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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Alright.
Jeremy Duncan:The gospel mark part 2. And the reason this is part 2 is because this fall, we worked through the first half of this gospel. For Lent, we are picking up the story where we left off and following it through to its conclusion. Now, last week we just completed a series called Beautiful Body in the first, letter to the Corinthians. If you missed any of that series, you should absolutely also go and check it out online.
Jeremy Duncan:It was a lot of fun. We talked about bodies and love and tongues and resurrection. Paul really liked to pack a lot into his letters. But for our recap today, I actually want to reach all the way back to the gospel of Mark, part 1, so that we can get ourselves situated for the journey ahead. And in the first half of the series, one of the things we talked about was the pace of Mark.
Jeremy Duncan:Like, Paul likes to pack a lot into his letters. Mark likes to move the story at a clip. In fact, it's one of my favorite parts about Mark. The author isn't really a character in the story. He hangs back.
Jeremy Duncan:He doesn't add a lot of commentary. He doesn't think you need your hand held. He just lays out the narrative. This happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this. What do you think about all that?
Jeremy Duncan:It's actually a very Jewish way of telling a story, as if Mark is trying to draw the answers out of you. And that might not seem all that odd until maybe you think about the gospel of John, for example. Probably, maybe one of the most famous verses in our Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that so whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn it, but to save the world through him.
Jeremy Duncan:It's beautiful. Right? Incredibly important for our Christian faith. But that's not actually Jesus talking. That's John explaining the story to you.
Jeremy Duncan:It's a cinematic terms. That's what we call an exposition dump. And, by the way, if that's not enough for you, most scholars agree that the author of the gospel of John has written himself into the story as the, quote, disciple Jesus loved. Bold move, John. Now, I happen to love that, actually.
Jeremy Duncan:I think that that is an explicit invitation for all of us to put ourselves in the story with Jesus. It's great, but it's also very different from the way the writer of the gospel of Mark approaches things. In fact, we'll get to this in a few weeks, but the earliest copies of the gospel of Mark, they end with Jesus' death. Resurrection is an implication you're supposed to come to on your own. It's not an exposition in Mark.
Jeremy Duncan:And that should ground how we read this gospel. Things happen and then we are invited to ask ourselves, what does it mean? And so that's what we did this fall. We talked about Jesus calling disciples from unexpected corners. We saw Jesus engage in a series of physical healings that had implications for our social paradigms.
Jeremy Duncan:We watched Jesus confront religious leaders and, by extension, religious assumptions. We saw Him teach with story rather than explanation. Calm storms that raged overseas, then calm storms that raged within our psyches. And And all of these have implications for how we understand good news. But we're not being told by Mark.
Jeremy Duncan:We're being shown. And I'm not going to say that's better or it's more effective. I mean, who am I to tell John how to do his job? But I am gonna say that at some point in all of our stories, figuring it out for ourselves becomes a necessity. And Mark gets that.
Jeremy Duncan:So let's dive back in for Lent, and let's start to figure it out together. But first, let's pray. God who is always ahead of us, both in our pain and in our celebration, inviting us forward with courage and with hope. We ask that you would be near to us on this Lenten journey. In whatever fragile state we entered this day, we trust that your spirit of comfort be gentle and close, reminding us of your presence in every moment.
Jeremy Duncan:Might we remember both our constant need of you, but also the implication that that brings, our dependence on each other as well. Where we can, might we become a source of encouragement and strength for the person beside us. Might we help to carry their burden this season as well. And in that, might even we point toward new life and resurrection. A world infused with peace that encompasses more than just the laying down of arms, but the healing of wounds and the space to be honest with ourselves.
Jeremy Duncan:May your peace that passes understanding take shape not just as an extraordinary claim, but as justice for all. And may our lives continue that journey toward your peace to come. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Okay.
Jeremy Duncan:The gospel of Mark. And this week, we are picking up in chapter 6 with a pretty famous story, the feeding of the 5,000, not to be confused with the feeding of the 4,000, a story that takes place just a couple chapters later. But that alone is a really interesting observation in the gospel of Mark. Jesus feeds people, a lot of people. Jesus cares about what people have to eat.
Jeremy Duncan:Jesus cares about what people need to live well. And we saw that in the first half of the gospel as well. Good news is far more than just what happens after you die. Good news starts now, or it's not really gospel. And so today we're going to need to talk about habits and reading between the lines, inciting incidents, and how we get to the kingdom of God.
Jeremy Duncan:But first let's talk about lunch. Now, some of you know this about me, but I like my rhythms. I walk my dog on the same loop twice a day every day. I have worn the same clothes to work every Sunday for close to a decade now. By the way, that's not just in your head.
Jeremy Duncan:It's true. I write my sermons on the same day every week. I make the same coffee the same way every morning when I get to work. And, I love all of that. But those rhythms extend very much into lunch.
Jeremy Duncan:See, I have this thing where I will find a new dish that is delicious and easy and readily accessible. That's basically my criteria for food. And then I will, without external intervention, I will eat that dish every day for months on end until one day the absolute revulsion will kick in. And I will find myself literally unable to take one more bite of that particular food for a minimum of, let's say, 6 months. Apparently, a therapist told me this morning that's a real thing.
