The Eighth Sunday after Trinity
“As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”
Summary
The people are scattered like sheep and God promises, Jeremiah 23:1-6, to raise up “a righteous branch” to care for them. When Jesus sees that the people are like sheep without a shepherd, Mark 6:30-34 and 53-56, he gets on with the task of shepherding. But the passage doesn’t begin with Jesus, it starts with the disciples. When Jesus was unable to minister in his hometown, he sent them out in his place. Now they have returned, they want to hand everything over to Jesus again. In Mark’s gospel Jesus is less special than in the other gospels. There are no angels and stars announcing Jesus’s arrival, he just shows up with everyone else to be baptised at the Jordan. Mark’s Jesus is always trying to share his ministry with others, empowering them, teaching them that they too are chosen by God and inviting them to be the shepherds (plural) promised in Jeremiah. We, like the disciples, often fail in this task. We do not believe that we have what it takes. And we don’t. But God does. Time and time again the disciples try and fail to be like Jesus. Time and time again Jesus shows them, and shows us, that God made us to be ourselves, not special, but chosen. God’s world is still in need of healing and God chooses us to do it.
First Reading
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
GOSPEL
Mark 6.30-34, 53-56
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; and he began to teach them many things.
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
