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Jesus had compassion for them.

However exciting and exhilarating large crowds may be, most of us will not choose to be there for extended periods. I have happy memories of the annual fireworks on Princes Street marking the end of the Edinburgh International Festival or being in London for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Less so being on a crowded train which has broken down or going through security at a busy international airport. You will have your own.

Today’s gospel from Mark is full of action. People are returning, gathering, telling, hurrying and arriving. They are also crossing, rushing, bringing, begging and touching. It all sounds chaotic. There was no real place to withdraw, to relax or eat.

What struck me was that Jesus chose to remain among this chaos however hungry and tired he was.  Not only did he begin to teach them  - although we are not told what - but also to heal those in need. He shows himself to be the good shepherd. This is directly opposite to the shepherds in our first reading from Jeremiah. They destroyed and scattered. Instead, Jesus is moved by love and compassion rather than lording his authority over them.

I was reminded that compassion literally means “to suffer together”.

Emotion researchers define compassion as “the feeling that arises when we are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering”.  It is more than being sympathetic, showing pity for the sufferings or misfortunes of others or even being empathetic. There is something that touches our hearts deeply and makes us want to respond.

In his book, The Way of the Heart, the late Dutch Roman Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen writes “Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner Disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it”.

As human beings, we all have needs of various kinds, physical, emotional and spiritual to name but a few. Whether we like it or not and however much it may go against our inbuilt desire to be independent, there are times, I know, when we realise our need and have to ask for some help or assistance. When I go home most weeks to see my elderly mother I see something of that compassion which her carers, morning and evening, show daily towards her. It allows her to continue to live at home with dignity and greater independence.

Today we are encouraged to bring our needs to the living Christ who knows them even before we ask.  They may not always be met in the way we want, but a way forward will hopefully be shown.

May God give us hearts which are compassionate. May we be aware of our own brokenness and willing to reach out to those around us. And may those re-assuring words from the psalmist (Psalm 145:8-9) “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all and his compassion is over all that he has made” ring in our ears and hearts this week.

Lord Jesus, you know our needs even before we speak.

We bring them into your healing presence.

Make us sensitive to the needs of others so that we may bring that same

healing presence and power into their lives.

Trinity 6. Proper 10. Year B 2021

What to make of today’s Gospel – the sensational, gruesome story of the beheading of John the Baptist?

It’s a story about the wrong kind of celebration. A birthday banquet, an invitation-only occasion at which Herod is entertaining family, friends and members of the local elite. A lavish affair, and a very exclusive one. The Herod referred to isn’t the Herod who questioned the Wise Men and ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, but one of his sons, Herod Antipas. There was clearly some good in him. We are told that he feared John the Baptist, that he acknowledged him as a righteous and holy man, that he protected him and that he liked to listen to him. All this, despite the fact that John had publicly criticised him for breaking Jewish law by marrying his dead brother’s widow, which would have been fine had she been childless, but was not, given that she had a daughter. His family tree was complex, for his wife was also his half-niece and his stepdaughter, the dancer in today’s Gospel, went on to marry one of her father’s half-brothers, so that her husband was the half-uncle of both her parents.

Herod Antipas was a pleasure seeker and a lover of sensation. Having your stepdaughter dance for your guests at a banquet was a scandalous thing to do. He was also a weak man, and the weakness becomes clear when, delighted with her dancing, he made the rashly generous offer: “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half my kingdom.” He knew that executing John the Baptist was wrong. Yet he shed innocent blood to save him from the embarrassment of breaking a foolish promise.

Very much the wrong kind of celebration, then – a banquet held by a man devoted to pleasure and sensation who ended up doing something that he knew to be evil.

The German scholar Martin Kähler described the Gospel of Mark “a Passion narrative with an extended introduction.” The execution of John the Baptist is included at this point in the story to let the reader know that Jesus lives in a corrupt and cruel world in which those who challenge the authorities risk death. The incident points forward to the Crucifixion. Last week’s Gospel emphasised that prophets are often rejected in their own country, and this week’s reading reinforces that point, for John the Baptist was a powerful prophet.

The story of King Herod’s birthday banquet leaves a very unpleasant taste in the mouth, but if we read on in St Mark’s Gospel, we discover that Mark has used the story to point up a contrast, for the next thing he tells us about is Jesus feeding the five thousand, a miraculous sharing of food with a large crowd of people. They were not there by invitation, and they certainly weren’t members of the ruling elite. All who were present were fed. Lavish generosity, available to all, with no questions asked about their beliefs or their behaviour.

The compilers of the Lectionary chose well when they coupled today’s passage from Ephesians with the Gospel account of the death of John the Baptist, for Paul wrote this letter from a prison cell in Rome and, like John the Baptist, he would eventually be executed by beheading. Paul’s prayerful writing offers both a contrast with the corruption and violence in today’s Gospel story, and a foretaste of next Sunday’s Gospel. He writes of a God who is generous and loving and who, in Jesus, ensures

“…the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on us.” 

