The Deserted Place
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa
July 19, 2009
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to 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. When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat.
When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
Today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel raises a lot of questions. Who were these disciples that were going out and doing things in Jesus’ name and teaching? Why were the disciples following Jesus? Why did people follow those disciples and listen to them? What did people think of those disciples? When Jesus invited his disciples to go with him to deserted places, what did he say to them there? Does any of this apply to us today?
There are three questions that I find challenging and want to talk about this morning. First, when the disciples went out to teach in the villages without Jesus, what did they teach? Second, what fired up those disciples? In other words, why did they follow Jesus? What made them want to go out teach what Jesus taught to them? Third, I want to tackle the question of what Jesus told his disciples when they eventually were able to go away to deserted places to rest? And what they did they do for rest?
So, to the first question, what did the disciples teach in the villages when they went out? I want to take this question initially because when we talk of Jesus now, in 2009, whether we say it or not, or even whether we believe it or not, we have the resurrection in mind. In other words, when we think of Jesus, we have the fact that he lived, and that he was crucified. And we believe that he was resurrected and remains with us. That is part of who he is in our mind and in our hearts.
But the disciples in Mark’s Gospel at that time only knew that Jesus was there with them; for they ate with him; they listened to him; they experienced his miracles; and they were in wonder because so many followed him. But before we begin to look at the disciples, we have to look at their audiences – the people in the villages and farms of Israel.
The ordinary people of Israel were not that much different from us in their daily lives. They married. They had children. They worked, either in villages, or in the fields. They worked; and they worked hard. When they got up in the morning, and when they got home at night, they worried about whether they would have daily bread for the next week. They wondered if the market would bring in enough money. They wondered if their spouses still cared for them; whether they were raising their children right. They were concerned about their friends and about their status in the community.
Culturally, however, they were different in that religious laws played a significant part of their lives – at least for many of them. So our differences have to do with the religious laws, and with the many views which, for us who live in post-Jesus-time, have now changed. For example, they still held to the legal system which is summed up as ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’ justice. Most held a life-view that other peoples were not as chosen as they were, and this assumption extended to the disliked and therefore shunned Samaritans – even though the Samaritans were also people of Israel! All of them recoiled at the civil law that decreed that a Roman soldier could demand that an Israelite carry a soldier’s backpack for up to one mile!
As a people, they knew that they could not truly satisfy their God because it was almost impossible for a person to strictly observe every single decree that Hebrew scripture required of them. But they also knew that had a great body of scripture which promised them, as a people of the one God, that a Messiah was, one day, going to come to save them. An Anointed One would come who would be “ . . . a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of the people of Israel.” Luke 2:32.
So, it was to ordinary people of that culture that Jesus disciples went forth to teach what Rabbi Jesus taught them. So, what did they teach? I think that they repeated what Jesus told them, as is recorded in Matthew 4.17: “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’*
These, the earliest of the disciples, had been taught by Jesus that we are brought closer to God by faith. God’s Kingdom is not only somewhere in the heavens, or out in the desert, but was near to them. This meant that the demands of the books of law, including Deuteronomy and Leviticus, could not, by themselves, bring a person closer to God and His Kingdom.
For Jesus taught that in repentance our conversion has to take place within one’s heart; and once this conversion occurs, then God is ready to enter into our very being. The Kingdom of God is truly very near. A person who fully loves God in one’s heart, and mind invites God’s Kingdom into one’s soul. Under the old law, the people responded to God’s covenant with them as Noah did and Abraham did and Moses did. According to the books of law, and under that covenant, when a person broke a law, a person sinned, for sin was a breach of the covenant with God. Therefore, to re-enter into covenant with God under the old law, a person had to re-new their observance; then the sinning person re-entered into covenant with God.
What an Old Testament sinner did was to look to the past – both in the deed they did, or in what they failed to do, and to look to the past covenant with God, to bring them into the present. In the New Testament, repentance took on a new meaning Repentance for Jesus meant looking to the future. Jesus taught that we look forward with him. Under the new Covenant, repentance brings a person closer to God.
Under the new Covenant the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, was, Jesus told his followers, near. Indeed, the Kingdom of God was even closer than those disciples could have realized, for Jesus was actively bringing about the new covenant – the new and eternal covenant. His Kingdom was as close as a touch! And many people did touch the new Kingdom – Jesus Himself!
So, what did those early disciples teach? They went out to teach in Jesus name and led the people to realize that it was time to repent – for the Kingdom of Heaven is near! All the people had to do was have faith – to believe in Jesus; to believe in his Father. Faith was not belief in some-thing so far away – it was belief in Some-One very close!
After the important message of repentance, which is a call for a change of heart, the disciples also preached, the essentials of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus spoke of salt, and light. That is my belief, for the Sermon on the Mount was, and is today, a revolution of the law.
The disciples taught that Jesus said that even if we only insult our brothers and sisters, even without further harm to them, we will be liable. Mt 5:22. The disciples taught that Jesus said that we who desire to offer ourselves, and our time, and our gifts to God in worship, must be reconciled to our brothers and sisters. Mt 5:24. The disciples taught that Jesus said that when we are insulted and assaulted we must turn the other cheek, and when we are forced to do something we do not want to do, we are not to complain, but are to walk the extra mile. Mt 5:38-41.
