From Mark’s Gospel….
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….
Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
(From the Daily Office Readings, Mar. 15, 2012, Mark 6:30-34, 45-46)
In between these two sections from Mark’s Gospel Jesus teaches a great crowd of people and then feeds them with five loaves of bread and two fish; the crowd “numbered five thousand men” and who knows how many women and children. But what draws my attention today are the words of Jesus, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” and Mark’s words at the end, “He made his disciples get into the boat and go [away]” and “he went up on the mountain to pray.” Lots and lots of ministry activity bracketed by “down time”, time away from the demands of the crowd, time to rest, time to pray, times of sabbath. Mark doesn’t actually call these “sabbath times”, but that’s what they were. Part of the genius of the Jewish faith (and, by extension from it and by the modeling of its Founder, of the Christian faith) is that the human need for rest is made sacred. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Gen. 2:3) “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God ; in it you shall not do any work.” (Exod. 20:8-10) Jesus famously remarked, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) Methodist writer Leonard Sweet interprets Jesus as meaning that it’s not so much that we keep the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath keeps us. It keeps us whole, keeps us sane, and keeps us spiritually alive. In today’s story from Mark’s Gospel we tend to focus on the feeding of the five thousand (the part I left out up above), but I’m beginning to believe that the really important part of the story are the “brackets”, the times of rest. Do not neglect to “come [or go] away to a desert place by yourselves and rest a while” on a regular basis!
Every time I read this story, competing visions of the scene do battle in my imagination. First, there is the image of Rita Hayworth dancing the lascivious “dance of the seven veils” before Herod (played by Charles Laughton) in the movie Salomé (the name given Herod’s step-daughter by Flavius Josephus in his histories; her name is not mentioned in the Bible). If I recall correctly, there is a similarly sensual portrayal in the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told. The other image I see with my mind’s eye is of a much younger dancer, a pre-adolescent child. In the original Koine Greek, she is referred to as a korasion (vv. 22 and 28), the same word used in Monday’s gospel story of the healing of Jairus’s daughter. In that story the word is translated as “little girl” an applied to a child twelve years of age, a girl not yet old enough to be married. ~ As popular as the Rita Hayworth version is, I’d rather go with the little girl version. I’d rather not see the dance as part and parcel with the evil done to John the Baptist, which the lewdness of the strip-tease version suggests. I prefer to see this as a tale of innocence perverted, a child’s sweet gift of a simple dance taken advantage of by a scheming, vengeful adult, a cautionary tale (if you will) of purity sullied. Dance, in itself, should be thought of as a good thing. ~ When our son announced his engagement and then the couple announced their wedding date, and let us know that there would be a formal reception afterward with dancing, my wife and I decided to take ballroom dance classes. We discovered that dancing is not for sissies! It turned out to be darned difficult for rhythmically challenged folks like us; it also turned out to be fairly demanding physical exercise. But I enjoyed it and I’m glad we took the classes. I’m hoping we’ll take some more and make dancing a regular part of our lives. One should remember and heed the advice of St. Augustine (354-430):
There is so much in this little story! It serves as a great illustration of two old sayings: “Familiarity breeds contempt” and “You can never go home again”. Jesus’ home-town friends were too familiar with him. They’d known him since he was a boy. He’d done the equivalent of delivering their papers, mowing their lawns, playing with their kids, climbing their trees. Those who were his own generation knew him as fellow student, someone they’d sat in synagogue with, a working stiff making chairs and tables in his father’s workshop. They couldn’t accept him as anything more or different, and certainly not as religious leader! Their familiarity with him bred their contempt of his ministry, and that contempt came out in the form of old rumors and gossip: “This is Mary’s son” not “This is Joseph’s son” … those old stories about his parentage. They took offense at him and they became offensive and contemptuous in return. After this incident, Jesus left Nazareth and never returned. Despite Jesus’ ministry, his gifts for teaching and preaching, his ability to heal, in Nazareth he could never be more than his family’s and his friends’ memories allowed: he was a carpenter, how could he ever be anything else? Sometimes you can’t go home again because people are blinded by their memories and only see what was “back in the day”. Jesus realized it was time to detach with love and walk away. ~ In the Episcopal Church, we have a special prayer or “collect” that is to be said at each celebration of the Eucharist; there is such a prayer for each weekday in Lent. The collect for today includes the petition, “Grant that we, to whom you have given a fervent desire to pray, may, by your mighty aid, be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities.” Sometimes the adversities we face come from those whom we expect to be our greatest supporters, friends and family who can’t let go of prejudices, presuppositions, and presumptions. Sometimes the greatest source of comfort in those situations is distance. If we have to detach and walk away, this little story from Mark’s Gospel reminds us that Jesus has been there before and shares the pain of family separation with us.
What is most interesting and empowering about this story of the healing of Jairus’s daughter told in today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel is its ending. Jesus goes to the girl, takes her by the hand and says, “Talitha cum,” which Mark tells us means “Little girl, get up.” But Mark also later tells us that the girl was twelve years old. She is an adolescent and this is significant: by Jewish tradition, a girl becomes a woman at twelve years and one day. So this young girl was poised at the very threshold of womanhood, of taking her place in the community as an adult. So not a little girl, but nearly a young woman, got up at Jesus’ command. Jesus then said to those around them, “Give her something to eat.” He doesn’t say to her, young adult though she may be, “Go and make your own breakfast.” Instead, he turns to her family and says, “Give her something to eat.” After the healing and lifting up of the one cured, Jesus commends her to the care and nurture of the community. ~ In our society, even the best of medical care comes to an end and, as with Jairus’s daughter, the patient’s family must take over. In The Book of Common Prayer, a prayer “for the aged” asks that God “give them understanding helpers” (BCP 1979, page 830); this story reminds us that not only the elderly, but also the very young and those in the prime of life may, from time to time, have need of assistance, may be patients in the midst of illness or recovering from expert medical care. As caregivers, we who are members of their family (or other nuclear community) are the experts in their history; we know a lot about our loved one and about their own abilities to provide care and a safe setting. Among the common care responsibilities we may all someday be handling for a family member as he or she recovers from illness, injury, or surgery are personal care (bathing, eating, dressing, toileting), household care (cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping), healthcare (medication management, physician’s appointments, physical therapy, wound treatment, injections), and emotional care (companionship, meaningful activities, conversation). ~ The end of Mark’s story of the Jairus’s daughter’s healing reminds us that these are Christ-like ministries empowered by God, not simply onerous family burdens. In The Book of Common Prayer there is also a lovely prayer entitled “For strength and confidence” following the liturgy of Ministration to the Sick: “Heavenly Father, giver of life and health: Comfort and relieve your sick servant N., and give your power of healing to those who minister to his/her needs, that he/she may be strengthened in his/her weakness and have confidence in your loving care; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (BCP 1979, page 459) This story from Mark’s Gospel reminds us that family members are included among those to whom we ask God to give the “power of healing.”