A God who meets our needs, as Jesus met the needs of a hungry crowd. The simple meal that made clear the overflowing generosity of God’s love and forgiveness.

“Look into the eyes of another human being and you glimpse God.” Ezekiel 2

“Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters with us?” Mark 6:3

There is a person, with whom I am acquainted who is not easy to converse with at times as they can come across as somewhat different. This person, loves the Lord with a passion and yet belongs to no congregation. Sometimes in conversation they can come out with the most profound and thoughtful comments. So profound that they can often draw one up short. I was reminded of this person by the prophet Ezekiel:

“O mortal, stand up on your feet and I will speak with you.”         Ezekiel 2:1

Sometimes it is the most unlikely of people that God chooses to use as a messenger or prophet. People that many of us might rather ignore or write off. Take John-the-Baptist for an instance. A woolly, hairy man, half-undressed and living in the wild on locusts and honey – not the first person you might expect Jesus to ask to baptise him! Or Richard Holloway, who has said and continues to say things that are profound and help many understand what we mean by God. Many of the saints are similar and the records of their life bear witness to the fact that things they have said or done have so dramatically changed things that one can only assume that they came from God or were divinely inspired.

What strikes me so forcibly about Ezekiel’s comment is that God can talk to us face to face if he pleases. Stand up and face me God says, join me in face to face conversation. Wow! Usually we hear of people hiding from God but apparently this is not always the case, if God wants to God will talk directly to us, person to person.

I think, my friend, may be one of those people to whom God talks to directly. So deep are their comments that I have certainly learned not to judge by appearances. God choses whom he wills to reveal himself to and not whom I might expect him to do so. I suspect my friend does not know how profound they can be at times in their explanation of God and God’s ways. They may not be an obvious prophet but then what does a prophet look like any way? A carpenter from Nazareth?

I am heartened by the fact that God can talk to us face to face if he wishes, although we may not always realise that he is doing so until after the event. God talks to us through each other because of the mutual image of God that we share. When we look into the eyes of another human being we can spark the image within them and ourselves and it is this, that I believe, is looking at God face to face.

“O mortal, stand on your feet and I will speak with you.”

The moral of this sermon is ‘watch out’ who you are talking to because you never know who might be talking to you through them!

A WOMAN WITH ISSUES    Mark 5.21-43

The King James Version of the Bible describes, rather delicately, the woman in Mark chapter 5 as having an issue of blood.  However, this woman had not one but a whole number of ‘issues’ which were draining her of life and which drove her, out of sheer desperation, to touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak as he passed by.

Firstly, she had issues with society, a society ordered and structured so as marginalise and ostracise her.

In its preoccupation with anything that was considered unclean, the diseased were considered a social and spiritual threat and rigorous procedures were put in place to isolate them and to rehabilitate those who came into contact with them.

That created insiders and outsiders, the included and the excluded, and this woman was a victim of such a society.

She was regarded as a walking health hazard. (Lev 15:25-31)  She wasn’t allowed to mix with other people, she wasn’t allowed to eat with other people or even go to their homes.  Anything she touched would be rendered unclean and worst of all she wasn’t allowed to pray with other people - she was banned from the synagogue.

Some, however, benefited from such social and religious arrangements – like the doctors who for twelve years had bled her financially. And of course any social arrangement is policed and enforced by certain key figures - like Jairus, leader of the synagogue in her town.

He was ever alert for anyone who, like this woman, might breach the parameters that constrained and isolated them. And of course such social arrangements were held firmly in place by God. The guardians of religious law and propriety had a divine mandate, in this case the second section of Leviticus chapter 15.

Secondly, therefore, this woman had issues with the God who overshadowed her life, who was ultimate purity and holiness. Indeed all the people she feared and who enforced her isolation – including synagogue rulers like Jairus –  were agents of this fearful God. And doubtless she had prayed desperately for healing but such a God had no time for an outcast like her.

Then thirdly, living in such a social order, reinforced by such a God and his representatives, this woman had issues with herself. After all, it’s hard to love yourself when everyone from God down tells you that you’re worthless and cursed. People subject to this kind of judgement internalise society’s verdict on them.

And this woman watches young twelve year olds like Jairus’ daughter, in the first bloom of womanhood, and she envies them. They bleed too, but for them it indicates life and fertility, the capacity to marry and bear children. Their womanhood is their dignity. For her, however, it is a death sentence. For Jairus’ daughter the sum of twelve years adds up to fulfilment, to adulthood and possibility. But for the woman the tally of twelve years adds up only to despair and ruin. And while Jairus’ daughter skips along with her head held high she walks with a stoop, head bowed in defeat.

Jairus’ daughter died, but she died loved and had someone, her father, to act on her behalf, to run to Jesus for her, Jesus who brought life. This woman has no-one to go for her. She has no-one to love her – not even herself.

