The Rev. Charleston Wilson
In the Name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In our gospel appointed for today, the apostles, those first curious souls to follow Jesus, gather around Him to share the good news of “all they had done in His name.” And can you imagine what it must have been like to hear that group of rag-tag, rough and tough, former fishermen coming together to describe their new lives and the miraculous work they’d been doing?
Healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God, St. Mark indicates they’d been incredibly busy. While they were catching up, if you will, more and more people kept coming out to meet them, and to see Jesus, pressing in on them like we might do to some Hollywood star or famous personality who, say, walked out of Morton’s down on Osprey during the high season or similar to what you see when someone famous tries to get in a car while fighting off the paparazzi. St. Mark indicates, moreover, that they had been so busy that they didn’t even have time to eat.
So our Lord invites them to withdraw from all the hubbub for some much-needed prayer and reflection. But, even after crossing over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, people on that side began to press in on them, bringing their sick on mats and looking for direction and guidance and, ultimately, peace.
Despite being ready to rest, ready to catch up and ready even just to grab a bite to eat, St Mark tells us that the Good Shepherd was “moved with compassion.”
The Evangelists, the writers of the gospels, use this phrase to describe Jesus on several important occasions. It happens in the 20th chapter of St. Mathew’s Gospel, when the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, begs for mercy when Jesus passes by; it happens again in the first chapter of St. Mark’s gospel, when our Lord sees the pain of the leper who asks Him to heal him; it occurs in the fifth chapter of St. Mark’s gospel, when Jesus meets a man so possessed by a demon that he can’t even asked to be healed; and it happens again in the seventh chapter of St. Luke’s gospel, when he encounters the widow of Nain, who, after a lifetime of disappointment, was burying her only son.
To be “moved with compassion,” moreover, was so much a part of our Lord’s earthly ministry – so much a part of who He is as the Good Shepherd of our souls – that the Evangelists had to actually coin the phrase. The phrase, as the Evangelists employ it, doesn’t even exist in classical Greek literature. Thus, when we encounter this notion of being “moved with compassion,” we’re talking about the deepest emotional response imaginable, something of incredible internal agitation – even a stirring and stinging sensation in the bowels.
To be “moved with compassion,” means, therefore, that it literally made Jesus physically sick to behold His sheep in torment and suffering. Now, we’re not talking about pity or “O bless your heart” kind of stuff here; we’re talking about a compassion that is more like a compulsion that plainly makes Him ill and moves Him to action.
They were like sheep without a shepherd, says St. Mark, so He was “moved with compassion” to seek them out, to bless them and to guide them.
Now, changing gears for a moment, even though I grew up in the rural South, I don’t know much personally at all about sheep. I know I like lamb chops with mint sauce from Fortnum and Mason on Easter Day, and, when I lived up north, I liked cashmere sweaters when they went on sale. I guess I also know that sheep spend most of their time and energy eating, which totally gives me this weird sort of uneasy kinship with them. Of course, I know what I would call all the “Sunday School” stuff about sheep: they are helpless against predators, they are afraid of running water because they can slip in and drown, they can somehow do this weird thing where they roll over on their backs and they can’t get up, they get lost easily, they are easily frightened and so on. Beyond that, however, I don’t really know much about sheep.
But the fact is that you don’t have to know a lot about sheep to be one.
As you know, our Lord often likens us to sheep. And even if the Good Shepherd didn’t say a word about us being sheep, our own actions clearly demonstrate our inner “sheepness,” if you will.
Just think about how much time we spend roaming here, there and everywhere – “looking for love in all the wrong places” as the old hit put it – in search of that perfect fix. Chasing after money, or power, or trying to project an image of that perfect little family – or turning to pills, whiskey and women. You name your vice: whatever it is it’s all about trying find something or someone that will truly love us and give us peace.
Lewis is right again: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. We are like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
But the good news of the gospel is not that we are like sheep aimlessly looking for something like a shepherd, but that the perfect Shepherd Himself is looking for us. “Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, but yet in love he sought me; and on his shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me.”
Therefore, no matter the foolish pastures in which we might graze – yesterday, today or tomorrow – the Good Shepherd Himself is on the move – “moved with compassion” – utterly compelled to look for you and for me.
Look, I know that most of us can quote the 23rd Psalm word for word. And I know how it makes us feel are warm and fuzzy inside. But, be careful, knowing the Psalm and knowing the Shepherd are two different things.
Today, therefore, is yet another day that you and I can get to know the Shepherd, the compassionate Christ who lays down His life for you and for me.
“And so through all the length of days, thy goodness faileth never; Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise within thy house forever.”
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
8th Sunday after Pentecost
19 July 2015