Proper 11, Year B, July 21, 2024

Jacopo Bassano, "The Feeding of the Five Thousand"

Prayer

As we gather again, O God, to celebrate the weekly Pasch, grant your church the joy of tasting again the living presence of your Christ in the word that Jesus proclaimed and in the bread of life we break. Drawing apart on this day of worship and rest, of refreshment and renewal, let us recognize in Jesus the true prophet and shepherd who guides us to unfailing springs of eternal joys. We ask this through Christ, with whom you have raised us up in baptism, the Lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Mark 6:30-56

"The mission is so successful that one could be left wondering where it will end. Mark's hearers then and now know that this is not the whole story, but it does not change the nature of the mission: to offer leadership in teaching and in acts of compassion that bring healing and set people free from what oppresses them."
"First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost 7, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.


"By healing the sick, the weakest and most vulnerable members of a community, in this space, Jesus is subverting the economy of this world through the very inauguration of God's kingdom economy."
Commentary, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 (Pentecost +8), Elizabeth Webb, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"Jesus sees the sheep without a shepherd. And sometimes even a shepherd needs a shepherd. Even a pastor needs to be noticed. Even a preacher needs compassion..."
"The Dew of Compassion," Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, 2015.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Let us begin first with the meaning of the word "apostles."  I think when we hear this word we immediately think of the chosen and the first 12.  Am I wrong? Nope. That meaning, and that is certainly one way of understanding the word, is correct but it is applied after the church became the Church.  In our reading today we might better read it in the way the gospel means it: those who were sent out.  I think this changes things a bit as we read our text.

So, the ones who had been sent out gathered around Jesus.  They explain all the powerful work they have been doing. They had been participating in the building up of the kingdom of God. They had gone out and done work which Jesus himself had been doing. The power of God was now present in the world and flowing through them as well. They had been sent out to do God's work of building up and proclaiming the good news of the reign of God and it had worked.So they gather and a great many people gather around, as if in a symposium or a teaching time. And Jesus sees them like Moses, as sheep without a shepherd. And, like Moses who see his people hungry and longing he provides for them. This is a miraculous story that synchronizes Jesus with the powers and vision of Moses to see his suffering and lost people and to come to their aid. His followers do not all understand this, nor can they understand the fact that Jesus himself is to be the bread of life. But here for those of us who are also sent out, who are also sent ahead, we are able to see God's compassion and love and care for his people. Neatly tucked in here is this notion that those who are sent and are able to do great things sometimes also need help seeing that those challenges right before them are also theirs to overcome.

Our text today has a one/two punch as we take two specific and different pericopes into consideration.  In the second part of our text the disciples, his inner circle of missionaries, are gathered and are sent out onto the sea to make their way to Bethsaida. It is another crossing and we should know by now that whenever there is a crossing and water that we are about to see again the creative power of God in Jesus. Indeed we do.

They are trying to make their way. The ones who have been sent out, are now sent ahead, and are struggling to make their way across the boiling sea. Again, they are challenged. We cannot dismiss this as simply difficult work.  The image of the sea is always in Mark an image of powers of creation and powers against Jesus. It is the place of leviathon and the deep.  Jesus walks out to them. And, they see him again as the one in whom all creation has its being and for whom even the waves obey.  It is an epiphany event.  In the midst of the feeding we are treated to a vison of Jesus as the bread of life and a new Moses, on the sea we see him as Moses walking through the waters to deliver his people.  This passage is filled with old testament imagery and the linkage of feeding in the desert and the Red Sea crossing should not be dismissed.  Jesus is the "I am."  Jesus is the lord of the Haggadah, the ego eimi, the one who is, and he is the image of God at work in Moses, and in the new law. (Joel Marcus, Mark, vol 1, 431ff)

Just as this motif of Moses and the Exodus looks back it also looks forward.  It looks forward to the reimaging of Christ as the crucified Lord who makes way through the Sheol of death and brings us to a new banquet table which is set on the mountain top and not in the wilderness.  We are given images of Christ as the bread of life. He is our new shepherd and our new deliverer. He is our messiah who leads us all and forevermore out of death into life.

As we pause and think about this for our people today we must ask what are they hungry for? What do they need deliverance from?

Moreover, we might ask as the church who is being sent...what are we being sent out to do?

How do we as church feed the masses with the Gospel of good news? Are we willing to not only change the world; are we willing to transform it through the proclamation of God in Christ Jesus?

