now, Jesus was a master at the art of painting word pictures; of saying things that stick like glue to the imagination. But when we hear Jesus say “I am the Good Shepherd” in the Gospel of John, most of us just yawn and think to ourselves: “So what else is new?” From our childhood we have heard the shepherd imagery, and while not many of us have actually met a shepherd, we think we understand its implications. The words project on our minds a peaceful pastoral scene, of shepherds caring lovingly for their sheep, “loving their flocks, calling them individually by name, searching for the lost, and risking life and limb to protect lambs from wolves, lions, or bears.” Dr. Messer says that “what we fail to realize is that in calling himself the ‘good shepherd,’ Jesus is employing an oxymoron that is almost scandalous in the culture in which it is spoken.... (this is ) because we think of the shepherd as a noble profession, worthy of high regard and admiration.” The fact of the matter, however, is that “in first-century Palestine...the shepherd was viewed not only as a humble occupation but also as one of the most despised trades.” (Ibid. p. 4)Contrary to our romantic images, shepherds were generally considered to be thieves. They were know to graze on other peoples’ lands and to pilfer their produce. But Jesus came as a “Good Shepherd,” not to steal, but to save.
The phrase “Good Shepherd” would have shocked His audience and woke them up. Jesus used it to underline the fact that in Him, God had come among them to seek and to save the lost and wandering, whoever and wherever they might be. After all, when the Bible refers to us as “sheep,” it isn’t a compliment. Sheep are just about the dumbest critters God ever created...so docile that they will follow the sheep ahead of them anywhere - even into the slaughterhouse. (Any similarity between such stupidity and what passes for conventional wisdom in our world today is purely intentional!) But Jesus had compassion on them. He cared.
In Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” Sidney cannot give up caring. In response to one of his wife Iris’ outbursts of “Who cares!” Sidney shouts: “Is that all you can ever say? Who cares, who cares? Let the bomb fall, if someone wants to drop it, ‘tis the last days of Rome, so rejoice ye Romans and swill ye these last sick hours away! Well, I admit it: I CARE! I care about it all. It takes too much energy NOT to care. Yesterday I counted twenty-six gray hairs in the top of my head - all from trying NOT to care.” New York: Crown Publishers, Best American Plays, Sixth Series, 1963-1967, John Gassner and Clive Barnes, ed.,1971, p. 250) There are a lot of self-help books these days telling us how to care for ourselves. And we should. Jesus recognized that need in Himself and in His disciples. That is why He took them aside to a lonely place for rest.But perhaps a whole lot of our weariness is from trying so hard NOT to care. As Christians, we are called to care - for a world which God created, but a world which has gone dangerously and tragically awry...and which Christ came to save.
Al Lindgren, a professor at Garrett-Evangelical seminary once told about taking his junior high school son fishing years ago. It was one of those days when the fish wouldn’t bite and the two of them had a lot of time to talk. Out of the blue his junior-high son asked, “Dad, what is the toughest thing God ever tried to do?” Al said that the question caught him (a minister) off guard. He didn’t know what to say, so he, like a good teacher, answered a question with a question. “What do you think it was, son?” he asked. His son responded, “Even though you’re a minister, you don’t know much about God, do you Dad?” He then proceeded to answer his own question. “Since taking science in school, I thought the creation of the world might be the hardest thing God ever tried to do. In Sunday School, we got talking about some of the miracles, like Jesus’ resurrection and I thought that might be the toughest thing God ever did. (Then) after thinking some more, and talking to others, I’ve decided that no one knows God really well, so now I think the toughest thing God ever tried to do is to get us to understand who He is, and that he loves us.” The father could simply say to his boy, “Son, I think you are right.” (from the bulletin of Metropolitan UMC, Detroit, Aug. 23, 1987)
“Jesus had compassion on them...” and has compassion on us, because we wander like sheep without a shepherd. Let’s stop our wandering and get on home. Okay?