Time for a Refill
Mark 6:30-34; 53-56
Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan
Later today, you might want to read all of chapter 6 of Mark. Remember Mark’s favorite word? It’s “immediately.” Mark’s Gospel rushes to tell the Jesus story. This chapter is a jam-packed, intriguing part of the Gospel, beginning with a trip to Jesus’ hometown where people who had seem him grow up are pretty sure he is no big deal. Mark reports Jesus could do no significant healing or other deeds of power because of the people’s lack of faith. So, the Jesus group leaves. He goes about other villages teaching; and he commissions disciples to go out preaching and healing, too. They become “apostles” then, meaning “the sent-out-ones.” After a flashback of John the Baptizer’s arrest and death, we re-focus on the apostles return to Jesus. He wants everyone to take a much needed and deserved break, but people find them and flock around Jesus, begging for healing. After teaching and healing a huge crowd, Jesus feeds them all with someone’s lunch, then sends the disciples away on a boat, dismisses the crowd, and heads to the hills to pray. After some time, Jesus goes to join the apostles on the boat by strolling across the sea, which he calms. No surprise, when they get to land, people once again crowd Jesus who heals them all. That’s all in one little chapter.
Curiously, the lectionary committee gives us a limited view of these actions, just brief moments of his healing and teaching the people crowding in. The lectionary committee seems to be saying Jesus’ life was hectic, regardless of the specifics and that the compassion of Jesus is boundless – poured out on the disciples, eager for them to find rest and rejuvenation, but also poured out on people no matter where he finds them or what else is going on. From the 6th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, listen for the word of God.
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
With everything else going on in this section of scripture, we only see crowds flocking around Jesus and his outpouring of compassion – twice. But it makes sense to anyone thinking about the world today. Millions of people are running on empty. All over the place, people admit they feel worn out, as if their life has no point. A recent report indicates the leading cause of death for children between 9 and 20 in South Korea is suicide. What leads a child to feel there is no hope, no reason to keep living? The situation is so severe the government is requiring every grade in school to have a unit on suicide prevention. All those children feeling life is meaningless. How shocking.
But it isn’t just children. Adults worldwide seem overwhelmed with too many responsibilities to fulfill every day, while they still feel hollow. Think of the single parent, trying to earn enough money to pay the bills, and make sure the family has clean clothes and good food, and forget about extra activities like sports or music lessons. Who has time to be the chauffeur? The pressure gets worse if the adult is trying to survive on a minimum wage job (or two). One parent recently said, “I’m running as fast as I can even when I’m sitting down.” Every day is jammed with responsibilities, while inside it feels vacant, without purpose.
But even if people are not overwhelmed by tasks, they may feel empty on the inside, even when they are completely satiated with whatever they need on the outside. How many people feel their life is pointless? They take care of daily responsibilities, but it all feels meaningless. They begin to wonder who they are, not sure of a firm sense of their identity. Some years ago, in studying North American life, a scholar quoted artist Andy Warhol confessing he was “obsessed with the idea of looking in the mirror and seeing no one, nothing.”[1] The author quoted another person who just feels what he called “a yawning void, an insatiable hunger.”[2] They look inside and don’t see anything. Such feelings are not uncommon. All over the world, humans of every age are running on empty.
They are desperate for a fill-up. Many of us have a feeling, at least occasionally, of needing something more to satisfy an inner longing. We long for something to quench a deep thirst. Lots of us are sure that what we need is something beyond ourselves; we might call it a desire for spiritual renewal. The most basic prayer we receive from Jesus implores God to “give us this day our daily bread.” We admit our hunger, but realize our real need is for nourishment beyond physical food and drink. A modern tendency is to try some “technique” for getting spiritually fed, like taking a weekend silent retreat in some monastery, or following the guidance in some religious do-it-yourself manual. The trouble is, after the retreat is over or the book is read, most people realize their need was slaked only momentarily. They wished for a lasting, effervescent, overflowing of divine fulfillment, but whatever experience they had, even if joyous, was fleeting. So, their next effort is some regular discipline, like daily yoga or scripture reading or prayer. Don’t get me wrong, these are important parts of one’s spiritual life, but alone, they may again fall short. Something is missing. But what?
Our modern habit is to understand all our spiritual needs as individual. Our society tends to limit one’s religious life to personal beliefs. When we feel empty, we assume making a proper approach to God will results in God’s filling us. Like the old question: How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb? The answer is “None, because each person waits around confident Jesus will come and change it for them.” People are convinced that God connects only individually. A person can believe whatever they want as long as it makes them satisfied and they don’t impose on anyone else. So, we expect God to touch us alone, in meaningful ways which will fill up our emptiness. But somehow the thirst remains. We remain desperate for a fill-up.
Because we need communal refreshment too. Refills come best in community. If we want spiritual renewal, we find it best in a spiritual community. We seek out God’s people. Think of how Jesus got his soul filled. Certainly, he often went off alone to pray, which is a great part of one’s spiritual life. But the communal faith was crucial, too. Jesus was baptized with a whole group of people – a congregation we might say. In the Gospel of Luke we are told “…he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom.” (Luke 4: 16) Jesus’ habit was to be in communal worship on the sabbath.
Jesus knew we cannot just wish ourselves spiritually sated. He promises when two or three are gathered together in his name, he will be among us, as he is at no other time. When we gather with others committed to Jesus Christ for worship and fellowship, that’s when we find ourselves getting spiritually nourished best. So, we choose to come to this place at this time, to enter into God’s presence together. Here, as the St. Andrew congregation, we choose to seek truth, peace, and hope together. We trust we will increase in kindness, generosity, and a desire for the well-being of the entire community as we focus on God’s will for us all. In entering into worship together, we believe God is present and listening. In praying, hearing, singing, and sharing bread and cup together, we experience a communal “rightness” in the world which presses into our lives a confidence that God’s way will ultimately win.
One of our retired minister members claims our gathering together for brunch is also a continuation of our communal worship. Our shared worship and a common meal together generate power and wholeness in our faith community, which empowers each of us, recharges our flagging souls and strengthens us as a congregation. We need the refreshment which comes from being filled up in the fellowship of communal worship.
[1] Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, (1979), 170.
[2] Ibid. 56.