This is a both/and scenario.  Mission is at once the feeding of the body, shelter for the head, and healing for the sick.  But mission is also hope for the mind, guidance home for the lost, and restoration for the separated.  It is one thing for people to know that Episcopalians care. It is quite another for people to experience the caring of the Episcopal missionary and their story of transformational life.

Mark's gospel is never only about the wind and the waves, bread and fish, it is also always about the spirit.  These two combined are the key to an incarnational message of the gospel which is apostolic and life changing.


Ephesians 2:11-22

"Behind this statement lies the upside-down idea that such uniting of humanity was won not through the blood of conquest and victory, but through (in the eyes of the world still enslaved to the spirit of the air) the blood of defeat."
Commentary, Ephesians 2:11-22 (Pentecost +8), Kyle Fever, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"This passage is cause for the people of God to rejoice that God is reconciling, healing and bridging communities in both the spiritual and natural world."
Commentary, Ephesians 2:14-22, Hyveth B. Williams, The African American Lectionary, 2009.

"It is not the mission to recruit strength and build power. It all depends so much on whether you see the goal as withdrawal to another source of power beyond all things or coming home to the source of love within all things which is seeking to bring and hold them together."
"First Thoughts on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost 8, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"In a world that has grown frighteningly guarded and harsh, Christian congregations are called to imitate the 'table manners' of Jesus by being sacraments of God?s hospitality in the world."
"Hospitality," Christian Reflection, The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2007.


Oremus NRSV Text


Wow! There is a ton in this passage. We have everything from circumcision to the mysterious "dividing wall." I wold like to focus on the essential "ecclesiology of hope" that flows throughout this text.

Our context is a divided, broken, and sinful world. Into this world Christ brings the power of the cross and shalom breaks forth. It is in this new community of shalom, of peace, that creates a church. This is a very low doctrine of the church. In the first place God is at work building up the live of this communion not only through Jesus' grace and salvific work, but also through the work of the creative God who makes all things and the Holy Spirit who is enlivening the word in and amongst the people. Markus Barth puts it this way, the church must be a community of listeners. He says:

A church which is in this way bound to God, bound by the brotherly love of former enemies, and engaged in responsibility for the world, cannot resemble a museum, a legal institute, or a dictatorship. Neither can it be a freewheeling association of enthusiasts.

Secondly, the church is growing. If the relationships grow and people listen then growth of the wider body should continue. This does not happen by the work of the people but by Christ. The people are the holy dwelling place and the temple of the Spirit. Again, Barth says:

This community has to develop externally and internally and be perpetually reformed in order to grow. Paul's idea of the church's change and reform is oriented toward the future rather than the past. Eph :21 can be considered a scriptural ground for the adage, ecclesia semper reformanda (always reforming).

 Thirdly, is the idea of the church's being a stranger. I love this. What Barth says about Israel could easily be spoken for the church in our own time. Listen to his words:

They were chosen people called to be faithful witnesses, at home and in exile, and they sought in vain to substitute cheap peace or assimilation to their pagan environment for repentance, obedience, and steadfastness, and hope.

The same could be said for the Christian Church today. Indeed people come into a church that itself has assimilated into the political bickering of the day. We are a people who boast in our being saved. We are a people who believe we have it all sown up. We are a people who believe we are flawless and who don't worship false idols. What we all must remember is that, even as we add to our own number today, we are a people utterly dependent upon God in Christ Jesus and his work. Barth concludes:

If God can and will use people who are as tempted and weak as the Christians are, then he is certainly able and willing to exclude no one from his realm. The church lives by this hope and bears witness to it publicly. (Markus Barth, Ephesians, 323-324)

The question that I have is how are we living this out publicly. How do we reveal that we are bound together beyond our own  brokenness? How do we reveal to others that we are deeply listening to the Holy Spirit? How do we reveal that we are "saved sinners, not sinless saviors"? How do we reveal we are flawed and constantly in need of repentance? How do we reveal that we are often wrong?

You see, the church often gets evangelism backwards. We think it is about what others have to do in order to be saved, instead of what we must do so that others may be saved. What we must do is embody the humility of Christ and reveal our own brokenness and need for grace and forgiveness. Only then are we put in a listening posture both for others and for the voice of the Holy Spirit. If the church in this age truly engages in the work of evangelism we may find and discover that we are to be changed as much as the religious of the first century were changed by the engagement with the gentiles.

