Summing Up Jesus

When we read the gospels we come across places where the writer uses a few verses to give an overview of Jesus actions. They are brief accounts, a summing up, of what Jesus has been doing. It is tempting to glide right over these verses in order to get to what we might consider the more important parts of the gospel. We are eager to read the stories of Jesus teaching or of Jesus dramatically interacting with people. This week’s lectionary¹ reading skips over two miracles of Jesus and asks us to consider what came just before and just after the miracles- the summaries.

The gospel reading is Mark 6:30-34 and 53-56. Earlier in chapter 6, Jesus sent out the disciples to heal and teach². Verse 30-34 tells what happened when they returned.

“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. 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.” Mark 6:30-34 NRSV

Next Mark tells the story of the feeding of the five thousand followed by the story of Jesus walking on water. The lectionary picks up the story when the boat lands.

“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 marketplaces and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.” Mark 6:53-56 NRSV

What is your reaction when you read these two stories?

They make me wonder what Jesus’ day to day life was like. The crowds, the constant pleading for help. The difficulty to take any sort of break, even to eat, because the needs were so great.

Yet, in the face of all that pressure, all the pleas, all the demands, Jesus’ consistent and persistent compassion stands out. He cares for the disciples- come away and rest. He cares for the crowds- teaching and healing. He cares for all of them in meaningful ways.

Jesus’ teaching is not what we might imagine teaching to be. His teaching is more like what we might call proclamation. Jesus invites people to participate in the good news. The news that God’s reign is at hand. He invites people to believe, to know they are loved by God, that they matter, and that God desires their well being and flourishing.

People hurry and rush to Jesus, not because he is giving an interesting lecture on theology. People come to Jesus because they are desperate. Desperate for healing. Desperate to have enough to eat. Desperate to live in a world that recognizes them as valuable people, not cogs in the domination machine of the empire.

When people call out to Jesus, when they rush to Jesus , they aren’t interested in going to heaven when they die. They aren’t worried about where they will spend eternity. They want to be saved from hunger, disease, despair, and oppression. They want to be saved from the trauma of living in an empire that devalues them, and uses them. They want to be saved from an empire that only sees them in terms of what they can produce. Their value, such as it is, is measured in how others benefit from their work.The salvation they desire is in this world, their world. Their desire is for this world to be redeemed and saved.

Jesus teaching and healing tells them that God cares about them. They matter not as cogs in another system. That they matter as beloved people. Jesus teaching and healing proclaim that God’s kingdom is near, that it is breaking into the status quo and that they already are part of that kingdom.

1. A lectionary is an agreed upon set of readings for each week or day. I often use the Revised Common Lectionary texts for this blog. You can find out more about the Revised Common Lectionary, here. The value of using a lectionary for reading, study, and preaching is that it causes us to encounter a variety of biblical texts, and perhaps spend time with texts we might otherwise ignore. ↩︎
2. The narrative in chapter 6 is interrupted by the story of the beheading of John the baptizer. The disciples are sent out in 6:7-13. Verses 14-29 are about John the baptizer. The narrative resumes at verse 30. ↩︎