It's always good when someone who knows a lot more than you do
agrees with you—or at least close enough to count as agreement. My default point-of-view in sermon
writing is to ask the two essential questions in interpreting scripture: First, what does this passage tell us
about God? And then, what should we do (or how should we live) in the light of
our answer to the first question?
Of course neither question stands outside the context of culture and
history, but they require us to distill the essence of what we have read.
Douglas John Hall, a retired professor of Christian theology at
McGill University, thinks that understanding our gospel reading this morning
requires answering two questions very similar to mine. These two questions also arise from
what he calls “the welter of global religious striving”—a way of describing the
conflicts in the world that appear, at least on the surface, to involve
opposing religious systems. His first question is this: “How does your God view the
world?” His second is, “How does
your God ask you to view the
world?” Professor Hall claims that
how we view the world—which motivates our actions in the world—will flow from
our ideas about God. Theology
informs ethics, and our ethics arise from our theology.
If you read Hebrew and Christian scriptural texts closely, you will
find more than one depiction of the God.
Jesus Christ may be the same yesterday and today and forever, as the
writer of Letter to the Hebrews asserts in the 13th chapter. But our human understanding of
God's view of the world and how God asks us to view the world has changed
and—if you accept that there is continuing revelation—our understanding about
how to answer these questions will change again—and again.
This change is captured succinctly in the story from the 8th
chapter of the Gospel of John.
Jesus and the religious authorities were debating about the fate of a
woman caught in adultery. Trying
to trap Jesus into speaking against the Law the authorities asked, “Now in the
law Moses [which the ancient Hebrews believed was given to Moses directly from
God] commanded us to stone such
women. Now what do you say?” Jesus answered by asking them to view
the world—and this woman—with a compassion growing from their awareness of
their own sinfulness. As you know,
he said, “You who are without sin . . .[cast the first stone]”
We have two words to consider from our readings today in the light
of Professor Hall's questions. The
first comes from the letter to the Ephesians. It is “reconcile.”
The second comes from today's reading from Mark's gospel. It is “compassion.” Both of them refer to a way of looking
at the world—and humanity—that promotes a positive connection and a life-giving
relationship with God and among people.
In the letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul describes God as viewing
differences concerning the purity of one's life—and the religious practices
that maintain that purity—as a wall that must be broken down. Paul does not
critique the purity code itself, but he criticizes the use of a purity code to
exclude the people for whom it would be a barrier—to exclude those people that
now believe in the message of Jesus, but who are not Jews.
This is how Paul
describes God-in-Jesus's point of view:
“He [Jesus] has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances
that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus
making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the
cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.” Are we now called to view the world as
a place where we need to follows Jesus' pattern and act as reconcilers across
the differences that divide people of faith? Exactly how we might follow that call to act as
reconcilers must come as the result of prayerful discernment.
Now we turn to the word “compassion” we find in the reading from
Mark's gospel. This word may hold
an important place in our discernment of how act as a reconciler. Jesus and his disciples found
themselves at odds with the crowd of people who would not let them get away and
rest. The crowd appeared to be
desperate for Jesus' presence.
They scrambled to locate Jesus—almost mobbed him. Did they need what Jesus and his
disciples have been offering in their ministry: healing and preaching repentance to prepare for the coming
reign of God?
Jesus could have told the disciples to disperse the crowd, for he
and they were quite weary. The
disciples even suggested that course of action to Jesus later. But Jesus knew his mission—and that of
his disciples—was to bring the people into a closer relationship with God—to be
reconcilers. So Mark reports that
Jesus felt compassion for this disorderly group. Yes, compassion as the route to acting as a reconciler—this
Jesus taught through what he did, as well as what he said. First, he taught the people in the
crowd “many things,” according to Mark. I imagine this included God's desire to
be in relationship with them—to be reconciled. And then he fed them—a very, very large number of them.
To come back to the questions with which we began: How does our God—the God we believe in
and trust—how does our God view the world? As a place where compassion should be practiced, so that all
people may be reconciled to God and to each other? Yes. And how does our God ask us to view the
world? Can there be any doubt
about the answer?
So where do we begin? I
suggest we begin by praying for our hearts to be led to compassion. Then we must look for occasions where
we can reach out across the divide of conflict and show the same compassion to
another person that our Lord has showed to us. And right now. this morning. let us approach the altar to
receive the feeding Christ offers us: the bread broken, the wine poured
out for us. Through
receiving Christ's body and blood may we experience the reconciling grace of
God. And finally, since we
have been filled with Christ's presence, may we offer Christ's compassion and
reconciling presence to the world through our words and our deeds.
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