PROPER 11, YEAR B

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Psalm 23

Ephesians 2:11-22

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

 

“And [Jesus] had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd ...”  I find that one of the most poignant sentences in the Gospels. We can break it into two parts, which are worth a bit of exploration in depth: taking the second part first, “they were like sheep without a shepherd,” and then the first part, “he had compassion on them.”

 

The phrase “sheep without a shepherd” has deep scriptural resonances. In the Book of Numbers, as the aged Moses contemplates his approaching death, he asks God “to appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in; that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep which have no shepherd.” In response, God appoints Joshua to be Moses’ successor.

Centuries later, the prophet Micaiah foretells the death of King Ahab in battle with the words: “I saw all Israel scattered upon the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd …” In the Old Testament, then, the phrase “sheep without a shepherd” describes a leadership vacuum leaving the people vulnerable and helpless: a totally undesirable situation.

 

At this point in Saint Mark’s narrative, this is precisely the situation facing God’s people. As we heard in last week’s Gospel, John the Baptist, a prophet raised up by God, has just been beheaded by King Herod, who’s himself the very opposite of the kind of shepherd that the kings of Israel were intended to be. He resembles more the false shepherds whom Jeremiah denounces in today’s Old Testament reading: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”

 

In this context, when Jesus comes ashore and sees a great crowd, who seem to him like sheep without a shepherd, he has compassion on them. The dictionary definition of compassion is “sympathetic concern or distress for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.” The English word comes from the Latin passio, suffering, with the prefix co or com, “with,” and so means “suffering together” or “suffering with.” Compassion in this sense means imagining what it’s like to stand in the shoes of those who are in sore need or distress, so that we experience an overwhelming desire to help them.

 

Even so, the English translation fails to capture the force of the Greek verb used here.” More literally, it says—Wait for this—that he was “moved in his bowels.” This phrase comes from the ancient idea of the heart and bowels together as the seat of the seat of the deepest human emotions. This verb thus describes a physical, visceral, gut-wrenching reaction. A more idiomatic if slightly sanitized translation into contemporary English might be “his heart went out to them,” or “they broke his heart.”

 

Jesus uses this same verb in three of his parables. In the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, a king discovers that one of his servants owes him the astronomical sum of ten thousand talents. When the servant cannot pay, the king orders him sold into slavery along with his wife and children. When the servant falls on his knees and begs for patience, the king “out of compassion” forgives him the whole debt.

 

The second parable is the Prodigal Son, who takes his share of his father’s inheritance, and goes off to a far country where he wastes everything. After hitting rock bottom, he decides to return to his father’s house and offer his services as a hired hand since he considers himself no longer worthy to be called a son. But when the old man sees him far off, he’s filled with compassion, runs to embrace him, and orders up a great feast to celebrate the Prodigal’s return.

 

The third parable is the Good Samaritan. On the lonely winding road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, a traveler is attacked by robbers who beat him, strip him, take all his possessions and leave him by the roadside to die. A priest and a Levite, respected religious leaders, deliberately pass by on the other side of the road to avoid him. But then a Samaritan, a hated enemy of the Jewish people, comes along and has compassion on him, binding up his wounds, setting him on his beast, and bringing him to an inn where he can recover.

 

In each of those three parables, Jesus uses this same word for compassion: that gut-wrenching, visceral movement of empathy, pity, and care.  And in all three parables, the one who has compassion—the king, the father, and the Samaritan—stands as a figure of God, or Christ. For compassion and mercy are among God’s chief attributes.

 

Indeed, one of the heresies condemned by the early Church is the mistaken idea—an idea that we still often hear expressed today—that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and vengeance, while the God of the New Testament is a God of love and forgiveness. But, of the 43 times the Hebrew word for compassion appears in the Old Testament, in 29 instances it’s used as an attribute of God. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are one and the same: a God of mercy, love, and compassion.

 

And nowhere does the divine compassion shine forth more brightly than in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And so, today’s Gospel concludes: “Wherever [Jesus] 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.”

 

As Christians, we’re called to follow Christ’s example. Compassionate care for the poor and needy, the sick and the dying, the homeless and prisoners, migrants and refugees, is one of the classical Christian virtues. But before we can effectively show compassion to those less fortunate than ourselves, we need to take on board how much God has compassion on us. That is, before we can assume the role of the forgiving king, the welcoming father, or the Good Samaritan, we need to recognize in ourselves the indebted servant, the prodigal son, the wounded man lying by the roadside.

 

The good news is that whenever we’re most tempted to feel abandoned, lost, and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd, Jesus sees us, and has compassion. As God promises his people in today’s reading from Jeremiah, “I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.” And in that reassurance of God’s compassion for us, we find the strength and courage to reach out and share that same compassion with our neighbors.