Author: Steve

The election is over and we’ve had our fill of listening to both sides complain about the lies told by the other side. And most of us realize that the complaints are valid in both directions. Yet most of the lies told by politicians are a matter of implication. Out and out whoppers are pretty easy to discern, but candidates and campaign ads often manage to imply untruths without actually saying them outright.

So when we turn to this week’s text, John 18:33-38a, and find an experienced politician of the ancient world conversing with Jesus, it’s no surprise that Pilate ends the interview with a candid acknowledgement of political reality in relationship to matters of truth. Pilate’s question rings down the ages as the cry of cynics and skeptics everywhere, “What is truth?”

My academic background as a philosopher answers Pilate’s question with various theories of truth. Truth is coherence. What is true is whatever is self-consistent, a system of beliefs that do not contradict each other. Or truth is pragmatic. Truth is whatever beliefs work to further one’s goals in life. Coherence and pragmatism may be ways to test for truth, but the very nature of truth is as Aristotle said, “To say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.” In other words, truth is correspondence with reality. It doesn’t matter how consistent or practical your beliefs are, if they do not connect with what is real.

Pilate failed to see that connection as he spoke with Jesus. He was concerned with a practical, political truth. His questions to Jesus show him concerned merely to ascertain whether Jesus was making the claim to be a king, an offense against Rome punishable as treason. In verse 34, Jesus confronted Pilate with whether he actually cared about the truth of the matter, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

The rest of the dialogue shows us Pilate distancing himself from any attempt to discern anything about the reality of who Jesus is. “I am not a Jew, am I?” he says, indicating that the truth about any claim Jesus has to be a king makes no practical difference to Pilate.

Jesus tried to talk to Pilate about a kingdom that would make a difference to him, a kingdom that was not and never would be one of the political chess pieces of the Roman empire. It is kingdom of those who acknowledge Jesus Himself as the bearer of truth and who listen to Him (verse 37). But in the end Pilate’s closing question in verse 38 shrugs off even truth as a matter of no practical importance.

We are in Pilate’s position whenever we begin to let practical concerns, whether political or personal, economic or social, take precedence our hold on the reality of Jesus Christ as our Lord and King. If we imagine that political practice justifies compromise of Jesus’ love for all people we become like Pilate. If in order to take care of ourselves we treat others in ways that take no account of Jesus’ command to love our neighbors, we are little Pilates. If we think that making a living or protecting our economic standing entitles us to ignore Jesus’ teaching on sacrifice and generosity, then like Pilate we have tossed the matter of truth into the wind.

If Jesus Christ is our truth, if we acknowledge Him as King and wish to be in His kingdom, then we will live out that truth in every dimension of life. Truth is not merely whatever works, but if we subscribe to the truth that is Jesus, His truth will be working out in us.

We went after it with sledgehammers and picks. One Saturday when I was sixteen, the pastor’s son and I took on the job of tearing down an old brick outdoor barbecue that was an eyesore in the church yard. Bit by bit we pounded it apart and loaded every last brick onto a trailer that began to sit so low its tires rubbed.

Something like that destruction was to happen to the Temple in Jerusalem. We find in our text for this week, Mark 13:1-8, that Jesus predicted every last stone of the Temple would be torn down, not one left upon another. It happened just as He said forty years later in 70 A.D. when the Romans invaded to put down a Jewish revolution.

The disciples were understandably fascinated by the prediction and wanted Jesus to give them a more precise timeline. “Tell us,” they say in verse 4, “when will this be, and what will be the sign. . .”

Jesus, however, is not very interested in satisfying their curiosity about future events. His prediction of the Temple’s destruction was more about defusing their fascination with its size and splendor as expressed by one disciple in verse 1.

In the responding to their “end-times” curiosity, Jesus wants to knock down a couple more stones, stumbling blocks if you like. The first stone to pull down is that of deception. In verses 5 and 6 He warns them not to be led astray, not to be deceived by pretenders who come in His name claiming “I am he!”

The other stone Jesus wishes to knock down is the stone of alarm, of fear regarding events to come. Talking about wars and earthquakes and famines, He tells them that those sorts of things are just the beginning, like the first, early pains of childbirth. Much more is yet to come.

