Mark 6:30-56
Proper 11 (16)- Year B
For some, a mixed metaphor is quite an affront. To others, it is as lively as a pun and quite necessary to life.
Compassion is the bridge between us, a cornerstone that can be built on.
Retreat time, sabbath time, is part of a well-balanced life to reorient energies and inhale instead of continuing to exhale.
There are seemingly two different ways to go about this. One is to come away. One is to learn to breathe in the midst of demands. Most of us do better at one than the other. I'm a "come away" person. How does this work for you.
I was looking for a place for this month's retreat and just learned that the place I wanted to go to wasn't available for the date I needed. If you have a favorite retreat space in southeastern Wisconsin, I would like to hear about it. You can address me at wwhite@wisconsinumc.org. Thanks.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/july2003.html
Reports of great success with the new program of going two-by-two energized folks to the point of constant coming and going - trying this, experimenting with that. How can they repeat their success? How can they make it more efficient?
Finally Jesus says, "Break time. We're getting too caught up in technique."
So, off they go. At the sight of a great crowd Jesus moves beyond technique. He operates from a basis of compassion, pity, heart-break, and sorrow. How different is this from the initial charge to go preach and heal?
One of the questions of the day is about seeing a great crowd. So many folks are invisible these days. They have no political clout. They don't show up at church. How does compassion get mobilized when we can't see the reality of being together in suffering. We deny our own suffering. We deny the suffering of others. Invisibility is a great enemy of compassion and a great friend of the principalities and powers.
Open your eyes and ears to open your heart and your mind and your doors.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/july2003.html
"Come away beloved/disciples," has a different feel when said by Solomon than by Jesus.
Jesus was an active prophet, not a poetic one. Particularly in Mark do we have an agenda-driven presentation speeding on.
When Jesus invites us to a deserted place it is only deserted inasmuch as he is not currently there, not that it is a desolation. A part of his teaching is to be active where you are in such a manner that such activity can be sustained for we are always dealing with desert-ion.
Sometimes we enter desolate territory only to find it wasn't, isn't, wont be. Sometimes we find such desolation visiting our routine life. Whether visiting or being visited, opportunity for "making whole" is available.
Our choice is to view desolate places as our life's joy or an impingement upon our possibilities.
- - -
a deserted place
is never so
when it is sought
desolation has a life
and rhythm of its own
not to be presumed upon
transforming strange aliens
into intimate family friends
hostility to peace
out of such journey
comes healing aplenty
for every unbidden dark valley
a desired desolate place
teems with expectation
and vast need
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
After the Herod/Herodias/”Salome”/John interlude we are back at the ranch with Jesus and the apostles. They had been off teaching and healing and were reporting their success after Jesus had been stymied in Nazareth.
For folks unused to their tasks and running on adrenaline, Jesus noticed they were about to crash and took them on a mini-retreat. Except, as typical in Mark’s breathless recounting, there is no respite.
Consider that compassion may be an adrenaline antidote. It smooths out responses and refocuses attention toward a larger picture.
In this pericope we miss more adrenaline producing events of being challenged to impossibly feed 5,000 males (not mentioning females nor intersex persons) and challenging headwinds and a ghostly apparition.
The most important part of this is a missing line (verses 51-52) — the apostles were so astounded they couldn’t put two and two together.
As a result, the apostle’s foray into teaching and healing is brought to an end. The focus is back on Jesus who has consolidated his teaching and healing again after Nazareth. This could be seen as a disrespecting of the apostles. They can’t feed folks and their puny teaching and healing pale before Jesus’ work with so many. Who could hope to live up to this, much less exceed it (presuming the author of the Gospel of John - got it right).
This has a feel to it that Jesus is always the answer, no matter what the question. Blessings on you as you claim what you have taught and renewed, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, as yours and valued.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/07/mark-630-34-53-56.html