The disciples taught that Jesus said that we when we are persecuted or injured, we are not to take revenge, but instead are to love our enemies and, not only that, but to pray for those who persecute us. Mt 5:43-46. The disciples taught that Jesus said that when we give to the needy and the poor, we are not to sound a trumpet. Mt 6:2. The disciples taught that Jesus said that we are not to be anxious about our lives. “But to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” And Jesus added, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Mt 6:25-34.
The disciples told them a story that Jesus told to them when he talked about a man who was traveling, and was robbed of everything he had with him, even including his clothes, and the robbers beat up the traveler so badly he could not walk. And Observers-of-the-law passed him by without helping him. But, guess what? A Samaritan helped him. A Samaritan!
The disciples taught that Jesus said, and I think that they really emphasized this: “. . . whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them . . .” Mt. 7:12. With that – and a lot, lot more – the disciples went forth and taught. Which takes me to the next question I want to ask: What fired the disciples up? What prompted them to go forth and teach? And what gave them the power to, as Mark said, ‘. . . to do . . .’? The answer is that what Jesus showed them –more importantly than what he told them – was His love for them – God’s love for them.
Jesus took the old law of God, which was a book of rules, and brought them into God’s love. Jesus took them from often empty words – and brought them into the Living Word. Jesus took them from easily misunderstood precepts – and brought them to the Word made Flesh who was dwelling among them.
What became apparent to those disciples was that they who followed their teacher were convinced that he was concerned about them, compassionate of them, desired to heal them, shared their pains, in short, He loved them! Then when they went out, they were concerned about the people they were with, compassionate of the people they were with, yearned to heal the people they were with, shared their pains, in short, they loved the people they with were with!
Mark’s Gospel [6:30-34] tells us that: “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.” However, they did not, on that singular day, have a chance to rest. But they must have had other times to rest with Jesus; for otherwise they would not have had a chance to listen to Jesus, and, more importantly, to enter into a relationship with him.
So, I wonder, what could Jesus have said to them to help them renew their minds, and their bodies, and their souls? What words of Jesus would have enough power to energize them when they “. . . had no leisure even to eat . . .” or became depressed, or felt rejected, or were put aside by jealousy, or offended by gossip, or, simply, became exhausted?
I thnk that the answer is contained in John’s Gospel where we have one of the beautiful and vibrant life-giving teachings of Jesus, when he tells all of us: “‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Excerpts from John 15:1-9.
What Jesus teaches us – as he taught his disciples who walked with him, and labored with him, was that even though our powers and our love, fall far short, we are part of the vine. That Jesus is connected to us; as we are connected to him. The earliest of disciples realized that divine love healed – not their hands. That divine grace healed – not their benevolent hearts.
That divine mercy forgave – not what they could think. What they learned from Jesus was that his power, and his love, and his mercy, flowed from him, and from his love with his Father. The disciples shared in that love, that mercy. They were, like we are, aware of our human weaknesses – but their faith in Jesus gave them strength, and power, and healing love beyond what they could have imagined!
We are privileged to share in that same faith, and divine strength, and power, and healing love, which is beyond what we can imagine! What those disciples learned when Jesus said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ was that the power of prayer and rest is very important. When Jesus told them to “. . . rest a while,” he, in part, referred to the concept of ‘rest’ as told to us in the Book of Genesis, when it was recorded that “. . . on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested . . . from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, . . . “ Gen 2:2-3. God ‘blessed’ the day of rest, and ‘hallowed’ it.
So rest is not a vacation, as in ‘vacate;’ but the time of ‘rest’ is ‘hallowed’ time, holy time. This is more in line with the British and Europeans when they say that they are going on ‘holiday’—rather than on vacation. Therefore, when Jesus invited his disciples to, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,’ he was blessing that time of rest, and he was asking them to bless that time of rest, and to make it ‘hallowed’, to make it holy – a time of Sabbath.
Jesus had a holy life of prayerful union with his Father. He shared his life in the life-giving vine with his Father. And when he told his disciples about the vine and the branches, he was telling them where the healing power of their life was coming from, and where their vibrant life could always come from.
We know that we who are the people of God, are called to ‘do.’ But we must also realize, also as the people of God, that after we ‘do’ we are invited to rest in God. Jesus calls us to Sabbath rest just as he called his disciples some 2,000 years ago to rest.
Jesus tells us that as long as we are united to him, as the branches are to the vine, that we will be full of life. Then, when we take our rest with Jesus, we are to take the time to bless, and to be blessed; to take the time to realize that all is holy, and to make all holy; to take the time to pray, and to be prayed for; to take the time to just ‘be’ for that is the time when we will be graced, when we will be enlightened, and when we will be showered with the divine energy to do supernatural things in Jesus’ name.
Those early disciples learned directly from Jesus. We learn from Scripture, and holy books, and the holy around us. And their lesson and our continuing lesson, is that God’s grace is the loving power for us to bring about his Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.
This world will always have need for repentence and redemption – scripture and ancient and modern history clearly tell us that. And this world, with God’s grace, will always have people who rest with Jesus and then are ready to go out and heal and teach in his name – again scripture and old and modern history clearly tell us that.
Let us strive to be that people. Let us continue to be open to God’s Holy Spirit. Let us continue to make the choice to allow the life of the vine to flow to us, and to flow through us. Then we will be identical to those disciples Mark wrote about. We, in 2009, will be on fire with the love of Jesus and leave here to do and to teach in His name.
And we will be Jesus’ disciples who are invited to rest with him now, and in eternity. From Mark’s Gospel flows our prayer to be His disciples.