In what follows our text, the whole tone of Jesus is aimed at the removal of that stone of fear. He wants to assure that these events are known to God and are within His plan and control. Moreover, He will be with those who are faithful and carry them safely through.

At a moment in our country when some Christians are taking the outcome of an election as a sign of approaching end times, it would be good once again to remember that Jesus refused to offer much in the way of signs regarding those times, and those He did offer didn’t have much to do with who was in power. Instead He simply warned His disciples not to confuse other leaders with Himself and not to be afraid of coming events. It seems to be a good warning for our time as well.

Maybe it’s because Mark himself was a similar person when he first encountered Jesus, but this week’s text from Mark 12:28-34 got me thinking that Mark is for the second time showing us Jesus responding with some affection to an earnest seeker, perhaps both of them earnest young men.

I write this on All Saints Day, November 1, in anticipation of our celebration of All Saints Sunday together on November 4. It’s a time when we remember all those who have gone before us in the faith, all those who have been made saints by the blood and grace of Jesus Christ.

So as I reflect on this passage and on the earlier text about the “rich young ruler” in Mark 10:17-22 I see both men right on the brink of sainthood as they speak with Jesus. They both desire very much to know what God asks of them and to do it. Their hearts are in the right place. About the rich man we hear the sad conclusion that he went away grieving, seemingly unable to give up his possessions. For the scribe in this week’s text, the outcome seems excitingly open. He was “not far from the kingdom of God.” Maybe he took the final step to follow Jesus and learn how to keep the great commandments and thus came all the way into the kingdom.

While we generally think of our own sainthood (or inclusion in the kingdom) as a given, based on profession of faith in Christ, there is a call and question here for us in this text. If we are truly in the kingdom, are we living like it? Are we loving God with our whole being and our neighbors like ourselves. Or despite what we say, are we only standing at the edge of spiritual life, not far from it, but not really in it yet?

We don’t know the outcome for the scribe, but we may determine for ourselves whether we step over the threshold into sainthood. May we be taking those steps every day.

So three guys were trapped on a desert island. After days of starvation and barely surviving, they found an old lamp. They rubbed it and a genie appeared, offering to grant three wishes, one to each of them.

The first quickly said, “I wish to be in the finest restaurant in New York, with a huge steak dinner in front of me.” Instantly his wish was granted and he was gone.

The second man thought a moment and said, “I wish to be home with my dear wife, just as she’s taking my favorite home-cooked meal out of the oven.” And poof, just like that he’s there.

The third man scratches his head and says, “Gee, I can’t decide. I wish my two friends were back here to help me.”

There are lots of those three-wish jokes, all turning on the theme of how careful one needs to be regarding that for which we ask. Jesus isn’t joking when He gives the same warning to James and John in our text for this week from Mark 10:35-45.

In asking for places of honor, they do not realize what Jesus explains to them in verses 38 and 39, that honor in the kingdom of God only comes through sacrifice and suffering.

So let’s heed the warning of those wish jokes and remember what Jesus said in verse 44, “and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

Sometime in the early 1970’s we went to see a hit musical which came to Los Angeles, from Broadway, “The Rothschilds.” After their incredibly successful “Fiddler on the Roof,” Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock brought us another musical about a Jewish family, but this time instead of Tevye’s deep poverty we caught a look at the Mayer Rothschild family’s rise to vast riches.

In the play, Mayer’s son’s are confronted by his wife Gutele (Mama) about their love for money. She has an amusing habit for a Jewish mother of quoting the New Testament and speaks Jesus’ words from our text this week (Mark 10:17-31), verse 25, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” One of the sons replies, “Ah, but Mama, if one is rich enough, one can buy very small camels and very large needles.”

That Rothschild boy’s flippant dismissal of Jesus’ warning is not that far from the attitude most of us take toward this passage. We are quick to assume that the rich young man who came to Jesus seeking eternal life is a special case, and that there is no blanket call for the rest of us to give away all that we have in order to follow Jesus.

