Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

For the past few months, I’ve been enjoying a series on Amazon Prime TV where a group of archeologists roam around England digging things up. The deeper they dig, the more interesting their finds, from Elizabethan and Tudor ruins back through medieval, early Christian, Saxon, Roman, Iron Age, Bronze Age, and even back to stone age remains. Seldom are the important finds on the surface. The most meaningful finds often require a lot of painstaking digging.

Our Scriptures are no different. Some think they can do a superficial read and exhaust what the Scriptures have to tell us. Almost always, to find the depth of meaning that lies beneath the surface, we have to dig. So, let’s dig.

This year, the gospel readings are taken from Saint Mark, and we’re following along in the order that Mark presented it. Last week, we heard that the disciples were sent out two-by-two to heal and preach repentance. This week, they return and report their successes. They’re tired and hungry and Jesus invites them to come away and rest. But the crowds are following them. Next week, Jesus will feed that crowd with a few loaves and some fish. In context, today’s gospel seems pretty straight-forward, and we may wonder what’s the point. That’s where or digging begins.

Mark gives us no indication of what exactly the disciples reported to Jesus. That doesn’t concern him. What he focuses on is the concern that Jesus has for them and their well-being. They were surrounded by people clamoring for their attention to such an extent that they were not able to attend to their own needs. So, Jesus invites them to come away. He beckons them to come into a deserted place—a desert—where they’ll find rest. Where have we seen God lead people into the desert before? This summons into the desert certainly hearkens back to the people of Israel coming out of slavery and being led into the desert. In spiritual terms, the desert is a very special place. That’s one reason why I’ve chosen to live out here surrounded by desert wilderness. The desert is a place of pilgrimage. It’s also a place of temptation, that’s true. But, in the case of today’s reading, it’s the place where people learn to let go of self-reliance, and to experience the care and loving-kindness of God. It’s the place where God fed the Israelites with manna from heaven and slaked their thirst with water from a rock.

It’s counter-intuitive to think of the desert as the place where people go to be cared for. Yet, there it is. The weary, hungry disciples are led into the desert to rest and be refreshed. When they arrive there, what do they find? A crowd of hungry people. Mark tells us that Jesus saw them as sheep without a shepherd. What does a shepherd to for the sheep? We think of shepherds leading their flocks, keeping them together, and protecting them from harm. Isn’t that what we generally expect of the shepherds of Christ’s Church? But these are the least of their responsibilities. In every case, the flock needs something else. They are hungry. A shepherd leads the sheep to pasture. Shepherds feed their sheep. Didn’t Jesus say to Peter, “Feed my lambs” and “Feed my sheep”?

The prophet Jeremiah in the first reading this morning tells us Yahweh’s intentions for his people—his flock. He says,

I myself will gather the remnant of my flock
from all the lands to which I have driven them
and bring them back to their meadow;
there they shall increase and multiply.

Jesus has pity on this scattered flock, and he feeds them. He feeds them first spiritually because that is their deepest hunger. He began to teach them many things, Saint Mark tells us. Only then, as we shall see next week, does he address their physical hunger with the miracle of the loaves and fishes. The pasture we heard about both in the prophet Jeremiah and in the familiar twenty-third psalm is certainly not a physical entity. You can’t find a meadow in the middle of the desert. The pasture they speak of is a symbol of the promised land—the place where God’s people find their rest and their peace.

            The peace that we’re talking about here is the same peace that Saint Paul wrote about in the passage we read today as our second reading. It’s not an easy passage to understand. I can’t go over it line-by-line with you this morning, but I invite you to read it over again later when you have the time. Here’s what Paul is saying. Those who were far off are those who were not included in God’s original covenant with Abraham and Moses. The dividing wall of enmity he’s talking about was created by the stipulations of that covenant that we know as the Mosaic Law or the Torah. The law split humanity into two irreconcilable groups: the law-keepers and the law-breakers. The new covenant in Christ’s blood abolished the law and made peace among the diverse peoples of God’s flock, uniting them so that there may be one flock and one shepherd.

            Jesus calls his disciples and all people to come aside through the desert to the promised land. We are the heirs of that promise and that reality. Weary, hungry disciples that we are, we’re invited to come away for a while to a deserted place and rest. Exhausted from the wars raging within ourselves and among ourselves, we are summoned to be at peace. Hungry from our unsatisfied pursuits, we come together as a community—a flock—to be fed. Here, we find nourishment that costs us nothing, as Isaiah wrote:

All you who are thirsty,
    come to the water!
You who have no money,
    come, buy grain and eat;
Come, buy grain without money,
    wine and milk without cost!

Here, our spirits are fed with the Word of God just as the people crowded around Jesus feasted on his teaching. Here, our souls are fed with the Eucharist—the bread of life—that will never leave us hungry. Come, people of God; come, flock of Christ; come, community of faith; come, let us worship.