Mark 6:30-44
In the Lord’s Service
It’s an unfinishable task. No matter how much you work and push to complete it, there’s always ten times more to do than what you’ve done. It could quite literally be our own personal hamster wheel. You know, where you run nonstop but never get anywhere. This is what ministry often feels like, or quite simply the mission of the church. Every day, we expel all of our energy towards feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, caring for the sick and lowly. And yet, every day, there are more people becoming hungry, becoming poor, becoming sick than we can ever take care of. But this protestant work ethic is also the same one the puts us at risk of burnout, which we need to be aware of. This is something that is especially relevant today as we install the leaders of this church. You are going to have these moments where you just poured out your 100%, only for the church to come and ask you for another 100. And church, this is your duty to your leaders being installed today. We are to pray for them, and to help them whenever and however we are able. Just because they have the fancy titles doesn’t spare you the call to aid in the mission of the church. For the way the church has always operated, has always succeeded in her mission is by realizing that we can never do this on our own. We are only successful when we work together as one… as the very body of Christ. And that goes far beyond our own church. Don’t believe that even all of us here are able to serve the world, but nor should we dump our responsibility on other churches simply because they are larger or have more resources.
I begin this way, simply because that this is how I imagine the disciples felt in our Gospel reading. After just going out and caring for many cities and towns, Jesus calls them to service once more. For so let us understand the call of our Lord and our service to him, as he says:
YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT!
I.
Jesus had sent out his twelve disciples to preach and teach throughout all the nearby towns and cities. They went out on their own to care for people the way Jesus had been doing. They performed miracles of healing and casting out demons. They bore the burden of peoples sins also, forgiving them in the name of Jesus. But now, they return to Jesus weary from their travels. So, Jesus says to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest for a while,” Mark 6:31. This is too big a point to plow straight over it. There’s a rhythm that Jesus shows us between work and rest. We can’t work non-stop no matter how important the mission is. This is why he invites the disciples to come and rest. They needed it just as much as Jesus did. But that rest isn’t always sitting on comfy chairs, or cozy beds, and doing nothing. Rather, rest is spending time with Jesus, even one-on-one. Rest is removing those things that distract us from our time with Jesus. Yet, this is the turn in the story. Right as they are heading to rest, they are besieged again by massive crowds.
Despite the disciples pleading with Jesus to send the crowd away, he doesn’t. Rather, he teaches them all day. When it becomes late, Jesus instructs the disciples, “You give them something to eat,” Mark 6:37. This is where I can only imagine the disciples’ faces when Jesus says this. They know well that it would take a massive amount of food to feed such a large crowd. Not even two hundred days’ wages would buy enough food. It’s the feeling of being insufficient that troubles them, and us. It’s knowing that no matter how hard I try, I can never give enough to care for everyone. For this isn’t just a leader problem. This is all of our problems. We look at the world, then look at ourselves and think, “No way! It’s not possible.” What we come to realize is that the problem of sin is too great for any one of us to overcome on our own. Hunger, poverty, illness, and death are all issues that come from our fallen estate. And none of these will ever go away unless our sin condition is dealt with.
II.
Yet, as I said at the start, we must understand the call of our Lord and our service to him. Even tired and worn out, Jesus sees fit to use his disciples to display his gracious love. For go back to when Jesus first sets eyes upon this crowd, as we read, “When [Jesus] went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd,” Mark 6:34. The cares and concerns of this crowd are most important to Jesus. He sees them as “sheep without a shepherd,” that is as vulnerable and neglected. Jesus is looking at their whole being. He sees both their physical needs and their spiritual needs. He sees their hunger of stomach as well as their hunger of soul. When Jesus commands the disciples to feed the crowd, he’s not so much commanding them as offering them a gracious invitation to feel his love and compassion for the crowd. And notice one other thing, Jesus never tells them to find food. He doesn’t tell them to figure it out themselves. Rather, he invites them into his compassion and then asks what they have available. Even scraps offered to our Lord can be blessed mightily by him.
For there’s still the issue I discussed first, the need for rest for the disciples. And I’ll be honest, it’s hard to bring it to a neat and tidy conclusion. The disciples are pushed to keep going even when tired. They feed the crowd at Jesus’ behest. And it seems that’s it… except for this… “And they all ate and were satisfied,” Mark 6:42. While this mainly speaks to the satisfaction of the crowd, it seems this also is for the disciples. They eat of the same feast that Jesus gives the crowd. They eat and are satisfied too. They find their rest, in a way, by seeing that it truly wasn’t their duty to tend to the crowd as they thought. Rather, it was Jesus caring for the crowd and for them. It was Jesus offering his blessings, his energy, his compassion to all people. And so, it is for us. When we care for those in the church and outside the church, it’s not our duty alone. Rather, we’re the means which Jesus uses to share his compassion. The same compassion that would take Jesus to the cross. It’s this compassion of Jesus that forgives our sins, that grants us grace and mercy. It’s God’s compassion that provides us with all that we need for this body and life. And in that is rest. We can rest knowing that we need not be the world’s savior, but rather we can share in his compassion to the world. For this is our energy and rest to keep going.
So, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we need beware of our task, so we don’t burn ourselves out. We need to pray for our leaders in their mission and help with our own gifts and talents. But above all, we need to understand that we’re not asked to be the world’s savior. Rather, we participate by sharing Christ’s compassion and love so that all people may eat of the meal of immortality and be satisfied! In Jesus’ name! Amen!