Maybe so. There is certainly evidence that not all Jesus’ disciples gave away all their possessions, otherwise there would have been no homes in which to gather and no way for any of them to eat. Yet shall we escape the force of Jesus’ words that easily?

The rich man’s possessions were clearly a hindrance to his following of Jesus. That’s why the Lord asked him to dispose of them. The question for us is whether we have possessions which hinder our discipleship and whether we are willing to relinquish them in order to follow Christ. What have we got to lose, in order to win eternal life?

It seems like American bread and butter. Businesses compete for market share. Students compete for grades and for entrance into the best colleges. Shoppers compete to snare bargains. Much of our entertainment is watching competitions of various sorts, whether it’s sports events, American Idol, or an absurd “reality” show.

But it’s not just American. It seems like human nature to compete. Arguably males are the more competitive gender, although I get the impression from things my wife says that women compete with each other in ways that are beyond my perception and comprehension. In any case, it’s not actually all that surprising to read our text for this Sunday, Mark 9:30-37 and find Jesus’ disciples in a conversational competition to determine who among them the greatest.

Our text nicely captures Mark’s juxtaposition of Jesus talking again about His coming passion (suffering and death, not the modern meaning of the word) as the disciples fail to comprehend with a practical demonstration of their lack of understanding in a typically male argument about who’s the greatest.

Jesus’ answer to this competitive spirit in His disciples is to set a child in their midst and encourage them to become like children. Does that mean that mean competiveness and self-assertion isn’t an innate part of our nature? Do children start out more humble and only by inculturation become thoroughly competitive? What does it mean to be like a child in relation to God and to each other?

We don’t like to fall behind, whether it’s keeping up with a to-do list, school assignments or loan payments. The current election is largely about how to stop the country falling behind on things like national debt and jobs. The question being asked voters is whether they are any better off than they were four years ago. Have you gotten ahead? Yet this week’s Gospel text, Mark 8:27-38, suggests that falling behind may not always be a bad thing.

It’s a pretty familiar biblical irony that immediately after his deeply perceptive confession of Jesus as the Messiah in verse 29, Peter bungles it all by rebuking His Master for talking about suffering and dying. In verse 33, Jesus’ own rebuke of Peter seems pretty harsh, “Get behind me, Satan!” From loyal, insightful disciple to devil incarnate in just four verses.

However, the overall pericopy for the day allows a slightly softer interpretation of what Jesus said to Peter. After telling him to get behind Him, Jesus’ larger message to both the crowd and His disciples is a call to follow Him even to the point of death. In other words, the place to be is just where He told Peter to get, right behind Him, following.

In verse 38, Jesus spoke directly to Peter’s motivation, warning against be ashamed of Him. Like the teenage child who previously idolized a parent, Peter grew embarrassed of Jesus as he discovered more of who He really is, a Messiah willing to accept rejection and suffering. But unlike parents who do in fact have many faults which may cause their children embarrassment, Jesus only embarrasses us with our own lack of devotion and commitment. We are reluctant to follow and embarrassed because Jesus makes us painfully aware of our own self-protective and selfish natures.

So maybe it’s time to quit thinking so much about getting ahead and be more willing to fall behind, behind Jesus as He leads into the losing sort of life which is the only way to save our lives.

It’s likely that young smart aleck skeptics will continue to discover that “dog” is “God” spelled backward and they will smirk and chortle over a linguisic accident of no real consequence. Yet there is some insight to be found by bringing the dog into relationship with God, as Jesus Himself doubtless knew when He spoke to the Syrophoenician woman and called her a dog in our text, Mark 7:24-37.

It’s interesting that this account of the “dog-woman” shows up twice in the church lectionary, read by itself in Year A from Matthew 15:21-38 and then also this coming Sunday in Year B paired with Jesus’ healing of a deaf and mute man. Perhaps the creators of the lectionary felt something particularly significant was happening here.

One obvious point is that the woman seeking deliverance from demon possession for her daughter was not Jewish. Matthew calls her Caananite, going back to the ancient designation for her people, while Mark more properly names her as “of Syrophoenician origin.” And Jesus’ first reaction is to demur because she is not Jewish, offering the humiliating comment, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Yet the woman humbly accepts that dog label and continues to entreat Jesus from that lowly position. It could be argued that the deaf and mute man in the second part of the pericopy is also doggedly humble as he submits to a rather denigrating prodding by Jesus who sticks His fingers in the man’s ears and applies His own saliva to the man’s tongue.

