Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 21, 2024 - Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34
“Once upon a time.” From the time you’re about three or four years old, those four words meant that something good was coming. Your ears perked up, excited to hear a story. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” “Call me Ishmael.” Even Snoopy’s, “It was a dark and stormy night.” The introductory words to a story are more than just a mere introduction. They get our attention and draw us in. We find those kinds of things used by all four of the gospel writers. And we encountered one of them in this morning’s gospel.
“When Jesus saw the vast crowds, his heart was moved to pity for them and he …” Fill in the blank. This morning it was, “… and he taught them many things.” If you look at another place in Mark’s gospel, “… and he healed many of their illnesses and drove out many demons.” If you turn to Matthew’s gospel, you will find, “… and he healed them of their diseases.” Luke’s gospel doubles down, “… and he healed them and taught them many things.” Matthew’s gospel also has, early on, at the beginning of what we call the Sermon on the Mount, “Jesus saw the vast crowds coming toward him and he … went up on the mountain, sat down there, and his disciples gathered around him and he … taught them.” And, in all four gospels, that’s the introduction to the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. In John’s gospel, he doesn’t go anyplace else. He just goes there. “Jesus saw the vast crowd, it was near evening, and he said, ‘How are we going to feed these people? What have you here to eat?’”
All of these things tell us something about the typical behavior of Jesus in the gospels. That’s why I asked you to pay close attention to what Jesus was feeling. The word that’s used in almost all the stories, “Jesus felt pity for the crowds.” That’s a very polite translation of a very ugly Greek word. The Greek word is almost unpronounceable, so I won’t try. But the Greek word means, literally, Jesus was moved in his bowels. The closest we can find to an English rendering is gut-wrenching. Each time this happened Jesus had a gut-wrenching experience.
Why choose a word that is so graphic? The very first thing is recognizing the enormous size of the crowds. Every now and then there is a story on tv or in the newspaper about a rock concert that is broken up because enthusiastic fans lunge at the stage and actually put the singers they adore into mortal danger, and the singer has to be swept off the stage by the security people, and the concert ends. It’s hard to understand how, if we really love somebody that much, we’d put them in danger. But it’s almost instinctive, the lunging forward. And with that large a crowd, it creates immediate danger.
We don’t understand what the scriptures mean by “the crowds that follow Jesus.” There was no other public entertainment in Israel and Judah. All there was, was religion. Religion was the state, and the state was religion. There was no music. There was no radio. There was no television. There were no books. Hardly anybody could read. And so, when someone came along, with such a novel and exciting message, and the possibility of a wonder taking place in people’s midst, people followed in dangerously large numbers. So, when Jesus sees the crowd, he lurches out of fear and anxiety.
What else causes that gut wrenching feeling? The recognition that, despite his ability to heal, despite the wisdom of his teaching, he recognizes that it’s like putting a finger in the dyke of human misery. He’s only one person, in one place, at one time, but the overwhelming mystery and hunger and need of human beings is devastating. It is gut-wrenching. And finally, he recognizes that some of the people in each crowd, who seem so enthusiastic about him, will one day turn on him and be, at least, a remote cause of his crucifixion.
Jesus’ response is threefold. Teach, heal, feed. And those three responses are actually the same response. To teach is to heal. To teach is to feed. To feed is to heal. To feed is to teach. To heal is to nourish. To heal is to educate. So, any one of the three things becomes all three things. All of us find ourselves, often in our lives, in a position of teaching, feeding, and healing. The very first time that you sat up all night with a sick child or even with a sick pet, you understood what it means to heal. The very first time you sat down to help someone with their homework, you understood what it means to teach. If you are a teacher by profession, you understand how complicated a psychological and physical experience it is to present knowledge to people who need it, but they might not be interested in getting it. All the time, we are involved in healing of some sort. Healing a breach between relatives. Settling a dispute on the job. All the time, we are involved in feeding. Unexpected guests, when we have to put something together in a hurry to make them feel welcome. Making our favorite meal. Baking our favorite dessert. Doing something special for somebody that we love. We’re always involved in feeding and healing and in teaching, but we do it with a divided heart. In one sense, we are gut-wrenched like Jesus is gut-wrenched. Recognizing, in some ways, how inadequate we are to the task at hand. In other ways, recognizing that this will have to be done over and over and over again.
That’s why this story begins with Jesus’ apostles coming back and telling what they said and did, and Jesus saying, “Okay, now we need to rest a while. We just can’t go on indefinitely doing this and doing this.” When Jesus confronted the crowds, he draws out of himself the last reserves of energy he’s got to face the occasion. But we can’t always be at the point of exhausting ourselves in order to feed, to heal and to teach.
Now recognize that we don’t do this because we are Catholics. We do this because we’re human beings. People of every faith do the same thing. People of no faith do the same thing. People hostile to faith do the same thing. It is a humane thing to do. But what gives us an edge in doing it is that we are called to do it by our faith. We are given strength to do it by the virtue of hope. We are given a reason to do it by the virtue of love. And those three virtues are not something that we earn, they’re something that is bestowed upon us at our baptism. They’re gifts of God that never go away.
So, even when you feel that you can’t take another step. Even when you feel that the demands are too high or that what you do is not appreciated or that it’s all too much. We still can go on teaching and healing and feeding, because to do one of them is to do all of them.