Pentecost+9/Proper 11B (Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56)7/22/2018 Self-care seems to be one of the most mentioned words at least in the field of medicine where its use of the word was historically originated. In the fields of chaplaincy, social work, and medicine, this term, ‘self-care’ is quite frequently emphasized in the sense that before one gets burnt out, one must take care of oneself. There are many interesting and creative ways to self-care. You can very well imagine something like giving yourself a break from work or people, hanging out with your friends, taking a power nap, treating yourself with healthy food, going away somewhere peaceful, and so on. One interesting phenomenon about this term is that after the 2016 election Americans googled this term twice as much as they did in the past.
In today’s gospel lesson, it seems that Jesus becomes more aware of this importance of self-care. We might want to claim that self-care is part of the Christian teaching! So here’s the situation in which Jesus feels the need for self-care. Once his friends are given Jesus’s authority to preach to people to change their hearts and turn away from whatever prevents them from loving God, others, and themselves and to heal their broken hearts, they come back to him and report all they did. Jesus tells them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Jesus and his friends are surrounded by people coming in and out, having no leisure even to eat. We can very well imagine this busy routine of Jesus and the disciples’ ministry since we ourselves are quite busy working. They decide to go away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Once they are about to finally have some freedom from people, they get caught by people in that different town. These people are serious. They are not going to lose Jesus and his friends. They hurry themselves, almost running to get ahead of Jesus and his friends. Even before Jesus gets to his designated and supposedly deserted place, a great crowd of people is already there, waiting for him and his friends. I can jokingly say that if you want self-care in your life, don’t get caught by people you know like Jesus and his friends. Don’t tell others where you’re going, hide well, or turn off your phone. This, however, is not the point of the gospel. The essential theme of today’s lessons we hear really comes out of Jesus' heart. Which is compassion. When Jesus' self-care plan or vacation plan is all ruined as he encounters a great crowd by the shore, he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. His way of looking at these people who come to see him as shepherdless or lost sheep, St Mark calls, compassion. This compassion Jesus feels for the people in the gospel lesson is what the shepherds in the first lesson are missing. Jeremiah warns and condemns, if not curses, the compassionless shepherds. He prophesies the word of God, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.” These shepherds are judged guilty of destroying, scattering, driving away God’s flock, and not attending to them. And who are these shepherds in Jeremiah’s time? They’re the leaders of Israel. Israel in Jeremiah’s time is under the siege of Babylonia. Their cities and homes are to be taken over by the Babylonians. Their nation is already divided into two, Northern Israel and Southern Judah. The people of Israel are about to be destroyed, scattered, and driven away from their homes. Jeremiah accuses these leaders as well as their false prophets of moral depravity. In light of today’s gospel lesson, this moral depravity of Israel in the time of Jeremiah comes from a lack of compassion they have for their people. Jesus feels compassion for a huge crowd by the shore because they are like the sheep without a shepherd or like the sheep with a false shepherd. Only the one who has compassion for the lost sheep can be the Good Shepherd. Jeremiah proclaims God’s promise, “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall fear any longer or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing.” There is one specific righteous Branch that Jeremiah prophesies in the first lesson. That Branch of justice and righteous is Jesus of Nazareth who is not just full of compassion but the divine compassion embodied and enfleshed! When that divine compassion of Jesus touches people, healing happens. Reconciliation happens. The peace which comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus arrives in their hearts. So what are we as followers, friends, brothers, and sisters of Jesus the incarnate compassion called to do? I had a discussion about today’s gospel lesson with my priest friend and colleague. During our sharing of ideas and insights, I realize how often priests quite automatically see themselves as shepherds and lay people as their sheep. Well, I think this approach is very wrong and even harmful in the sense that lay people are seen as the ones who need a shepherd, placing them in a passive role. I would like to encourage you to look at yourselves as shepherds who have Jesus as the ultimate Shepherd. God does promise that God will raise up shepherds over the remnant of God’s flock. We as Christians are called to see ourselves as those shepherds God will raise up. Being a shepherd for others is exactly the same thing as the priesthood of all believers. In the world, every baptized Christian is called to be a priest. St Peter says, “You are a royal priesthood and royal kingdom.” Through the blood of Jesus the High Priest, we are made into priests who join the sacrifice of Jesus for the world. This being a priest is really being a shepherd for others. And what qualifies us as a ‘faithful’ shepherd and a ‘holy’ priest is whether we have compassion for others or not. What then is this compassion that is so crucial to who Jesus is as the Good Shepherd and the High Priest and who we are as shepherds and priests? ‘Com-‘ in the word compassion is a prefix which means ‘with’ or ‘together,’ whereas ‘passion’ comes from the Latin ‘pati’ or ‘passio’ meaning to suffer. Compassion is not just a feeling but calls us into action to suffer with or suffer together. It is a statement that those who are suffering are not alone. Compassion puts us into that very place of suffering to suffer together. But let’s remember that when we are present to others’ suffering, we don’t enter as a healer, but as a fellow sufferer. When these two fellow sufferers meet, there comes the healing of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. This way of compassion then compels us to look at others in a different way. I’m going to borrow the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and modern martyr in the Nazi era who says, “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” Compassion actually pushes us out of ourselves. This compassion of Jesus perhaps is the only requirement we need as a priest and a shepherd of God. Now, you might wonder what happened to the self-care piece that I mentioned at the beginning of this homily. Did I forget? Am I trying to say self-care matters but it’s never possible? No. Based on this compassion of Jesus which essentially expands one’s understanding of self, this self-care actually is not simply limited to oneself or one single individual unit. This compassion-expanded self always includes others, forming a communion of compassion or what St Paul calls in the second lesson ‘a holy temple in the Lord’ and ‘a dwelling place of God.’ As we partake in the Eucharist, we’re embodied into the compassion of Jesus. In the Eucharist, we are joined into the divine compassion incarnate. May this compassion incarnate Jesus Christ perpetually lead us to suffering people. May we also find the healing and peace of God in that place which we see both the cross and the empty tomb. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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