Perhaps we could all do with a more dog-like faith in its humble submission and absolute dependence on its master. In a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown is sitting eating his lunch with Snoopy alongside. He turns to the dog, “Do you want the rest of this sandwich, Snoopy? I’ve already eaten half of it… you don’t mind? Okay, it’s yours…” And Snoopy catches and snarfs down the sandwich thinking, “I’m so humble it’s sickening.”

Yet that’s the image of how this woman and this man relate to Jesus. They allow themselves to be put in the most humble light in order to receive the help they desperately need. How well we might do to come to Jesus more in that “dog” spirit, ready to prostrate ourselves and beg for the grace we so little deserve.

May God give us all a more dog-like faith.

This summer I encountered the “hand towel” versus “tea towel” distinction. Our new son-in-law is Canadian, a fairly English Canadian. When he came with our daughter Susan to spend a couple weeks in our home, Susan asked us for his sake to observe a new kitchen etiquette. Towels on which one wipes one’s hands are to be sharply distinguished from towels with which one wipes dishes. Andrew’s Canadian family calls the latter “tea towels.”

Evidently in Canada, “tea towels” are generally linen cloths of the sort we might call a “dish towel,” while hand towels are generally terry cloth. So it’s easy to tell them apart. But in our family kitchen those types are interchangeable and Beth and I think nothing of drying our hands on a cloth which we’ve just used to dry dishes. And a linen towel might be used to dry hands or a terry cloth towel to wipe dishes. But for Andrew there was a rigid rule, “Don’t dry your hands on the tea towel!”

So for a couple of weeks I had to stand with wet hands in the center of our kitchen and wonder which was which. Fortunately Susan and her hubby did a lot of the cooking and cleaning up and I was not faced with the dilemma too often.

The strength which even small family traditions (like which towel to use for what) can achieve shows us some of what Jesus contended with as He responds in this week’s text, Mark 7:1-23, to complaints about His disciples not observing religious traditions about washing their hands. The concern was not hygiene, of which ancient people knew little, but a ritual purity which was defiled if one ate with unwashed hands.

Jesus used the occasion of the Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes complaining about His disciple’s lack of handwashing to offer a seemingly unrelated example of tradition gone awry and to make the  points that tradition ought not to derail larger matters of obedience to God and that one ought to be more concerned with avoiding genuine moral vices than with avoiding ritual impurity.

Here in the North Pacific one might think of all the energy and moral indignation devoted to concern over whether food is oganic, fair market, local, etc., etc. While there are certainly genuine issues of justice regarding how some of our food is produced and where it comes from, Jesus would almost certainly offer our regional “food police” a similar injunction to be more concerned about what comes out of our mouths and ultimately out of hearts than with what goes in.

There’s more to be said about how to distinguish healthy tradition from disordered tradition. The Gospel itself was understood to be a tradition, “handed down” (which is the same word root as “tradition” in Greek) from the apostles. So it’s not tradition as such which is the problem, but a tradition which emphasizes the wrong concerns and sets aside more important matters of relationship with God and others.

Current political campaigns are keeping a sharp watch for opportunities to make an opponent “eat his words.” That is, they are looking for embarrassing or damaging gaffes in speeches and interviews, like Todd Akin’s recent unfortunate remarks about rape or President Obama’s suggestion that small business owners did not build their businesses. The hope is to humiliate a candidate or force a retraction, making a person eat his words.

The disciples appear to have something like that in mind at the beginning of the new portion of this week’s text from John 6:56-69. In verse 60 they come to Jesus complaining about the difficult things He has been saying, presumably about coming down from heaven and eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and so on. Like a candidate who embarrasses and offends even his own party, Jesus’ words are hard for even His own followers.

