Mark 6:30-34
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that 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. 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 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.
——
One of the more embarrassing things that was unearthed in the process of cleaning out my childhood home was a short story that I wrote—and illustrated—called “Betsy’s Fall Adventure,” which, among other things, involved a girl, her grandmother’s farm, and horse named Snowflake. The “great adventure” (spoiler alert!) involved Betsy and Snowflake getting lost in the woods, and then finding their way home again.
Have you ever been lost?
I have. Notable stories include driving a fifteen-passenger van full of high school students around in circles in Kentucky farmland, walking miles out of my way in New Orleans because bad directions led us directly to the back side of a zoo that we had to walk allll the way around, and, on my first-ever solo trip to Decorah, circling town trying to find my way back to 9, because my then-phone carrier didn’t get service here and I had no GPS to rely on.
Some of our high school students here can talk about getting lost backpacking in Montana, and there are enough hiking and mountain biking trails crisscrossing each other around town that I’m sure many an outdoors enthusiast has had to double back to get back on track.
Have you ever been lost?
Maybe that question, for you, is less about map-reading skills, and more about your inner life. The way that grief over the death of loved ones has made you feel like you are floating, rudderless, in the middle of the sea. The way that battling depression or anxiety has often left you felt directionless. The way that illness has cut you off from all the future paths and plans you’d made for yourself. The experience of being in vocational crisis. The disorienting business of growing up and growing older. The unmooring that comes with owning up to your past. The panic of finding yourself lost in a forest of doubts and unbelief.
The Bible uses the image of sheep without a shepherd to convey a sense of “lostness” and vulnerability. Sometimes God’s chosen people are lost and vulnerable because they are numbered among the oppressed. Sometimes they are lost and vulnerable because their leaders have abused them or led them in wayward directions.
God, through the prophet Jeremiah, speaks harsh words against those in positions of power and leadership who have abused their power and neglected their responsibility. “Woe to you who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,” God says.
Like so many other places in the Biblical narrative, God’s warnings and admonitions pay special attention to the needs of the vulnerable—not merely the community in exile, but especially those within it who are grieving, suffering, exploited, and lacking in basic needs.
By contrast, the Psalmist sings of God as shepherd, the one who ensures that we are not wanting for anything, the one who leads us in paths of righteousness, who provides for us green and fertile pastures, who walks us beside still waters, who guides us even through the darkest valleys.
This image of God as good shepherd continues forward in the person of Jesus. In John’s gospel, Jesus goes so far as saying, plainly, “I am the good shepherd,” who not only knows his sheep, but who gathers his sheep from all the places where they have been scattered, from folds beyond our knowing.
And in today’s gospel reading from Mark, Jesus is the one who looks with compassion on the crowds that have followed him to the other side of the sea, because they are like sheep without a shepherd. They are vulnerable, lost, looking for help and hope and direction.
The Greek word for compassion is actually a word that means to be moved deep within one’s body, moved from the gut, from what was believed to be the bodily seat of love and pity.
And if we look at the Latin roots for the word compassion, it means to co-suffer, or to suffer together.
Similar to empathy, which we talked about last week, compassion has to do with entering into the needs of others and to be moved by the experience.
——
One of the more embarrassing things that was unearthed in the process of cleaning out my childhood home was a short story that I wrote—and illustrated—called “Betsy’s Fall Adventure,” which, among other things, involved a girl, her grandmother’s farm, and horse named Snowflake. The “great adventure” (spoiler alert!) involved Betsy and Snowflake getting lost in the woods, and then finding their way home again.
Have you ever been lost?
I have. Notable stories include driving a fifteen-passenger van full of high school students around in circles in Kentucky farmland, walking miles out of my way in New Orleans because bad directions led us directly to the back side of a zoo that we had to walk allll the way around, and, on my first-ever solo trip to Decorah, circling town trying to find my way back to 9, because my then-phone carrier didn’t get service here and I had no GPS to rely on.
Some of our high school students here can talk about getting lost backpacking in Montana, and there are enough hiking and mountain biking trails crisscrossing each other around town that I’m sure many an outdoors enthusiast has had to double back to get back on track.
Have you ever been lost?
Maybe that question, for you, is less about map-reading skills, and more about your inner life. The way that grief over the death of loved ones has made you feel like you are floating, rudderless, in the middle of the sea. The way that battling depression or anxiety has often left you felt directionless. The way that illness has cut you off from all the future paths and plans you’d made for yourself. The experience of being in vocational crisis. The disorienting business of growing up and growing older. The unmooring that comes with owning up to your past. The panic of finding yourself lost in a forest of doubts and unbelief.
