St Mary’s Langley
21/7/24
Trinity 8
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-24; 53-56
It is a pleasure to be with you this morning. I was the curate in Langley from 2016 to the end of 2020. Where did that time go?! I went from here to the Hambleden Valley for almost three years and have now settled into Surrey. Last October I took up the posts as the Lead Chaplain of Gatwick Airport and House-for-Duty Priest-in-Charge of two small parishes close to the airport.
I love being the Lead Chaplain of Gatwick. No day is ever the same, sometimes the pace is crazy and the hours long. I meet people coming and going from all over the world but I spend most of my working time with staff members from across the airport.
These are often people in need of rest; many work shift patterns that are unsociable, or work in teams that can be pressurised and challenging especially over the last few days. Airports are hot and noisy places with huge attention for health and safety. Then there are all the joys and sorrows of life outside of work. This is also the work situation for many people beyond airports; we all have to contend with physical, mental, social and spiritual exhaustion.
In all the chaos and hecticness of life we have forgotten to rest. Can you remember the last time you had a proper rest? Not just a break or a day off but the ‘leads me beside still waters and restores my soul’ kind of rest? Psalm 23 is incidentally the set psalm for today.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
For thousands of years, the need for rest has been acknowledged because it has been ignored. We ignore it today too. There is a lot of work to rest; it takes planning and organising. Sometimes we might even think it is not worth the fuss and then do no bother.
In the opening chapters of Mark’s Gospel we are presented with a very busy Jesus. Mark sets a tone and pace for his readers that is frenetic and fast. Jesus bursts onto the scene, going from one place, one person to the next, hardly stopping to catch his breath. Mark’s account keeps Jesus and the disciples in Galilee as Jesus preaches, teaches and heals the masses whilst spending time teaching the disciples.
The side of Jesus that we are presented with today is one who recognizes, honours and tends to his own tiredness. Jesus also responds to the tiredness and exhaustion of his disciples with care and compassion. Why is everyone so exhausted?
Chapter 6 begins with Jesus in Nazareth where he grew up. On this visit Jesus was dishonoured and ended up amazed at their unbelief. Who were the unbelieving? His family, friends and those who had known him since childhood.
Hang on to that for a moment; the people who have known you the longest completely dismiss you and the work you are doing. How draining and disappointing would that be? Jesus was a human being, he felt things: experienced grief and rejection, felt frustration, was disappointed and let down. Emotional exhaustion by any other name.
The disciples have been sent out in pairs with no bread, no bag and no money to cast out demons, anoint the sick and cure them and proclaim that all should repent. They were to start doing what Jesus has been showing and teaching them to do. You can maybe imagine the enthusiasm they set out with! They started off full of energy and enthusiasm and have likely returned shattered although wanting to tell Jesus all that they had seen and done.
Jesus recognises their tiredness and calls them to come away with him to a deserted place to rest a while. Not sure how long ‘a while’ is but Jesus wants to provide the rest and recuperation for the disciples and himself.
What do we learn about Jesus in this passage? He was gloriously human and full of compassion. In some of the throwaway lines in the Gospels that usually precede the big events we see this humanity: his hunger, his need for sleep and food, his inclination to hide, the need for rest and solitude. Our God rests and it is important for us to know that.
However, the plans for rest and refreshment go temporarily awry. You might have noticed that there is a chunk of Mark 6 being skipped over. A crowd has gathered and grown around Jesus. This is where we see that Jesus is decidedly un-like us; he does not turn away or get upset. Jesus has compassion, He recognise that the needs of the crowd are greater than his own.
Jesus begins to teach them; not only does he teach them, he then feeds them. All 5000 of them! This is a sermon for another day but the feeding of the 5000 by Jesus and the disciples is set in the midst of their exhaustion.
A second attempt is made to get away. Jesus sends the disciples back across the lake in the boat while He went up to the mountain to pray. Jesus then comes back down and walks on the water, across the lake to the boat – again a sermon for another day.
As Jesus and the disciples arrive on the other side of the lake, still searching for the rest that seems to be eluding them. Once again Jesus is recognised, the crowds come, bringing the sick to be healed. Once again Jesus meets them with compassion, they might touch the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
Jesus understands need; mine, yours, everyone’s. I ashamedly find it easy sometimes to pass the buck on compassion when I am hungry or tired or needing some solitude. It is tempting to declare early that it does not all depend on me. I’m not the last stop – am I?
I think one of the big lessons this week is the tension between compassion and self-protection. Jesus lived with it too and that is good to know.
The second lesson is that the crowds recognised Jesus as he was growing in popularity. People were coming to him for healing and miracles, demanding signs.
As Lucas is brought to baptism this morning, our prayer is that he grows up being able to recognise Jesus in his life. Parents, Shaun & Janine and godparent Chris – this is your job! You are going to shortly make some promises on behalf of Lucas to God. You are committing yourselves to teaching him about Jesus and his life and works, to pray for him and help him make decisions for himself as he grows up.
You are also going to set Lucas a good example in his life and this will include being compassionate to others as well as himself.
Jesus lived a busy, frenetic life. His humanity shows in his need for food, sleep and time away as does our humanness. Jesus and the apostles shared common human emotions of grief, mourning and great excitement that we too experience. Jesus’ divinity shows his unlimited compassion for those in need and the ability to tend to them as the Good Shepherd. Let him lead you to still waters and restore your soul.