Jesus’ response to the disciple’s difficulty seems obscure, but does in fact address their concerns. Verse 62 about seeing Him, the Son of Man, “ascending to where he was before,” implies that Jesus will prove that He has come down from heaven precisely by going back up to there.

Verse 63 is more difficult. It’s very hard to see how, after the previous talk in the synagogue, saying no less than four times that it is crucial for anyone who wants eternal life to eat His flesh and drink His blood, that Jesus can now say, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.”

Unless we want to carve the text up with some critical move that makes it a patchwork of thoughts from different sources, and not really the words of Jesus, we probably need to understand “flesh” in verse 63 in some way different from the way it is used in verses 51-56. Given the presence of John 6:51-56, there is absolutely no way to make verse 63, ala Zwingli, into a program for a gnostic-like, purely spiritual, anti-sacramental understanding of Christian faith.

It’s back in John 3:6 that we find our solution. Jesus in much the same language contrasts for Nicodemus a “fleshly” understanding of birth with spiritual new birth. Both there and in 6:63, the “flesh” is what it is for Paul in Galatians 5:13-16 (“sinful nature” is a translation of the literal “flesh” for those reading the NIV). Jesus is talking not about the worthlessness of His flesh as an offering for sin and in Holy Communion, but about the worthlessness of human effort and striving apart from the work of the Holy Spirit and the life the Spirit brings. The opposition is focusing on purely physical desires (wanting the loaves and fishes) versus a spiritual life focused around the sacrificial death of Jesus.

Part of what is offensive to the disciples about what Jesus says in John 6 is the implication that Jesus will die, His flesh and blood will be “given.” Part of the “flesh” opposed in verse 63 is our fear of and opposition to any participation in the kind of suffering and death Jesus was anticipating. But Jesus wants us to see that the only road to life, to resurrection, is death.

Check out The Eucharist and the Hollow Place by Danny Yencich for some moving and deeper thoughts on the text than mine.

The pelican has long been an emblem of Christ. The connection comes from a mythical notion arising in the middle ages that when food was scarce a mother pelican would stab her own breast with her bill and feed her children with her own blood. She was seen as a symbol of our Savior shedding His blood for us. Thomas Aquinas included a reference to Jesus as the “Good Pelican” in his hymn Adora te devote (I devoutly adore you), reflecting on Christ’s presence in the sacrament of Communion.

Perhaps the pelican myth (pelicans do not actually feed their children with their blood) helped Christians come to terms with what is actually a more disturbing image in our text for this Sunday, John 6:51-59. In a clear evocation of Holy Communion, Jesus says in verse 53, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

Some Protestant exegetes following Zwingli have gone to great machinations to argue that this text has nothing to do with the Lord’s Table. But that is plainly nonsense because John wrote at a time when the practice of Communion would have been well established and Jesus’ words would have immediately been connected with the bread and cup of the sacrament.

For non-sacramental Protestants who insist on a supposed strict literalism of interpretation, I always find it amusing to point out that it is the Roman Catholic tradition which has maintained and insisted upon the absolutely literal understanding of our text. For them, the reception of Communion is literally and actually the eating of Christ’s body and blood.

But rather than try to decide between the extremes of a Catholic literalism versus an anti-sacramental metaphorical interpretation of the text, why not admit both sorts of meaning to be present? For any Christian the literal flesh and blood of Jesus is the necessary sacrifice for our sins and the accomplishment of our salvation and new life. But for any Christian this is no assertion of cannibalism. There is certainly spiritual mystery and perhaps metaphor also in what Christ is saying.

So Jesus’ invitation to eat His flesh and drink His blood may be understood as a call to constantly feast on Christ as spiritual food and drink in love and devotion, as well as a welcome to the particular act of worship which is receiving the sacrament of Communion. Both are in view here.

Which is all to keep constantly before us the truth that we are not Gnostics. Both our lives and the life of Christ by which we are saved are inextricably bound up with the physical, with flesh and blood. We were not saved by a purely “spiritual,” that is, non-material, atonement, nor is our day to day experience of Christian life and salvation only a matter of spirit. We live our salvation out in our bodies and the end of our salvation is the resurrection of these bodies.

