Splanchnizomi

Christ Speaking to a CrowdGeorge Pedro

Mark 6:30-34; 53-56

July 22, 2015

  

The disciples are back from their travels

and their excited to tell Jesus what they’ve been up to.

Jesus and the disciples are getting big.

The word is spreading and people are coming out

from far and wide to see him.

He’s being mobbed like a TV star in Hollywood.

So Jesus suggests that they all go

and get away from the crowds

and go to a deserted place

and get some well deserved rest.

But again they’re recognized and there’s a crowd around them.

It says that Jesus looked at that crowd

and he had compassion for the crowd

Because they are like sheep without a shepherd.

We know that without a shepherd,

Sheep get lost very easily, they’re frightened

and they run from one thing to the next.

They are not calm and level headed.

They don’t know where to go,

they don’t know where their next meal is coming from

they are very anxious and lost.

These people following Jesus were like

sheep without a shepherd.

Now, we might have an idealized view of how that looks.

A crowd of sad people, like in a painting

slightly disheveled and forlorn

but patient, good natured, and thankful.

Now one thing I’ve found about reading the bible,

is that times have changed, situations have changed,

rules and norms have changed, words have changed,

but people, for the most part have not changed all that much.

And our experience tells us that the picture of

these sheep without a shepherd is not so idealized.

We know that when people are anxious and lost

when we don’t know where our next meal

is coming from, we are not at our best.

The reality is that that patient, good natured, thankful

crowd of people was more likely to be

cranky, short tempered, impolite, and rude.

People are not normally sweet and humble

when they are anxious and lost.

They are sometimes desperate.

Sheep without a shepherd often make bad choices

and when they’re anxious and lost too long

they make very bad choices like

chemical dependency, crimes, and violence.

Prisons today are filled with shepherdless sheep

People who make a one or two or a series of bad decisions.

the chronically lost souls.

We’ve probably seen people like this.

Maybe we’ve known them,

maybe we’ve been them at one time or another.

  

Now our upwardly mobile society

tells us that we should look on people like this with contempt.

Some would even say to shame them or harass

them would be the best course of action,

that that would somehow shake them up

and change the course of their behavior.

At the very least, we should not be coddling or fraternizing

with these people lest we get dragged

into their shepherdless sheep ways.

But Jesus, it said, looked at these people and had compassion.

Compassion. We know what that means. The definition is:

“Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others”

It means to hurt for someone else’s pain.

Now the word that is used here is translated

as compassion because that’s the closest in English

but the word in Greek is much more descriptive.

The word is splanch-ni-zo-mai

It’s  kind of a euphemism  more than just a word

it actually means bowels.

There are other words in Greek to convey compassion

that don’t have quite this meaning.

But what Jesus felt was this kind of compassion.

Bowel compassion. Deep low in the stomach.

You know that feeling.

A combination of sadness, pain, and deep love.

When do you remember feeling that,

deep in your bowels?

I feel it at funerals when loved ones

are just dealing with their losses.

I feel it every time there’s one of those shootings,

which seems to be almost a monthly routine

here in the United States now,

Like the one in Chatanooga this week

when they show the pictures of the people

who were killed right in the middle of their day.

Deep pain for the suffering of another,

deep emotions for another person

and a desire to change the situation.

Jesus felt compassion for them

because they were like sheep without  a shepherd.

And he began to teach them many things.

He taught them, spent time with them, talked with them.

No doubt they weren’t all saints.

No doubt they weren’t all kind or gentle.

But they didn’t have to do anything good to win Jesus attention.

All they did was be anxious, directionless people.

Lost sheep.

That tells us a lot about Jesus and about God.

I have a few friends and acquaintances

that have serious doubts about God.

They look at the church’s behavior or

the behavior of Christians and they assume that God is the same.

They see the most prominent Christians

in the world judging, shaming , harassing or ignoring others.

 and they think that is a reflection of God.

But Jesus is the way we know God.

And Jesus looks at the worst of this world

and doesn’t react with judgment, shame, contempt

 an eye roll, or by turning away.

Jesus reacts with splachnizomai.

Bowels, deep pain and sympathy.

I believe that God looks at the horrors of this world,

the violence, the lost people, the addiction, the apathy

the endless ways we hurt each other,

God looks at the shootings,

and even the shooters who cause the pain

and experiences a deep bowel pain for this symptom of a lost humanity.

Even when we have contempt and hatred,

God has compassion.

Even when we roll our eyes,

God opens his arms.

Even when we have no more compassion to give,

God has more.

We have all been lost sheep.

Humanity loses it’s way,

we are prone to callousness,

despair and cynicism,

we have all made bad choices,

We make deals with the devil and

trade in good things for bad.

We forget where our shepherd is

and who our shepherd is.

But when we get lost,

we just need to remember that

Jesus is our shepherd.

And it is his compassion, his love,

mercy and forgiveness that will

heal us, guide us, and bring us home.