Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, from Proper 11 (16).
We’ve reached the point in Mark’s gospel at which Jesus begins throwing away his political career.
The move doesn’t surprise you and me. As we watch it play out during the next five weeks’ worth of readings, we will have the advantage of knowing that the kingdom Jesus has been describing isn’t an earthly one. To his disciples, followers and the people of Galilee generally, though, he has sounded and acted so far exactly like the Messiah they’ve been expecting. The unexpectedness of who and what he really is will leave them bewildered.
As today’s text shows, Jesus’ preaching and healing have made him such a phenom that he can barely get a moment’s rest. Every time he tries to escape by boat, the crowds anticipate his destination and get there ahead of him. They are like sheep without a shepherd, Mark says. More to the point, they are like sheep needing and wanting a shepherd. Having just lost John the Baptist, they consider Jesus their leading candidate for the job.
Mark is setting the stage. Next week, we’ll switch to John’s gospel for an up-close look at Jesus’ most famous miracle, the feeding of a multitude with a few handfuls of bread and fish. We’ll also examine the less-frequently-discussed fallout that leaves Jesus asking his disciples whether they will abandon him the way everyone else has. Then we’ll return to Mark’s version of the story.
As we watch Jesus’ popularity tank, though, we have at least two reasons to avoid harsh judgment of the people who grow disaffected with him. First, their suffering is real. They are sick and hungry, both in body and in spirit. When Jesus shows up with healing and wisdom in abundance – and free food – who can blame them for mobbing him? Jesus feels compassion for them and does his best to help. We should follow his lead and do the same for all who suffer. Second, we are not as different from them as we might like to imagine. We suffer, too, both physically and spiritually, and we, like they, tend to fixate on our physical needs at the expense of our spiritual ones. Had Jesus shown up in our time, professing now, as he did then, that those priorities are exactly backwards, there’s a good chance we would have responded the same way.
One last point worth noting, I think, about the passage at hand: With all the scarcity Mark puts front and center in the text – scarcity of health, time, shepherding, etc. – it’s easy to miss the abundance waving at us from the margins. Wherever Jesus goes, many apparently perfectly healthy people recognize him and rush around the whole region to bring the sick to him. They lay these stricken people on mats in the marketplace and beg Jesus on their behalf for healing, if only through a touch his coat fringe. And it works.
I point out this detail not to draw attention away from the passage’s pain and suffering or to make some Polyanna point about always looking on the bright side of every bad situation. I do it to point out the virtue of responding to need by doing whatever you can, and by doing it as abundantly as possible. Can’t cure leprosy? Fine. Neither can I. But we are neither hopeless nor helpless as a result. Do you have an extra mat somewhere? Because if you do, maybe you and your two good feet can help me use it to get that poor leper down the street to someone who can. And if somebody has helped the guy already, or if he’s dead when we show up, maybe we can go find someone else to rescue. Just about everyone has an excess of something, even if it’s as minimal as a single spare mat. Combining our humblest surpluses with a little compassion has a way of putting a sizable dent in the scarcity and suffering around us.
Humility abounds in this passage, too, and that’s no small thing. Needing healing was a source of shame in Jesus’ time, especially if you needed healing from some chronic condition. Most people figured that if you were unwell or unwhole, God was punishing you for some sin you or your ancestors had committed. Allowing oneself to be laid out on a mat in the public marketplace and to be regarded by a reputed holy man while everyone watched required a hard swallow of whatever pride one might have left. But describing the outcome for those who managed it – those who, aided by others who simply did what they could, reached out to the fringe of Jesus’ cloak, Mark offers this understated-but-absolute picture of abundant grace: “And all who touched it were healed.”
