“Surrounded By the Hungry and Hurting”

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

“When Jesus arrived, he saw this big crowd. At the sight of them, his heart broke – like sheep with no shepherd they were. He went right to work teaching them.” Thus reads Mark 6:34 in The Message. The heart of Jesus broke at the sight of so many sheep that had no shepherd, so many of God’s people who were un-led, unfed, and unprotected.

Jesus was supposed to be on a retreat with his disciples. They were excited about their various and sundry recently completed recent mission trips. They wanted to tell him about their experiences, and he wanted to listen. More than that, Jesus and his disciples needed to get away for a while, for as the text tells us, “… there was constant coming and going. They didn’t even have time to eat.”

But they were surrounded by the hungry and the hurting. When Jesus saw them he was heartbroken for them; his heart ached for them. So there was no retreat that day. Jesus, like any true Shepherd, fed his Father’s sheep. First he taught them about the Kingdom of God; he fed them on God’s truth. Then, in the verses that weren’t read, he literally – and miraculously - fed them fish and bread. They were hungry in body and in soul, so he fed them.

The crowds that surrounded Jesus were also hurting. As verse 56 tells us, “Wherever he went, village or town or country crossroads, they brought their sick to the marketplace…” And Jesus, the Good Shepherd, healed them. He was the Messiah, the new David, who had come in fulfillment of God’s prophetic Word proclaimed by Ezekiel: “I myself will search for my sheep… I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak… I will set over them one shepherd, David, and he shall feed them…”

A few minutes before I finally settled down and got busy writing this sermon Friday afternoon, I did my daily prayer journaling. Either accidentally or providentially I read Saturday’s reading by Max Lucado rather than Friday’s, and this is a part of what he wrote: “[Jesus] is alone… The people need him – so he’s there. Can you picture it? Jesus walking among the suffering… Little do they know that God is walking slowly, stepping carefully between the beggars and the blind.”

The people need him – so he is there. The hungry and hurting were there in need of him. As were the beggars, blind, and lame. The sheep were in need of their Shepherd. God’s people needed God’s Son; they needed God himself. They needed what only God can give. They needed what only God can do. They needed food, both for body and soul. They were broken and wounded and in need of healing, both physical and spiritual. They were lost and needed to be found. They were blind, in need of eyesight, but more in need of the Spirit’s power to open the eyes of their hearts.

And thus God walked among us as the Good Shepherd – the new David, the long-awaited Messiah. He came to teach. He came to heal. He came to seek and save the lost. And in the end he came to make real the words he spoke in John’s Gospel: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” In that greatest of ironies the Good Shepherd became the pure and spotless sacrificial lamb. As is proclaimed in Isaiah, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of is all.”

And thus took place the atoning act of crucifixion: the body of Christ broken for us, the blood of Christ shed for us, our hell experienced by him in our place. This was, thank God, followed by the life-giving, death-destroying, swallowing-up-of-evil mighty act of God that was the resurrection. As our Communion Liturgy puts it, “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.”

Meanwhile we who are his disciples, who have answered a call to follow in his footsteps, are surrounded by a world full of hungry and hurting people. Men, women, and children who are starving, both in body and in soul. Men, women, and children who are lost in the darkness of sin and evil. Great multitudes of heart-blinded people, people who cannot see the truth of God’s love, justice, mercy, and peace. Men, women, and children who desperately need to experience the sacrificial love of Jesus.

Who is to reach them, teach them, feed them, and heal them? Who is God calling to be shepherds in the name of the Good Shepherd; to be the eyes, ears, hands, and heart of Christ? To see neighbors in need, and not walk by on the other side? To bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recover the sight of the blind, let the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor? Who, indeed?

If we are disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to teach what Jesus taught and do what Jesus did. We are called to be evangelists, witnesses, and missionaries in his name. In order to do that we need to be taught what Jesus taught. We need to experience his healing, saving love. We need to study God’s Word, spend time in prayer, lift up to our God worship and praise, and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We cannot feed others until we are fed. So we must imitate Christ by taking time out from our various ministries to study, pray, worship, and fellowship.

And then what? Following in the footsteps of Jesus, we go forth into the world to get our hearts broken and our hands dirty in his name. We speak with sinners and listen to the lepers of this age. We give our time, energy, and resources to those who, by the world’s standards, do not deserve them. We open the doors of our churches to the same kind of people to whom our Lord Jesus reached out 2,000 years ago: the hungry, hurting, and hopeless; the smelly, illiterate, and emotionally disturbed; the druggies, boozers, and whores. We minister to people, whoever they are, wherever they are. We break down the walls and transcend the barriers that divide people from God and one another.

We minister to those people to whom God leads us as well as those he leads to us – and God does have a way of putting us into contact with folks with whom we’d never otherwise mingle – see above. That will involve touching the untouchable, loving the unlovable, accepting the unacceptable, and hanging out with those of whom the modern Pharisees disapprove. And just so we remember it, we don’t ask for their green cards or social security numbers first. Why? Because God says so. Because Jesus did so. And we might as well not waste our time looking for loopholes; there aren’t any.

But what if it’s inconvenient? What if it’s not socially acceptable? What if it upsets our neighbors? Or the IRS? Or the folks down at the Immigration office? What if, as it is in some places, illegal? What if it causes our ancestors to roll over in their graves? Or our relatives to look at us funny? Or great-aunt Bessie to disinherit us? Hmmm…

Jesus didn’t say, “Go therefore and make disciples of SOME nations.” Or, “You shall be my witnesses unto SOME of the world.” Or, “Blessed are ONLY the rich, famous, good looking, socially acceptable, sweet smelling, well-educated, and in possession of the proper documentation.” Nor is it said him, “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for A SELECT FEW of them…”

John’s Gospel does not contain the following words, “For God so loved SELECTED PARTS OF the world that he gave his only Son, so that ONLY THOSE WHO LIVE UP TO OUR STANDARDS AND MEET OUR CRITERIA who believe in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The Apostle Paul never wrote these, “But God proves his love for us in that ONLY AFTER WE PASSED AUNT BESSIE’S WHITE GLOVE INSPECTION AND UNCLE JOE’S SNIFF TEST Christ died for us.” The Lord did not speak these through Ezekiel, “I myself will search for my PURE BRED, GRAIN FED sheep, and I will seek ONLY THEM out.”

We are surrounded by hungry and hurting people. In the eyes of the world many of them are losers, failures, lost causes, and non-redeemable. In the eyes of our present culture many of them wear the wrong clothes, live on the wrong side of the tracks, go to the wrong schools, and speak the wrong language. In the eyes of the Pharisees, past and present, many of them are, for one reason or another, unclean. And according to a bumper sticker several years ago that I’m ashamed to admit speaks to some of my prejudices, quite a few of them are considered to be nothing more than tattooed, redneck, trailer trash: the kind of people we don’t want to live next to, send our children to school with, or care whether or not they can afford decent medical care.

“When Jesus arrived, he saw this huge crowd. At the sight of them his heart broke – like sheep with no shepherd they were.” I’m sure some of them were the ancient Palestinian equivalent of tattooed, redneck, trailer trash. And how did Jesus deal with them? “He went right to work teaching them.”

“What would Jesus do?” We already know. And now the ball is in our court. Amen.