As of August 1, 2021, our services are in-person and also live-streamed for those who wish to worship with us online You can watch our recorded live-stream services on RPC YouTube channel.
Our guest preacher this morning is the Rev. Dr. Richard Topping. Listen to him as he tells of Jesus’ Ministry and ours!
Join us every Sunday at 10 am and let’s worship God together!
JESUS’ MINISTRY AND OURS
The Rev. Dr. Richard Topping
James 6:6b-13, 30-34, 53-56
August 15, 2021
Thank you for the opportunity to be here in person today. It’s really quite lovely to preach to people in the flesh while you’re here. I haven’t preached much in person and it’s wonderful to preach wearing long pants for a change.
This morning at 7:30, I bring greetings from your former minister, Reverend Francis Savill. I was preaching in North Bay on zoom this morning at her church before I came to the place where she used to be the minister. So, all kinds of interesting things are possible just now.
Friends let’s pray together. Holy and active God, intervene in our midst so that we might encounter you in the hearing of your word and having heard, lift to your glory and to the good of your beloved world. In Jesus name. Amen.
In the reading of Mark for this morning, it is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus disciples are called apostles. At the beginning of this gospel, Jesus said, he called them disciples so that they might become apostles and in our reading for today, that is what they become. Apostle means somebody sent out with a message and disciple mean students, right? Jesus sends them out in this chapter that we read, to do healing and touching, to proclaim good news and then they returned to Jesus to report what happened. The students graduate, and they become apostles which means a person sent out with a message. It’s kind of like the passage we read for this morning. It’s still summer and it kind of celebrates their graduation really from disciples to apostles. The spend time with Jesus in the classroom and you graduate through the Co-op program in order to get busy in the world like Jesus does. Watch him speak and heal and minister and then you go out into the world to share in Jesus’ program of touching and teaching and healing people. And so, it is with all of us, right? We gather on a Sunday to hear the gospel, to listen to the words of our risen saviour, Jesus Christ. We watch him, we hear him. And then we’re authorised by him; we’re sent back out into the world that Jesus loves. At the end of the service somebody will say, “this Sunday, me, go now to love and serve the Lord” and we all go out from this place to be apostles to be people sent with a message, ministers of God’s grace in the world that God loves. And that’s our hope every Sunday isn’t it. Every Sunday is a kind of graduation service. We sit infused that kind of like a classroom, we’re big on teaching in the reformed tradition; you spend a while as a student. You come in in a kind of centripetal way and then you get thrown out into the world in a centrifugal way. You might say it’s kind of good every Sunday to get kicked out of church for the sake of ministry in the world.
Well, our lesson began this morning with Jesus disciples or apostles coming back from work term number one and they seem kind of surprise that it worked. They’re amped up that ministry in Jesus’ name as the gospel starts to get traction in the lives of people to whom they minister and wow they feel alive at their participation in Jesus’ Ministry in the world. I think some of you know what that’s like, right? That you venture out just a little with a neighbour or a friend and you say something and they come back in a couple of weeks and they say, “you know, you’ll never know how much what you said helped me”. And you think to yourself like I don’t even remember saying that, but that must have been God’s work in your life. And Jesus does that sort of thing. People who make themselves available to the service of Jesus; he’s the Midas touch. He touches what you do and say and makes it count for even more in the lives of people for the sake of ministry. What a delight it is to get swept up in the Ministry of the Risen Jesus Christ. And yet, did you notice from this passage so engaging is that work, so relentless is the work of ministry that the disciples start to skip meals. Did you see that? They just bore by the rhythm of work and rest and Jesus takes note even in the midst of success, Jesus kind of ramps it down here. He says, you know, you really can’t give to other people what you haven’t received. People got to breathe in the love of God if you’re going to exhale it in the world where you live. They had no leisure, says Mark, even to eat. You know how that works, right? You know you should rest. I know I should rest, but there’s just one more thing that we could tick off the things to-do list. Don’t you worry sometimes that church takes busy people and says you think you’re busy now join our church and we will finish you off, right, with more things to do. We live in a culture in which you know having a lot to do is the sign of your importance right and we exchange that modern liturgical greeting. Hi, say to you, how are you? And then you repeat the refrain. I’m so busy and I’m impressed at how indispensable you are to the universe. Note to self, right? Leisure is encouraged here by Jesus. It’s good that your minister is on a vacation.