Somehow, this woman has made her way towards Jesus, her last hope, risking being caught. And she has reached out and touched the fringe of his cloak and in a moment of ecstasy she felt healing flow into her.

Her moment of joy, however, is short-lived. Suddenly she freezes, immobilised with terror as the words ring out, Who touched me? This is the final humiliation. She’s been caught, exposed, found out. Such shame – why did Jesus have to spoil it?   Couldn’t he have just left her to sneak away, undiscovered, her secret safe?

Couldn’t she have been spared this exposure and humiliation before the crowd?  Well, no. Because in that moment and in what follows three things happen that heal this woman in an even more profound way, opening the door of life for her. In this encounter with Jesus each of her issues is resolved.

Firstly, she finds herself affirmed. Daughter, your faith has healed you, says Jesus and that word Daughter, is shorthand. It stands for Daughter of Abraham – and in calling her this Jesus is addressing her as one of the people of God, a child of the covenant, and she is an outcast no longer.

Then come those words, Your faith has healed you, and note well: Jesus is saying it was your faith, your courage, your determination! Could anything be more empowering? And suddenly this woman finds herself looking into the eyes of the crowd, and her head is bowed no longer as deep within her there are stirrings of self-love and self-worth.

Furthermore, in that moment this woman finds a new image of God. She looks into the eyes of this man of God and she sees reflected there not a tyrant but a God in whom purity is over-ridden by compassion and holiness is seen in fierce, steadfast love.

In what follows, however, something else is changed, because suddenly all the old social and religious

arrangements are blown away.

Jesus, after all, has been touched by one who is impure.  But he understands the dynamics of grace and he knows that it is not he who has been soiled, but rather she who has been enlivened.

And he then goes on immediately to touch the ritually unclean corpse of Jairus’ daughter - but again, is he defiled? No! Jesus knows that rather than him being sullied she is made whole. And Jesus therefore treats the whole purity system with its rules and regulations and insiders and outsiders with utter disdain.

Suddenly the foundations of an old, oppressive, social and religious order are shaken. Grace is invading, and the walls of control, misused power and exclusion are tumbling down. No wonder they crucified him.

This is the story of an outcast being included, a bowed head being raised, a new vision of God being glimpsed, an oppressive social order being undone, and death being overcome by life. It’s the story of the ministry of Jesus - a ministry he has bequeathed to us.

Peace, Be still.

Many years ago I used to be invited to go sailing with friends who kept their boat at Tayvallich, a small village on the shores of Loch Sween. You may know it. The family were experienced sailors with their father being a marine engineer.  I was more than happy to join them as I trusted them and their nautical skills. I remember being told that we had to be particularly careful when sailing through the Gulf of Corryvreckan, the narrow strait between the islands of Jura and Scarba.  If we didn’t get our timings right when crossing we would be at the mercy of one of the largest whirlpools around. To say that I was frightened would be an understatement. The sense of relief when we passed through it safely was unbounded. I could relax and enjoy the rest of the holiday.

In today’s gospel we encounter an unexpected storm. Although we are not told of the weather conditions when they set off, we do know that it was the evening. There were other boats there too. A great storm arose – which must have been terrifying in a small boat – with waves beating into it so that it was already being swamped. It seems almost unreal, that as the disciples were rightly terrified about perishing, Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the stern. How was this possible?

Do you recall that today’s readings involve whirlwinds and great gales with no shortage of questions being asked too?

In the first reading from Job, there are deep questions asked by God. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who determined its measurements? Surely you know?”    

In our gospel from Mark, the first question by the disciples is “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” The second  and third ones from Jesus are “Why are you afraid? and “Have you still no faith?” The fourth one again by the disciples  is “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

What is so reassuring is that Jesus did wake up. No one drowned. He rebuked the wind and simply said to the sea “Peace. Be still”. The wind ceased.  There was a profound calmness which prevailed. Not only were the disciples greatly relieved but I image all the others who were on the lake too.

When talking recently to a teacher friend about today’s gospel, she mentioned that when she faces storms or when things feel out of control, she imagines that she is lying at the bottom of the boat. Jesus is there too. The safest, most stable part. He is alongside protecting her. She stops worrying and begins to experience something of that peace. That was an image I had not thought about before.

But what about us and the storms which we face? Some of us may be in the thick of one. Others have just come out of one. We may be fearful of one approaching. We may feel alone, anxious, frightened, exhausted, uncertain, overwhelmed and more. Not unlike the disciples.  There may be no easy resolutions or endings. Whatever our situation is, whether we keep it to ourselves or share it with others, may we hear those comforting words “Peace, Be still”; and may we know his presence and calmness as we listen to Him each day.

Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace

Still us, as you stilled the storm,

Calm us and keep us from harm.

Let the troubles within us cease.

Enfold us in your deep peace.