2 Samuel 7:1-6


"It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this passage for both Jews and Christians."
Commentary, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a (Pentecost +8), Ralph W. Klein, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"Israel's hope does not rest in a dynasty but there is hope that from the house of David will come forth trustworthy leadership, attentive to the voices of those in need, and in faithful service to God's goals for Israel and the world."
Commentary, 2 Samuel 7:1-11 (Advent 4), Elna K. Solvang, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"...the Lord maintains divine freedom to the point which allows him to lead his people and all creation to new life. This is what we anticipate in the annunciation of the birth of Jesus."
The Old Testament Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16. Weekly Comments on the Revised Common Lectionary, Theological Hall of the Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia.


Oremus NRSV Text

Remember last week's spoiler alert? 2 Samuel 7 is an important chapter for Christological reasons. God is soon to make a covenant with David. Chapter 7 will connect all that has come before with all that is about to come after. God's next covenant is with David and commits to bringing about a kingdom and offspring. shortsightedness allows us to see this is about David and Solomon before the fall of the kingdom. But as Paul will make clear the great Dravidic rule will be unraveled and given away to Jew and gentile alike through the grace and power of God in Christ Jesus. Romans 1.3ff:

the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ...

This is not an other worldly expectation. Read through the lens of the gospel authors we see clearly that the first Christians believed that this was their inheritance. They were the ones to received the Davidic promise. "The Son of David" or the lineage found in the gospels was not some mere happenstance but a revelation of the fulfillment of this very promise from 2 Samuel.

God in Christ Jesus was before time and with the Israelites. It was his Word that the patriarchs and matriarchs heard speak from burning bushes and in the whisper of a Temple's night. God was with the ancient faith ancestors of David, with David, and now is with all people through the unique birth of the incarnation into the world. Hidden power of God in the man from Galilee, we see that he has come to free them from the evil powers of religious and political oppression. The first followers are the offspring of David, God in Christ will unleash God's love and not take it from them. It is Christ's Davidic thrown that in the end will rule for every.

Jeremiah 23:1-16

While later interpreters will see in this Jeremianic passage a prediction of Jesus Christ as the “righteous branch,” we as readers must also remember that long before the biblical texts of the prophets became religious documents for the early Christians, they were first political documents that reflected the historical realities and concerns of their authors. For the author of our passage in Jeremiah 21:1-6, the kings had failed the people. Nevertheless, there was still hope for a future, legitimate monarch who would restore righteousness and, as shepherds were meant to do, protect the people from threats both external and internal.
Commentary, Jeremiah 23:1-6, Kelly J Murphy, Christ the King, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2016.

"Judah's experience with bad shepherding - as well as our own - can foster cynicism about leaders. God confronts despair, announcing that there will be a ruler rightly called "the LORD is our righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6)."
Commentary, Jeremiah 23:1-6, Elna K. Solvang, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

"Just as sheep need a shepherd to guide and protect them, the people of Israel need responsible leaders to provide for them. Wise leadership matters."
Commentary, Jeremiah 23:1-6, Tyler Mayfield, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

Oremus Online NRSV Old Testament Text

The reason why this passage is so important is that it helps sets the stage for Jesus' teaching about the shepherd. 

In this passage God and the prophet speak of the religious leaders and especially the reigning monarchs of the religious state as shepherds. In line with the last four prophesies of Jeremiah about the leaders, this passage continues the theme that the shepherds destroy and scatter God's sheep. God is clear the leaders of the religious state are the ones who have driven away the people by not taking care of them. They have abdicated their responsibility of watching, caring, and feeding the sheep of God's fold.

In this same way, within Jeremiah's prophetic tradition, Jesus speaks of the religious leaders of his day with the same disgust. Like the kings and leaders of Jeremiah's day the people have been led away, sent away hungry, they are lost as if they have no shepherd.

Jeremiah then prophesies saying that God will gather the "remnant of my flock". God will bring them from all the lands where they have wandered. God will bring them back into the fold and they will not "fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing." 

Furthermore, the way that God will do this is by raising up from David's own lineage a faithful, caring, and feeding kind of shepherd. It will be a "righteous branch." And, this shepherd will rule wisely, deal justly and bring faith back to the land from which it has departed. God will gather God's people in and save them by the hand of this good shepherd.

We are here meant to hear clearly the prophesy of the particular revelation of the incarnation - Jesus. This is how the first followers of Jesus heard this passage. They said, "Aha! This is Jesus that Jeremiah and God are speaking about. So it is that then the images of the good shepherd become deeply associated with Jesus are intentionally juxtaposed with the notion of the evil or not-so-good shepherds who lead the religious state in that age or any age.