You know the story of the clergy person who was told you know the devil doesn’t take holidays. To which she responded, “Yeah, look how he turned out”. What a joy to recognise that frankly we’re important but we’re not indispensable. Jesus works well. We sleep. God will uphold the universe while you take a moment. I wonder whether that is particularly good news to the world in which we live right now. For most of us, myself included, get kind of twitchy if I’m not multitasking, right? The invitation to rest is a kind of wake-up call to recognise your humanity. We are human, we need rest. The things To Do List will never be done. Jesus says, come away to a deserted place, all by yourselves, and rest awhile. And then he ministers to those who ministered in his name in the world. That’s life. Maybe it’s life to you today. Maybe what you need is to just like, breathe in, take a deep breath you now that you can; the air is clear. It’s not all up to us. Yeah, there’s COVID-19. There’s the report of residential schools and their horrific legacy. There are heat waves and forest fires and worries about the future bedevil us all. There’s so much to be anxious about and you can add that to the endless and urgent list of obligations we driven people all want to get done. Guilt, worry and ambition, or all of them don’t allow you to rest. Compassion, fatigue, languishing, not burning out but browning out. Is what many of us feel right now for in some cases a lack of rest? And Jesus says yes, yes, yes. There’s always more ministry and they’ll always be measures of success at it and ministry, getting involved, being busy is important, but come away, rest awhile. If we don’t, I’ve noticed that ministry doesn’t feel like ministry and the people to whom we are ministering, right? Living in the imperative mood is cold. Good work fired by fumes is often a misery to the person doing them and interiorise to people who experienced them. But Jesus says, come away, rest awhile. Pattern of rest. Sabbath rest.
Well, that’s why we’re all here today. We’re taking a moment; God did in Jesus Christ what we with all our business can never do. He did the thing that had to be done. So, rest, breathe, and don’t talk about being busy like it’s something that happened to you against your will. It’s never all up to us. And yet, did you notice that this passage has a kind of air of realism about it? Jesus tries to take himself and his disciples for a rest. Say they went off to Torino away from everybody. But need, relentless human need, follows him everywhere he goes and it follows his apostles. I’ve noticed how often when I hear this passage talked about in church, we leave this bit out. Listen to this; “Now many saw them going and recognised them and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived there ahead of them”. We know this move right. Ministry matters and so many things call for urgent attention. Help required is just relentless. I’ve been the minister of small churches and I thought you know if I was a minister of a larger church, there’d be more people to help. Turns out it’s proportional to the size. There’re not enough people at large churches either. Demand in church, always seems to exceed capacity in this broken and battered and beautiful world. That’s true for the church as a whole, true for congregations, and it’s true for us as individuals. You start to show yourself a little merciful to your neighbour, a real good listener, a compassionate person, and the next thing you know, you’re gonna get a lot of email, a lot of phone calls, for need is bottomless. Rest awhile says Jesus, and it often turns out to be like a short while, right? People are looking for you. I’ve had that said when I come back to the building after time; you know the people are looking for you. But look what happens in our passage if there’s the note of realism. There’s also the Ministry of Jesus. You notice that when that starts to happen, it’s Jesus action that comes to the fore, not the disciples. He teaches. He feeds. He heals. In other words, he carries on with the work as the second person of the Trinity, while the disciples become part of the crowd to which he ministers. Disciples, even disciples, become apostles continue to be a part of the crowd that need what only Jesus give them. Jesus Ministry of Healing is to his own people as well as to new people. It is always and everywhere, Jesus Ministry. He ministers with us, yes, through us, yes, but to us.
