7/18/21 “The Living Fringe” by Nancy E. Petty
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Oh Great, Now We Have To Worry About A Potentially Devastating ‘Moon Wobble” This was a headline this past week on CNN. The story warned that a moon “wobble” in orbit may lead to record flooding on Earth. This headline along others detailing the chaos in Haiti over the assassination of the Haitian president; the political and religious violence in the streets of the Republic of Georgia over LBGTQ rights and the death of a journalist there reporting on the violence; the suffering and unrest in Cuba; the Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire in the United States this year that has scorched more than 240,000 acres in 10 days; the devastating flood in Germany; the rise of COVID cases in all 50 states; DACA being ruled illegal by a Texas judge; lawmakers and activists being arrested for protecting voting rights in this country; Texas lawmakers fleeing their state for the protection of voting rights—it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by all the suffering and violence and injustice and need in our world right now. Lay these headlines alongside our own personal ones and it’s hard not to be overcome by the brokenness of humanity.
“The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all 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.”
Like those disciples, we too, have our list of all we have done and taught and are doing. Many of the disciples at Pullen have given hours of their day fighting climate change—advocating for solar panels, outfitting our church with recycling systems, writing lawmakers advocating for sustainable energy sources, planning educational programs about climate change to get the message out, anything that might reverse the harm we have done and are doing to our planet. Other disciples are organizing and protesting, standing up and speaking out for voting rights, LGBTQIA rights, federal laws that would mandate a living wage for all workers, well-funded education for all children, healthcare for all, in short basic human rights for all people. Other disciples give of their time to feed the hungry, advocate for affordable housing, and set up programs for college students who are trying to secure an education for their future but are couch surfing and sleeping in cars because of housing insecurity. And still other disciples are busy fighting racism and all forms of xenophobia. The list is long and tiring and sometimes overwhelming.
When Jesus says to the disciples, “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” we breathe a sigh of relief. And just as Jesus offers the invitation to get away and rest for a minute, more needs arise.
“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, Jesus, 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.”
As the scene unfolds, beyond the lectionary’s selected verse 34, the weary disciples encouraged Jesus to send the people away. Their reasoning: these folks must be hungry, they need to eat. Tell them to get some dinner so we can rest. But Jesus said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat.” And thus, if we were to read all of chapter 6 of Mark we would encounter the story of five loaves and two fish feeding the crowd.
If we stopped here with this story, we could have a spirited debate, as we did in worship planning this week, about what kind of role model Jesus is when it comes to resting and having compassion for oneself. He invites the disciples to rest, but in a change of heart, when he sees the needs of the people about him, it appears he rescinds the invitation and asks them to keep on caring for the people. His compassion, it would seem, outweighed his need and his disciples’ need for rest. But I don’t think that is what this story is about—a debate over resting vs not resting; taking time for oneself vs giving everything you have for others to the point of exhaustion. Surely, Jesus want us to rest and care for ourselves.
As I see it, at the heart of this pericope, a part of a story within a larger story, is the relationship between compassion and need, for it seems to me the two are connected. I want to ask you a question. What do you need? What do you need to feel safe, whole and fulfilled – to feel like you are making a difference in the world, to feel like you belong, that you have a place and purpose in this world? What needs do you bring with you? It seems like a simple question but in reality it can be a complicated question to answer. And yet, it may be one of the most important questions we ask ourselves.
Why? Because when we take the time and make the effort to figure out what we need, what we really need, something shifts for us. When we know and take responsibility for our own needs, a door of compassion opens that allows us to take in the needs of others, and to be authentically available to those unique needs. Our compassion for others is directly proportionate to our ability to see and meet our own needs.
Now the danger in this teaching, and the trap we humans usually fall into, is that unless we examine and know our own needs, we project them out onto the world and onto others. And that, my friends, is not compassion, for it is not even about the other, it is just a misguided attempt to get what we need that results in unintentional manipulation and deceit. The trouble is, this is tricky business! We often don’t realize that we are projecting, particularly when we learned these patterns at young ages from our families of origin, as most of us did. One clue, though, is when I think that another’s needs are the same as mine. I’ve learned that this is a tip-off to projection. So when I realize that I’m thinking someone else needs what I need, I try to get clear about my own needs, and make sure that need is being met. And this, then, “opens the door of my heart” to see the needs of another, whatever those unique needs might be. That is the relationship, the connection, between compassion and need.
Let me give you an example. Some years ago, when I recognized my own need to speak up for my rights as a same-gender loving person, my heart was opened to the needs and rights of others who are discriminated against for the color of their skin, and to my fellow human beings who are being exploited in our capitalist society by minimum wages that keep poor people poor, and to my Muslim friends who are demonized because of their religion, and to my neighbors who don’t have access to health care because of an exclusive marketplace that is based on profit over providing health care. At rallies, I have rarely spoken about LGBTQ rights. Not because they not important to me. They are deeply important to me. But recognizing my own needs opened my heart to have compassion for the needs of others to speak out on their behalf.
Don’t you imagine that Jesus was just as tired as his disciples? Don’t you imagine that he, too, needed time away to rest? Don’t you imagine that he wanted to get in that boat and float away and be alone for a while? But he saw the people. He saw their needs. And he knew that his own need for rest would and could be met later. And so, with an open heart, he had compassion for them. And out of that place of compassion, and an open heart, he pressed on; and he invited his disciples to press on too.
This week I was texting with Malkhaz about the crisis in The Republic of Georgia. I asked him how he was doing in the midst of the violence and upheaval in his country. He wrote this back: “I am somewhat tired and broken but not beyond repair. I am determined to fight darkness back…there are all sorts of reasons why we should be disheartened, but we are neither the first nor the last to experience set back. We may lose many battles but we shall win the war for fairer world.” I am somewhat tired and broken but not beyond repair. This, my people, is a statement of compassion: compassion for self and others. To feel tired and broken is human. And compassion is also about trusting that all that is overwhelming us in this world is not beyond repair. It is this kind of compassion that gives us the strength to keep on seeing the needs of our fellow human beings and to show up, even in our tiredness and brokenness, to meet those needs.
Our lectionary text ends with the last 4 verses of chapter 6 and that is where I want to end. Listen to those closing verses again.
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.
And they begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak. Compassion to me is being the living fringe. We are not Jesus but we are the living fringe that still carries the power to heal. We are the living fringe that can offer healing when we hear that 10% of college students in this area experience housing insecurity. We are the living fringe that can offer healing to our racist nation. We are the living fringe that can offer healing to those who are marginalized and oppressed by systems that privilege some and exclude others. We are the living fringe that can offer healing by accompanying those who are struggling with loneliness and depression and fear and anxiety and addiction. We are the living fringe that can offer healing through the sacred act of friendship and radical acceptance and welcome.
Again and again, Jesus sent his disciples out with the power to heal and show compassion to those hurting. Feed the people. Heal the sick. House the homeless. Welcome the stranger. Visit the sick and those imprisoned. We get tired. We feel broken. We sometimes feel disheartened and overwhelmed. Those are the moments when we need to reach out and touch the fringe of another. And, we are to be the living fringe to those who reach out to us. Jesus has imparted this power to us. What will we do with that power? Will we simply remain overwhelmed or will we be the living fringe extending compassion and healing?