So as squeamish as we might feel about the literal sense of Jesus’ call to eat Him, we ought not try to escape it all together. And that’s good news, because it confirms the importance of the truth which begins John’s Gospel, that “the Word became flesh,” and the truth that our Lord loves us a whole persons, body and spirit.

I stared down at the unappetizing brown glop simmering in an aluminum pot over a little white gas burner, watching as an older boy mushed water together with white powder then squeezed that white glop into the pot. I was eleven years old, it was my first Boy Scout backpack trip, and I was encountering dehydrated beef stroganoff for the first time.

I’d never had beef stroganoff before, so I was doubly unprepared for this concoction created of dehyrdated beef in a brown gravy with reconstituted sour cream mixed in at the end. A couple of my fellow young scouts took a look at it, turned up their noses, and went hungry that night. It was the only food we had. But I was too hungry. I gave it a try and found that it wasn’t too bad. It eventually became one of my favorite backpacking meals until the manufacturer quit producing it when completely freeze-dried meals took over the market.

Our text for this coming Sunday from John 6:35-51, shows some of those who listened to Jesus turning up their noses at the food He was offering. In effect, they turned up their noses at Jesus Himself, because He continued to expound the statement in verse 35 where we ended last week, “I am the bread of life.”

In response to the indignation expressed by His hearers in verses 41 and 42 at His claim that as the Bread of Life He has come down from heaven, Jesus pressed His claim further by suggesting that He is the only meal available. In verse 45, that amounts to saying that anyone listening to the Father will also come to Jesus, then in verse 46 that only He, Jesus, the one who came down from heaven has actually seen the Father. And finally in verses 49 and 50, the insistence that other food, even the miraculous manna received by Israel in the wilderness, does not cut it. Only the Bread of Life, only Jesus, offers eternal life.

Those who heard this originally were offended at Jesus claim to have come from heaven. In these times, the most offensive aspect of Jesus’s words is likely to be the claim of exclusivity, to be the only real bread available. It’s a tough sell in a culture used to picking and choosing from a large variety of physical nourishment, but from a variety of spiritual menus as well.

I don’t think we serve Jesus or our neighbors well by trying to soften the exclusiveness of His claims, but we can address some of that concern by remembering to voice our Lord’s own inclusive invitation. In insisting on His role as the only Bread of Life, Jesus meant to open eternal life to anyone who would receive it. That’s why in verse 51 He says, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”

Let’s try to keep in sight both sides of our faith’s “exclusivity.” Jesus is the only meal available, but anyone is welcome at the Table.

 

The current culinary climate is one of startling inconsistencies. Bombarded by food television of every sort, we may appreciate more than ever before good food made with fine ingredients. You would never catch an “iron chef” sauteing vegetables in margarine rather than butter, or opening a can of green beans. Fresh, natural ingredients are the order of the day.

Likewise for the insistence upon “organic” vegetables, poultry, etc. The send-up in the first episode of “Portlandia” gets it just right. A young couple in a trendy restaurant orders chicken and is presented with their chicken’s profile, including pictures, name and where the chicken was raised.

On the other hand, our grocery stores are full as never before of clever substitutes for the real thing. A zillion variations on margarine, skim milk, “lite” versions of cheese and sour cream and ice cream fill the dairy and freezer sections. Turkey sausage and tofu meat substitutes abound. Potato chips are fried in some sort of non-fat, non-oil. Non-gluten bread products crowd the shelves, far beyond what might be purchased by those who are actually gluten-intolerant.

All of it suggests that there is something dysfunctional about our current relationship with food. We no longer have a good sense of what makes for genuine and healthy eating.

In a prescient passage in Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis attempts to display the way sexual desire has gone astray by an analogy between a striptease and something similar with food: “Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?”

Lewis would surely be dismayed by the Food Channel, and his conclusion would be obvious. In the light of John 6, and particularly our passage for this Sunday, John 6:22-35, it may be that our present culinary dysfunction is a diabolic trick to keep us from comprehending as well as we might what Jesus says in verse 27 about seeking “the food that endures for eternal life.” Our spiritual comprehension of the passage is damaged both by our over-attention to ordinary physical food and by our distorted perception of the difference between what is and is not real food.

