A sermon preached by The Reverend Canon Dr. David Anderson at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Oakville, on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Sunday, July 21, 2024.
Mark tells us, “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure, even to eat” (Mark 6:31).
Is this not a succinct description of the lives of many people today? Many are just too busy, even too busy to eat. We see young professionals lunch on vending machine fare while working at their desks. We see teens grabbing a bagel on their way out the door to school. We see parents and children driving through fast-food restaurants between after school lessons and sports practices. Commuters sip their lattes on the GO Train on their way to work, munch on baby carrots between meetings, and grab takeout on the way home.
We are people who are besieged by many activities and responsibilities that reshape so many of the basic activities of life and even our eating. Our busyness prevents us from gathering for family meals and we may even forget that we enjoy stopping to eat together, especially when we find pleasure in so many other activities that keep us so busy.
But here is a question perhaps worth asking. What happens if Christians become too busy to come away and break bread together? Today’s Gospel reading suggests that gathering as a faith community to rest from our labours and partake in a common meal is an important part of our life together. Jesus offers a cautionary word to his disciples and to us in his church today. We need times when we come away from our various activities—even those activities done in the name and for the sake of Jesus—to re-form ourselves as the body of Christ. We need to come back together to share our experience and learn from it. We need to support one another lest we be poured out so often that we struggle to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world. We may be so caught up in our good work of ministry that we forget to spend time with the One who sends and directs our ministry.
At the point where today’s reading begins, Jesus’ disciples—now called ‘apostles’— had just returned from the mission that Jesus had sent them out upon. This morning, they have returned. Presumably they are tired, but have stories to tell.
But it is curious, that Jesus’ attempt to draw his disciples apart is foiled by the crowds of people following him. It makes sense in the flow of the story, since the crowds are intensifying, but for Mark’s purposes and for ours, would this not have been a good opportunity for the Gospel to speak to the importance of Sabbath-keeping? Doesn’t Jesus have a good intention by inviting his disciples to come apart for a quiet time with him? Think how rejuvenating that might have been to have some hours, or perhaps a couple of days to rest and restore, for the apostles to tell Jesus the stories of their experience on mission, for the them to debrief with their Lord. But that is not where the story goes. Instead of the short retreat Jesus planned for them—instead of a leisurely meal, and communal rest—they are faced with even more people who are in need of ministry.
St. Jude’s is a busy church. Even now in these summer days when many churches have slowed down, our outreach programs still run at a pace. Our Summer Barbecue program is running. The Pantry Program continues pretty much as busy as ever. This past Thursday, the Garden Guild were here in force carrying out their blessed ministry of beautification. There is much happening all the time.
As the same time, however, as busy as we are, we also know that we cannot address every need we become aware of in the way that we might wish. Our resources, while plentiful, are not unlimited. We know that many needs will go unattended. Still, Jesus’ response to the crowd suggest that we should seek to address the needs known to us out of compassion for those who seek our guidance and assistance. And so the message of the first part of today’s reading seems ambiguous. Set yourselves apart for divine and physical sustenance, but at the same time, be prepared to set aside your plans so that you can meet the needs of others. The question arises then, how are we so shape our life together in such a way that honours the tension in these teachings?
Something I learned many years ago in ministry is that God seems to especially show up in the ‘interruptions.’ When I am in my study on a Thursday afternoon anxious to finish my sermon so that I might enjoy my Friday ‘day off,’ I feel I am about important business. I’d be tempted to put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door so I can do ‘the Lord’s work.’ But inevitably there is the knock on the door or the person on the other end of the phone call, who has the more pressing need. The fact is that Christ is often to be encountered in the ‘interruption’ of life.
The second half of today’s reading focuses our attention on just how much our world is in need of the ministry of healing. The theme of healing gives me the opportunity to speak briefly this morning about something I have been giving a great deal of thought to lately. One of the challenges in our thinking about Jesus’ healing stories are the ableist assumptions that we tend to bring into our interpretation. One of the ways we read healing stories operates under the presumption that ailments and diseases create defective bodies that we contrast with ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ bodies. These assumptions can also inform our understanding of what it means to be a flourishing and whole human being, and as a result, promote a certain embodied ideal of what it means to be holy, blessed, and whole. This sort of thinking disparagingly associates disability or unhealth with sinfulness.
To be sure, this sort of thinking was around in biblical times as it is today. For example, with the case of the man born blind, a story we encounter in the Gospel according to John, the disciples vocalize the question that is assumed, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents causing him to be blind” (John 9:2, emphasis added). Jesus, however, challenges their assumption, the idea that there has to be someone to blame, and that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between blindness and sin.
But it is not only the biblical worldview that sometimes has this assumption that disability or illness is somehow always a sign of something less than fully human. I attended a theological conference back in June on the topic of Disability Theology. On the next Sunday, when I had returned to St. Jude’s, I found that these words were contained in the Eucharistic Prayer I had chosen for our Sunday liturgy:
From the primal elements you brought forth the human race and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. (“Eucharistic Prayer 4,” BAS, 201)
To be sure, “memory, reason, and skill” are great gifts. But the prayer suggests that these gifts are somehow defining of our humanity. What does this have to say about my nephew John Paul, whose life is very much shaped by something called Angelman’s Syndrome? Angelman’s Syndrome is a chromosomal condition that causes people like JP to go through life non-verbal; walking only with great difficulty, if at all; significant cognitive challenges; and predisposed to severe seizures. I am sure that JP is not without memory, reason, and skill in his own way, but these are certainly not gifts he has in any abundance. Does that fact make him any less a beloved child of God? Does what we call his ‘disability’ make him somehow less human? Is it possible that even in what we might see as his weakness—in the ways that we might view him ‘less than normal’—he is still what the Bible describes as “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 137:14), and created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27).
The seminal work in the relatively new field of Disability Theology is a book now thirty years old, written by Nancy Eiseland and entitled, The Disabled God. Eiseland makes the point that the God we worship takes on disability as God becomes incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. We should not forget that the risen Jesus is also the crucified Jesus. The risen Christ carries in his resurrected body the marks of the nails in his hands and of the spear in his side. Eiseland writes,
If our church is to be recognized as a place of healing and wholeness, then not only do we need to be careful of harmful interpretations we bring to scripture, but we need to be open to the good news of God’s healing grace that restores us in so many ways, making us individually and communally all that God intends.
Jesus and his disciples encounter people who are in need in the hustle and bustle of their daily living and as part of their movement from place to place. We might notice that they do not wait for people to come to church. Healing—as a sign of the kingdom of God—happens when the Christian community is about its business of living the everyday, ordinary life, and meeting others in the midst of theirs. The kingdom of God draws near when people encounter each other in the mutual need. Certainly, we do come to church in need of God’s grace, but so too the faith community engages in its ministries in the neighbourhood because it too has a need. We have a need to live as Christ calls us, as the body of Christ for the world.
May our coming and going in the world, not be so frenetic that we have no leisure, no time even to sit and enjoy a meal in the company of good friends and family. May our coming and going also not be so busy that we do not stop to notice and care for the needs of others. May our coming and going not be so rushed that people are unable to get a hold on us. As Christ’s people in the world, may we be like the fringe of Jesus’ cloak, something people are able to take hold of, and offering the opportunity to be made whole.
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