The Bible uses the image of sheep without a shepherd to convey a sense of “lostness” and vulnerability. Sometimes God’s chosen people are lost and vulnerable because they are numbered among the oppressed. Sometimes they are lost and vulnerable because their leaders have abused them or led them in wayward directions.
God, through the prophet Jeremiah, speaks harsh words against those in positions of power and leadership who have abused their power and neglected their responsibility. “Woe to you who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,” God says.
Like so many other places in the Biblical narrative, God’s warnings and admonitions pay special attention to the needs of the vulnerable—not merely the community in exile, but especially those within it who are grieving, suffering, exploited, and lacking in basic needs.
By contrast, the Psalmist sings of God as shepherd, the one who ensures that we are not wanting for anything, the one who leads us in paths of righteousness, who provides for us green and fertile pastures, who walks us beside still waters, who guides us even through the darkest valleys.
This image of God as good shepherd continues forward in the person of Jesus. In John’s gospel, Jesus goes so far as saying, plainly, “I am the good shepherd,” who not only knows his sheep, but who gathers his sheep from all the places where they have been scattered, from folds beyond our knowing.
And in today’s gospel reading from Mark, Jesus is the one who looks with compassion on the crowds that have followed him to the other side of the sea, because they are like sheep without a shepherd. They are vulnerable, lost, looking for help and hope and direction.
The Greek word for compassion is actually a word that means to be moved deep within one’s body, moved from the gut, from what was believed to be the bodily seat of love and pity.
And if we look at the Latin roots for the word compassion, it means to co-suffer, or to suffer together.
Similar to empathy, which we talked about last week, compassion has to do with entering into the needs of others and to be moved by the experience.
Which means that when Jesus looks at the crowds, he sees and enters into their losses and their lostness. His heart goes with them where they have wandered, where they are confused, where they are hurting, doubting, struggling, vulnerable, disoriented.
Mark is writing his gospel for a community suffering persecution and war, in the years leading up to the destruction of the temple at the hands of Rome. People who were profoundly disoriented and afraid, lost and vulnerable.
Imagine, for these original hearers of the gospel, the comfort of hearing Jesus described as the one who has compassion for those who feel like sheep without a shepherd, whose leaders have failed them, whose institutions are in peril.
When we feel lost, vulnerable, and afraid, we, too, receive this same good word: that Jesus has compassion on us. When our loved ones or leaders have failed us, when we have disappointed ourselves, when it feels like everything is in disarray, when we do not know which direction to go, Jesus seeks us out; our good shepherd who goes in search of each lost sheep, that he might bring us home.
Jesus leads with compassion. He sees us in love and in grace, meeting us in our struggles, moved to the core by our plight, offering us companionship and healing and nourishment and respite.
So also may each of us lead with compassion in our lives, as well, knowing that we all are both lost and found, vulnerable and strong, broken and redeemed.
Whether we are tending to our closest companions, doing the work of advocacy and liberation, or having a fleeting encounter with the barista who makes our morning coffee, in all these moments, may compassion be our guide. May deep love for one another and for this world motivate us in all we do.
May we go into the lost places so that others, too, know that they are not alone. May we enter into each others’ struggles and find a way through the wilderness together. May we remind one another that we will not always be lost.
For Jesus, our shepherd, says tenderly to each of us: “You once were lost, but now are found. My grace will lead you home.”
Mark is writing his gospel for a community suffering persecution and war, in the years leading up to the destruction of the temple at the hands of Rome. People who were profoundly disoriented and afraid, lost and vulnerable.
Imagine, for these original hearers of the gospel, the comfort of hearing Jesus described as the one who has compassion for those who feel like sheep without a shepherd, whose leaders have failed them, whose institutions are in peril.
When we feel lost, vulnerable, and afraid, we, too, receive this same good word: that Jesus has compassion on us. When our loved ones or leaders have failed us, when we have disappointed ourselves, when it feels like everything is in disarray, when we do not know which direction to go, Jesus seeks us out; our good shepherd who goes in search of each lost sheep, that he might bring us home.
Jesus leads with compassion. He sees us in love and in grace, meeting us in our struggles, moved to the core by our plight, offering us companionship and healing and nourishment and respite.
So also may each of us lead with compassion in our lives, as well, knowing that we all are both lost and found, vulnerable and strong, broken and redeemed.
Whether we are tending to our closest companions, doing the work of advocacy and liberation, or having a fleeting encounter with the barista who makes our morning coffee, in all these moments, may compassion be our guide. May deep love for one another and for this world motivate us in all we do.
May we go into the lost places so that others, too, know that they are not alone. May we enter into each others’ struggles and find a way through the wilderness together. May we remind one another that we will not always be lost.
For Jesus, our shepherd, says tenderly to each of us: “You once were lost, but now are found. My grace will lead you home.”