Have you noticed that from the very first Easter morning, Jesus is always up and busy in the world before any of us get there? That’s wonderful news. And here we come to the very core of Jesus’ Ministry to the world in this passage. Relentless crowds pushing on and people clamour after Jesus. They bunch up around him. They push into his space, needy people, swarming, including his own needy followers who are right in the boat with him. Barely does the boat touch the shore, and the broken and the wounded and the hopeless and the hungry jam up the landing. Jesus sees them coming. And I think he’s gonna say something like I would say. “Listen, I’m on vacation, did you not get the response email, the message on the machine; could I have just a little space” or maybe Jesus is just going to sail off to some other shore. Take a message, please. But Mark writes this, he says, “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion”. Some of us feel like contempt, weariness, indifference, suffocation, even, sometimes disgusted at grimy human need. Jesus feels compassion. I wonder if there is a greater sign of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ than this. He had compassion. He doesn’t run from what he sees. Jesus, it says he saw and he paid attention, right? He pays attention even when it cost him his life to help. He doesn’t run from what he sees and Jesus’ compassion becomes a kind of window of access into the very nature of God and God’s way with us. The father sends the son because God loves the world. God is not the kind of God that can stay kind of at arm’s length. For God so loved the world that he sent his son. God wade into the mess, the Welsh poet calls it the muck and phlegm of life. So, for followers of Jesus, compassion means getting involved in the lives of others for healing and wholeness. Compassion in the original language, which in the New Testament only ever used this word of God and Jesus Christ. But compassion here has the sense of a gut-wrenching experience that there’s no difference between what you feel and what you do. You experience such solidarity with the person suffering that it’s virtually physical in its effect. The father sent the son and the son sends the spirit and sends us in the power of the spirit to the world that God loves. The mission of the Triune God is a mission of compassion. Now I just love the word because in this passage. It gives us an insight into why Jesus would feel compassion for such a needy and resourceful and relentless group. And here it is, listen closely, he says, “he felt compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd”. Aimlessness does not depress Jesus. People without purpose set Jesus in motion. He sees people just clamoring after hope and he’s moved to ministry because of it.
Way back in the book of numbers in the Old Testament, Moses, who’s coming to the end of his days, asks God to appoint a leader in his place so that the people will not be like sheep without a shepherd. Moses knows these people. They get wayward, they run into trouble of their own, making them prone to wander in ways that aren’t worthy of their lives. They grumble, they complain all the time and give up hope quickly. They can be like sheep scattered, vulnerable, harassed, fragile, naïve, reckless. Jesus sees the same thing in the needy crowd and I think he sees it in us. And Jesus isn’t embarrassed by this fragility and need. He just wades into it. He embraces it; it moves him to act for us. Thank God that it moves him to act for us. And of all the things that Jesus could do for people who are like sheep without a shepherd that ,notice what Mark features here, it says, “he taught them many things”. We’re left to guess at what he said. We don’t have the sermon in Mark, he and the disciples healed people and shortly they’ll feed a crowd of 4000 with just a few loaves and fishes where Jesus takes the lead to do it. There are actions that are important, but here and now, Jesus teaches them, like with words. Mark just loves Jesus, the teacher, right from the get go and I imagine that Jesus’ sermon was probably something about hope for aimless sheep without a shepherd. I think Jesus here is speaking peace to their fears.
Have you noticed that Jesus teaching in the whole of Mark, read it through, sometimes it does things to people? They don’t just hear with their ears. Jesus has the power to affect what he talks about. He teaches, says Mark, with authority. His teaching packs a wallop riveted on his teaching that they stay until late at night. They had never heard of a teacher like this before. Jesus works the crowd. He tells them you are not forsaken. The full whole first half of the Gospel of Mark is about who Jesus is, the Christ, the son of the living God. And he’s the one who’s going to ask those who follow him to go all in with him so that you don’t end up losing everything; “For those who want to save their life will lose it; those who lose their life for my sake, will gain it”.
About a year, maybe five years ago now, I was I was in my car listening to the CBC Radio. They were playing a recorded convocation address from York University in Toronto. Teresa Stratus, Canadian opera star, was giving the address. From humble beginnings, she made it to the Metropolitan Opera and in 1995, Teresa Stratus underwent a surgery that was botched, and her voice was ruined. Her singing career ended abruptly. And I thought, I wonder what she’s going to say? She must be mad and I actually pulled over the car to listen to her. I don’t have all of what she said here right now, but listen to what she said; she says, “it would be very easy to stand here and tell you that life is all about great successes, professional achievements and singing at the Metropolitan Opera and being world famous and falling in love with another human being. I’ve had those things; I have those things”. But she says, “The richness of my life lies in finally having learned or having the ability to face and embrace my fears, my failures, my tragedies, and to learn from them”. These, she says, “All these things have opened my mind and lift my spirit and filled me with compassion”. She said, “I always had passion. I learned compassion and this,” she says, “is what connected me with every member of the human family in the world. This has transformed my life and work. This is the richness of my life and I am blessed.”
Friends, Jesus was moved by compassion and come Holy Spirit, so are we. AMEN
Preached by the Rev. Dr. Richard Topping on August 15, 2021
at Richmond Presbyterian Church.