The Lord gave us a very simple meal to celebrate at His Table, just bread and wine. Let us reflect on that and be called back to our senses away both from dangerous preoccupation with daily food and from unhealthy, tasteless substitutes for ordinary food. And in that new perspective may we perceive better the food of eternal life, the Bread of Life, who is Christ our Lord.

It’s hard to take a break. Right now, many of us are grateful to have jobs, and if vacation time seems short and difficult to arrange even if we have the time coming, we may be willing to accept it. But as the gift of the Sabbath clearly indicates, rest is something God wishes for everyone, and longer rests periods also seem to be part of the divine intent.

In the beginning of our text this week, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, we find the disciples in verse 30 to tell Jesus all about what they had accomplished during the mission He sent them on earlier in verse 7 to 13. Jesus’ response to their reports in verse 32 is worth pondering.

First, however, think about how a contemporary business manager or supervisor might respond to employees who bring a successful report of sales, production, contracts written or whatever. Wouldn’t we expect a typical pep talk to go something like, “Great work! Now go out there and do it again and see if you can add 5 or 10 percent to your productivity the next time around.”

Most of us would be stunned to have an employer who responded to our good work like Jesus did. Instead of asking His followers to get right back out there and see if they couldn’t do even better, cast out a few more demons, hit a few more towns on the next journey, Jesus said, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.”

There was still plenty to do. That is made abundantly clear by what follows in our text. The needs were overwhelming and the people would not let Jesus and His followers alone. Despite that, Jesus saw the need for His disciples to take a break, to rest even from doing the most important work of all.

Even Jesus Himself needed rest, time away from the crowds, as we see from other Gospel texts. However, in this passage, He Himself takes no break, but instead serves as Shepherd to both the disciples and the masses of people in need. Our text skips the feeding of the 5,000 because the lectionary jumps out of Mark to linger on that miracle in John’s longer account for five weeks. But Jesus is providing sustenance, healing and rest to all those around Him.

We’re the sheep, not the Shepherd. We need to remember that and to accept the rest that He wants to give us as part of His grace. Let’s ask ourselves this week how we may better and more willingly accept from our Lord the precious gift of a rest break like He offered those first disciples.

While we were in Canada for our daughter’s wedding in May, the future king of England and his wife arrived. Prince Charles and Camilla came to Toronto to join in the Victoria Day (a holiday in honor of the queen’s birthday) festivities. We observed with no little amusement how the Canadians, including our host, grew excited to have royalty among them.

Charles and Camilla have suffered a long bout of unpopularity after he divorced the immensely loved Princess Diana following a public admission of and an adulterous affair with Camilla. But Charles looks almost like a saint in comparison to the royalty who lived under the name Herod.

In our text for this Sunday, Mark 6:14-29, we meet the second Herod of the New Testament. This is Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great (who we remember tried to kill the infant Jesus). Antipas followed in his father’s footsteps in all the worst ways, imitating his father’s excesses (Herod the Great had ten wives) but without his father’s competence.

The setting for the story is that Antipas decided to divorce his wife and take the wife (Herodias) of his brother Philip (who was still living). Herodias was the daughter of Antipas’ half-brother Aristobulus and thus he was marrying his niece. To that seamy story, Antipas added the murder of the one man with enough guts to point out the immorality of it all.

Mark recalls the murder of John the Baptist after in verse 14-16 showing us Antipas worrying that the reports he was hearing about Jesus’ preaching and miracles meant that John had risen from the dead and come back to haunt him.

John the Baptist is a fascinating figure and verses 17-29 takes us completely away from the story of Jesus to give us the details of John’s death. We are actually in the middle of another Markan “sandwich,” because in last week’s text (Mark 6:7-13) Jesus sent His disciples out to preach and heal. Then in verse 30, after the story about John, we see them returning to report to Jesus all they had done.

The implication of the sandwich may be that the fate of John will be the fate of those who are most faithful to Christ. Speaking the truth about corruption will make us unpopular with people in power. There’s much to think about here as we compare Antipas’ negative example of weakness and dissipation with John’s glowing model of faithfulness even to death.