Pentecost 8 B: Compassion and Need
Dear Partner in Preaching,
I am writing from a family cottage on the shores of Otsego Lake, in Cooperstown, NY, a place my family has come for more than a century. In this setting, and after a night’s sleep to the sound of gently lapping waves and anticipating a day of fun on the water with my kids, I’m inclined to write, as I did three years ago, on the importance of rest, of Sabbath, and of the role of the church to provide and encourage restorative rest. And, indeed, I am most grateful for this time of rest and recreation.
Yet – perhaps precisely because I’ve had a few days rest after a pretty intense year – I will instead write about work. Some work you and I and many more congregational leaders need to do. Because while Jesus invites his disciples to rest, you’ll notice that they don’t get that opportunity. Instead, Jesus and his disciples respond to the needs of the throngs coming to them. Seeing the crowds and their manifold unmet needs, Jesus, Mark reports, has compassion on them. He puts his plans for rest temporarily on hold and goes out to them, healing, curing, feeding, and teaching all who are in need.
And this is what I find interesting. That this passage, while it starts off sounding a note on the significant need for rest among our labors, shifts gears to move instead to talk about compassion and need. And these two – compassion and need – always go together. Which is why I’d like to suggest that in your preaching this week you consider asking people what they need.
Really. Ask them what they need to feel whole, to be happy, to lead fulfilling lives, to make a difference in the world, to feel like they belong and have a place to call their own.
I am convinced that one of the elements of the crisis in church membership and attendance with which most if not all of us are painfully familiar is simply that we counted for far too long on people showing up to worship out of a sense of duty and obligation supported not only by the church but also by the larger culture. Keep in mind that politicians from Benjamin Franklin to Dwight David Eisenhower urged people to go to church – any church – because they felt that church attendance made better citizens. In recent years, that cultural support has withered, and lots and lots of people are not remotely hostile to church but simply don’t consider it a particularly compelling option in light of all the other things they might do on any given Sunday.
Which is why I’d like to shift the conversation from coming to church out of a sense of duty to one of coming out of sense of delight, and desire, and anticipation. But that will only happen if we’re clear and honest about what we – as individuals and a community – need in order to flourish and be the people God has called us to be.
In today’s passage and others like it in Mark, the needs seem clear: people who are sick want to be healed. People who are hungry want to be fed. And certainly there are those manifold needs in abundance all around us. Sometimes those needs are right there in our congregations, and sometimes they are spread throughout our communities. In both cases, our faith communities can play an active role in meeting those concrete needs. Interestingly, in a study of vibrancy in congregations I led several years ago, two of the factors that seemed to characterize all those congregations identified as vibrant were a substantial and sustained commitment to the community (food banks, after school tutoring, various social ministries, etc.) and a willingness to experiment with forms of worship (I’ll leave that one for another time!).
But in addition there are some less tangible needs in evidence as well. In fact, Jesus first responds to the crowds because they seem lost, like “sheep without a shepherd.” Here he doesn’t cure or feed but instead reaches out and meets them, teaching and preaching and opening up to them the power and possibility of life in God’s kingdom.
Which is why I’d strongly suggest asking people what they need – not just want, but really need. That alone would be an interesting conversation, but I’d encourage you to go further and ask two more things. First, what might they change in order to get that desired element into their lives? The question implies that we often have more than we might imagine and that, indeed, our very confusion of wants (often, media-induced wants) and needs regularly contributes to our problem. It’s hard to make time and effort for what you need, in other words, if you’re always chasing some false want nurtured by a scarcity-inducing and highly consumeristic culture.
Second, I’d ask how can the church help them live more abundant lives? Because that’s what we’re talking about: abundance. Not just happiness, or belonging, or a sense of purpose, but something bigger that includes all these things but also includes justice and peace and community. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus calls this the kingdom of God. In John, he often describes it as abundant life. No matter what you name it, however, we all want it, we all sense something more is out there for us, and we’d all desperately like some help in living into the kingdom world of more abundant life that Jesus offers.
And that’s the work I think we need to do – asking folks this Sunday and in the coming weeks and months what they need as individuals, households, and a community to flourish as God’s children put on this planet for a purpose, and then to ask what they can contribute and what the church can do to support us in moving in that direction together. It takes both – the question about what individuals have to contribute and what we can do together as a community of faith.
Ask those questions this week, Dear Partner, and I think you’ll be both surprised at what people are willing to share and also moved and motivated to start imagining congregational life that is motivated by the compassion to meet the needs of the people of God around you in order to meet the needs of this world God loves so very much.
Thanks for your good work, and know that your efforts – both your labor and your rest – are blessed by God.
Yours in Christ,
David
Right on! And let’s emphasize the whole human being as represented in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as we are all at different levels of need.
Don’t let the folks at “The Truth Project” catch you talking about Maslow – they are not fans…
Thank you, David! I will be preaching on rest… and abundant life.
As always – I drank deep at your well, with gratitude!
was contemplating a sermon entitled “and they had no time to even eat” and now I can draw from your wisdom as well, also helpful as my session begins a season of restructuring, thank you.
Thanks David for your insights. As usual always thought provoking. Was thinking about Hunger – physical yes but also that deeper inner need. and there you put it so simply. Thanks.
As a frequent victim of my own half-assed typing skills, I point out, with a smirk and a wink that “Jesus and his disciples respond to the needs of the THONGS coming to them.” The image of the great unwashed rabble, rather than sculpted supermodels, swarming Jesus and his disciples in rather uncomfortable looking under garments is truly disturbing!
Yikes – better fix that!
I used to go to Camp Minnetoska on that lake! It continues to be on the top of favorite summer memories.