Proper 11 Year B (BCP lectionary)

Isaiah 57:14b-21
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-44
Psalm 22:22-30

SEEING THROUGH JESUS' EYES

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

At the beginning of today’s Gospel reading, The Twelve Apostles have just returned from their mission of preaching and teaching in the villages of Galilee. Jesus instructed them to go with little provisions for the road-- no bread, no bag, no money-- and to go on foot, from town to town, totally dependent on the hospitality of whoever they met on the way. In Matthew’s gospel, before sending them out Jesus prays: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Now, after exhausting but amazingly successful work, the Twelve are returning to their teacher. They are
footsore from all the walking,
weary from the heat,
dusty from the road,
thirsty and hungry.
The Gospel says that, with all their comings and goings, they hadn’t had enough leisure to even to eat!

Jesus, in his love and compassion, recognizes how tired the Twelve are. They could use a retreat from the busy-ness of their work, to refresh themselves. He tells them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

However, when Jesus and the Twelve reach their destination, they find that their fame has preceded them. Many people noticed where they were going, by the time they arrived by boat to a deserted place, they found a large crowd already there, waiting for them!

It’s almost as if Jesus and the Twelve look out at this crowd and see two different things. Jesus, filled with the same love and care he showed towards his Apostles, “had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Immediately, he begins to teach them, to guide them, to care for them.



The disciples, however, looked out and see a logistical nightmare. What in the world were they going to do with all these people? Where had they all come from? This was supposed to be a chance for them to “get away,” to relax, for goodness’ sake! Here they were, in the “deserted place” that Jesus spoke about, and it was as crowded as the villages they had just come from! And how, most importantly, were all these people going to find something to eat out here in the middle of nowhere?

Jesus looks at the crowd with the eyes of compassion and love, and sees sheep in need of a shepherd, children of God in need of care and guidance. His gaze is colored by faith in God and hope in God’s care for us. The Apostles, however, look at the crowd with the eyes of anxiety and doubt. They don’t see “sheep in need of a shepherd,” they see a crowdful of problems!

How can they look at the same crowd and see two such very different things?
Jesus looks out and prays,
“Thanks be to God! The harvest is plentiful!”
The Twelve look out and grumble,
“Oh my God… but the laborers are so few!”

Now, let me admit right now… I’m a pessimist. My wife, who’s more of an optimist than me, points this out to me often. When she notes that a glass is half full, I retort that the glass if half empty. When faced with a challenging situation, I find myself full of reasons why this or that solution won’t fly, why this or that idea won’t work.
And so I can admit, I can definitely sympathize with the Apostles’ objections here. They ask, “Should we go and buy half a year’s wages’ worth of bread?” Remember, the Twelve, fresh back from their mission of itinerant preaching, had no money in their belts, no bag, no food: They have no resources with which to get food for these people! They are hungry and tired themselves, and travel-worn. Their objections seem to make real, good sense to me.

We need to see a little bit more with the eyes of Jesus. The first thought to pop into Jesus’ mind when confronted with those is need wasn’t
“Why he can’t help,”
but “How he can help.”

Confronted with a huge, hungry crowd in the middle of nowhere, the Apostles may have had plenty of good reasons to think that there was nothing much they could do for these folks. But if their mindset had been just a little more like Jesus’, this wouldn’t have been the first thing to go through their heads-- first they would have looked on their neighbors with compassion. Only second, after they’d already rolled up their sleeves to help, would it occur to them that this might be incredibly difficult work-- indeed, almost insurmountable short of something miraculous. But with the mindset of Jesus, they would have the faith to hope for that miracle.

We’re presented constantly with situations which seem far beyond our capacity to make a difference in. The number of homeless who live near our church may seem like a far greater problem than we could help with. The problem of an unlivable wage or unjust working conditions may seem outside of our grasp. Confronted with the destruction and wreckage of Wednesday and Friday’s storms, with up to 60% of the city’s residents without power on Friday, we may wonder what in the world we could do to help in such a mess.

We may also, like the Apostles did, have excuses as to why we can’t help. I may be more worried about my mortgage payments than the homeless. I’m having enough problems making ends meet in my own household-- I don’t have time to worry about a just wage for others. My own power is out-- what can I do for others hit hard by the storm?

I’m happy to say, Jesus does not abandon us to our own doubts. What our own pessimism declares impossible, the faith of God declares possible-- even hopeful. When we protest, “Send these people into the surrounding villages to buy something to eat,” Jesus tells us, “You give them something to eat.” When we cry in despair, “What can be done about this or that problem?,” Jesus challenges us, “You do something.” Just think how freeing, how hopeful that challenge is! Jesus tells us that we, with all of our good reasons why we can’t , actually can.





If believe we can’t do anything about anything, it’s easier-- much easier, not to notice others’ need. It’s much simpler to pay no attention to who is hungry, who is grieving, who is suffering. But armed with the knowledge that Jesus says, “You can do it,” we can have the courage to take notice, the courage to have compassion. Instead of despairing, we can step up and meet the challenge, helping out how we can.

I read an article in the Post-Dispatch about a restaurant owner who lost power after the storm. Without electricity, he stood to lose several industrial-sized freezers full of meat. Instead of simply despairing, or throwing it out, the restraunteur began cooking everything and feeding anyone who came by. He cooked up steaks, wings, burgers, pork-steaks, and gave them to whoever was hungry. During that day, his restaurant was a favorite hangout of the police officers working overtime in all the storm-related commotion. This man had the imagination and the compassion for others to turn his own loss into a feast-- almost block-party, really-- for others.

Poking through the newspapers a little more, I happened across another story, very similar to the first-- a family with a large standing meat freezer holding a barbeque for their neighbors when they lost power. No sooner had I told this to our own neighbor-- who had come over to offer a few hours in his air-conditioned house to whoever on our block didn’t have power-- than he told me that someone just up our own street had done the very same thing-- hosted an impromptu cookout for anyone who happened by!

When my own home town of New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, I was amazed and awed by accounts of how churches and volunteers-- many of them themselves refugees from the storm-- banded together and helped each other escape, or get water or food. I have heard stories from my friends who still live there, of how roving bands of do-gooders, many of them groups of churchgoers or youth-groups, go from neighborhood to neighborhood, wielding hammers and wearing facemasks against the mold, patching up peoples’ homes and clearing our peoples’ yards. Or stories of how, when refugees were fleeing the storm, strangers wherever they went gave them meals, money for gas, or help when they heard that they were from New Orleans.


We’ve all seen the images on television of how whole neighborhoods of New Orleans were literally demolished by Katrina. My wife and I went back to New Orleans to visit my family recently, and I can tell you, these sights are even more powerful in person. Just think of how these images must have confronted the volunteers who traveled from around the country to help with the restoration efforts! Think how, confronted with the ruins of block after block of empty homes under dead street lights, they must have wondered what sort of a difference they could make in the midst of all this.

We, on a smaller but still very painful scale, are faced with these same sorts of images all around us here in St. Louis.
God grant us the courage to face the need of others, and ourselves, honestly, and with love.
God grant us the compassion to acknowledge that those in need are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And God grant us the hope that allows us to step in and do what we can, in whatever way we can, to care for our neighbors; may we even dare to hope that, through our modest hands, God may even work miracles.
AMEN.