Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | July 21, 2024

Mark 6:30-34 & 53-56

The story of Jesus in Mark reads like a travelogue.  He is on the move; he is going places. And when he comes to what seems like an abrupt halt when he gets nailed to a cross, we may wonder, where does he go from here? Where does anyone go, but to their grave? The story ends in mystery, yet with a theme of hope. He has gone ahead of you. Go, and you will find him.

When I travel, I appreciate the well-planned trip. The journeys of our lives are not so easily charted. We follow unknown paths that reveal their meaning further along. We run into dead-ends and must turn around and go back the way we came. We learn things along the way that influence how we travel. At times in the story, the big plot devices don’t always seem as big as they really are. Only later do we realize how altering the course one inch has such a great influence on the destination a thousand miles further along.

I remember one such course alteration from when I was living in Clarion, Iowa –

One day I called a colleague Steve and suggested we meet up for a cup of coffee and some conversation. He had moved to town around the same time as me. He served one of the other churches in Clarion. We were about the same age and at the same stage in our professional lives – just starting out. We were both involved in the life of the town. Steve was in the Rotary Club and I was on the Fire Department.

I’ve always thought it important to have friends. There were times when he and I would talk about church and ministry and bat ideas around, as friends do.  I remember the conversation – it went like this:

Me: Hey Steve, how about we get a cup of coffee?

Steve: I can’t today – I’ve got oodles of work to do.

Me: Okay.

Steve: Why don’t I give you a call sometime?

Me: Sure, talk to you later.

No problem, everyone has a busy day from time to time. Something about the way Steve said, “oodles” made me wonder; in terms of quantity, what is an oodle? I knew it was just an expression. Basically, it means, “A whole bunch.”

Okay, let him call. I would wait until Steve didn’t have so many oodles to deal with and see how long it took for him to call me. That was 38 years ago. Probably he is not going to call. His oodles of work that day was another way of saying, “Leave me alone – I don’t want to be friends with you.”

Was that a hard lesson to learn? Not really, because it was gradual. It wasn’t like being publicly snubbed or rudely cut-off. It was a gradual ebbing away of something that in reality existed more in my mind that his. It’s difficult to have a one-sided friendship. Especially with a busy minister.

Some of us ministers of religion like to be busy, or thought of as such, because it validates our calling. We can pull out the list of all the important things we do as proof of our worth. The story in Mark opens on a busy scene –

The hand-picked followers of Jesus had been sent out on a mission trip. They went into the towns and villages to tell people about Jesus. Their message was basically that he is the one who shows us the way to God. They talked of the things Jesus did and said. If they went to a place where the people were open to the message, then Jesus would come there and teach and maybe perform some healing miracles.

The time came to end the mission trip. Jesus called his followers back together so they could talk about their experiences on the road. The problem was that people didn’t want the good times to end. Crowds of people followed the disciples back to where Jesus was. There was so much activity that they didn’t have time to sit down for a meal.

It was getting to be a bit much. Jesus was trying to get some quiet time and people kept interrupting; Jesus tried to be by himself and people kept showing up. Jesus tried to sit down for a meal and people kept coming up to his table.

He wanted to hear from his friends their stories from the road. They had been out in the villages talking to people about the work of Jesus. It was time to regroup and spend some time in reflection. You can’t just go, go, go all the time. The well must be refilled.

I find it interesting how some words and phrases in this story stand out. Jesus said to his friends, “Come away.” I wonder how that would feel to hear him say, “Come away.” Is what we are doing so important that we could not lay down the task and “come away?”

And usually, the phrase that comes to mind is “go away.” But Jesus is not telling us to “get lost,” or to leave him alone. There are times in our life when he invites us to follow him into “the desert.” In the story he calls his friends to “come away to a deserted place.” And perhaps most importantly, he told them, “Rest awhile.”

Rest while? But Jesus, I’ve got oodles of work to do. William C. Martin who wrote The Art of Pastoring said,

“If you want to be a wise and true minister of the Word, work a modest number of hours each week, then go home. For every voice that says, ‘Go home,’ there will be a hundred saying, ‘There is more yet to do.’ Listen carefully.”

Listen carefully. Sometimes the message we need to hear is, “Time to get busy.” Sometimes the message we need to hear is, “Take a rest.”

We don’t naturally choose the deserted place. When people tell me that they’ve “been to America,” nine times out of ten they mean Florida. In Florida there is so much to see and so much to do. No one ever says, “I went to the bad lands of North Dakota.”

We will sometimes choose a place of peace and quiet. In this country there are many places where we can find a sense of serenity through the beauty of nature.

But how often do we ever say, “I am going to a deserted place?” A deserted place suggests images of somewhere that was once alive and full of vitality, but now the weeds are growing up through the sidewalks. A deserted place is where we once had life and vitality, but no more.

What purpose might God have in calling us to such a place? It is likely about being in a place free of distractions; being free of whatever it is that prevents us from forming a cohesive thought or carrying on a free-flowing conversation. Sometimes the empty mind is a good starting point for a conversation with God.

We might expect that when Jesus bid his friends to come with him to a deserted place and have a rest that they went off and enjoyed a time of quiet reflection and renewal. But it was not to be. The people followed them to their deserted place and it was deserted no more. It was filled with people. Jesus saw them all and they reminded him of a vast herd of sheep with no shepherd to lead them. So he began to teach them. Their retreat would have to wait for another day.

For Jesus, God was not confined to a particular location. God did not live in the Temple. And that would mean that the common religion could find its strength and cohesiveness in the common life of the people. God was in the homes, the markets, the workplaces and wherever there was found the two or more gathered in his name.

We had gone to a neighborhood park in Minneapolis to watch two of our grandsons play “t-ball.” T-ball is the very first step in learning how to play baseball. They call it t-ball because instead of pitching the ball to the hitter, the ball is put on a stand where the hitter can swing the bat at a stationary target.

Lindsay and I were sitting on a park bench when we were approached by a group of four teenagers. They introduced themselves and said they were on a mission trip in Minneapolis. Doing a kind of Habitat for Humanity sort of thing. Their group had fixed a big meal – a barbeque of hot dogs and hamburgers and they were inviting everyone in the park to come over and eat.

The first words out of my mouth were, “For free?”

“For free.” they said. “No strings attached, just come and eat.”

So we wandered over to the part of the park where this large group of teenagers were milling around, along with other members of the public who came along to eat, for free. Spread out on some picnic tables was a feast. Hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, chips, all kinds of food. There were big containers of ice-cold water and lemonade.

There was also a big group of hungry teenagers. Lindsay and I got in the end of the line. But then something strange happened. Something that when you travel through airports where you have to shove and budge just to stay in sync with the throngs of other travelers, something totally unexpected – someone up front said, “Hey, we have more guests – you guys come up to the front of the line.”

We made our way up to the front as the hordes of hungry teenagers stood aside to let us in. The people serving the food said, “Visitors go first.” As we helped ourselves to the bounty, I said to the people who stood and aside and to those serving the food, “Visitors go first!? What kind of a strange Christian ethic is this?”

The realm of God that Jesus talked so much about was a heart and soul reality. It was and is – A heart and soul reality as simple as an open hand of hospitality. Amen.