Jeremy Duncan:It's called a food jag. Who knew? There was a period a few years ago where I ate the exact same breakfast burrito every day for probably a year. I would make them in these large batches and freeze them, and I would pull one out every morning. And I did this for months months on end until literally one day I was halfway through the same breakfast burrito I had eaten for months, and I could not force myself to take another bite.
Jeremy Duncan:217.5 days of breakfast burritos. That smell of egg and salsa still locked somewhere traumatic in the back of my mind. I've never been back since. But, generally, this works for me. I'm pretty comfortable with my idiosyncrasies.
Jeremy Duncan:I've had them for a very long time. It is amusing, however, to see some of those patterns start to show up in my kids. My son, who is 10 now, every day comes home and makes himself 2 microwaved veggie dogs on cold buns slathered in ketchup. And on the one hand, it makes me gag. But on the other hand, I appreciate the commitment.
Jeremy Duncan:So when I hear about 5,000 people about to sit down to the same meal of fish and bread, and then only a couple chapters later to do it all over again, it warms my habitual heart. So let's take a closer look at this very simple, and yet I think very important symbolic meal. However, before we open Mark's account, let's remember what we talked about just a few days ago on Ash Wednesday. Jesus' cousin and friend, John the Baptist, has just been murdered, executed by a violent pseudo king named Herod Antipas. And in a very Mark like way, our gospel moves directly from that story into this one with no gap, leaving us to wonder about what that might have been like for Jesus.
Jeremy Duncan:However, if we look to the parallel in Matthew, we get some of that interpersonal commentary I was talking about earlier. This is Matthew 14. When Jesus heard what had happened to John the Baptist, He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed Him on foot from the towns around the shore. And so when Jesus landed, He saw a large crowd gathered, and he had compassion on them.
Jeremy Duncan:Now it's really interesting, for me at least, to see the very different ways these 2 different authors approach this same moment. Matthew absolutely does not want you to miss the emotional weight that is pressing down on Jesus, and the compassion that he musters in the midst of it. Jesus is just trying to find a slice of space to process what's happened to his friend, and here comes the crowd looking for something from him. And that's something very poignant there in that juxtaposition. Right?
Jeremy Duncan:At a very basic level, we all know what it's like to come home after a really hard day, and your roommate needs to talk, or your kids want to play. It's not easy to be present in those moments. Mark, though, wants to leave that up to you to wonder about. He tells you about John the Baptist, but then he moves straight to this story about a hungry crowd so that you might fill in the emotional gap for yourself. It's the same story with the same details, but the two writers are taking different approaches to get there.
Jeremy Duncan:And at the very least, I think that is a reminder for us to slow down and ask questions when we read the Bible. Like, what's going on between the verses? What's happening here that's left unsaid? What emotions should I or maybe would I have if I found myself in this situation? In religious language, we would call that lectio divina.
Jeremy Duncan:But at a very basic level, this is just exactly the kind of interrogation that Mark is hoping you will wrestle with as you read his words. In fact, as I said earlier, it's a very Jewish form of storytelling, outlining a narrative and then leaving lots of room for you to fill things in imaginatively. Actually, a few weeks back at the start of the year, I was telling the story of Jacob and Esau. And I was riffing on some of the questions that I had about what had happened to Esau off the page while the story followed Jacob. After all, if you remember, Esau returns unexpectedly at the end of the story as this wise, mature, older brother ready to reconcile with Jacob.
Jeremy Duncan:But on Sunday night, during the question and response after the sermon, somebody asked me about why I thought those details were left untold. And I didn't really have a great answer for that, But I did say that I think sometimes those gaps can be a gift. Because more details might be satisfying to Bible nerds like me, but more space between the lines, that affords me more room to place myself in the story, to wonder about how I might respond, to ask what I would have needed to come to the place that Esau had, to question how I would respond if my friend had died and a gaggle of strangers wanted my attention and my lunch. So I think sometimes when you find yourselves frustrated that the Bible doesn't give you the answers, that's actually your signal from spirit to let your imagination run wild for just a moment. So let's see how Mark tells this story.
Jeremy Duncan:This is chapter 6 verse 31. And I'm going to read the whole story today. Because so many people were coming and going, Jesus and his disciples didn't have a chance to eat. So he said to them, come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.
Jeremy Duncan:Remember, this is directly on the heels of the story of John the Baptist's death. But many who saw them leave recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. So when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And so he began teaching them many things. By this time, it was late in the day.
Jeremy Duncan:So the disciples came to him. This is a remote place, they said. Literally, a wilderness or a desert. Hold on to that. And it's already very late, they added.
Jeremy Duncan:So send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages, and they can buy themselves something to eat. But Jesus answered, you give them something to eat. And they said to him, that would take more than half a year's wages. Are we really supposed to go and spend that much money on bread and just give it to them to eat? How many loaves do you have?
Jeremy Duncan:He asked. Go and see. When they found out, they said 5 and 2 fish, which, to be fair, was nice of them to offer. So Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. And, by the way, green grass, that is not just a translator's flourish.
Jeremy Duncan:That is right there in the text of Mark. Chloros, cortos, green grass. It's actually quite conspicuous because of the alliteration. Remember, the disciples just described this area as a desert or a wilderness. Jesus sees green grass.
Jeremy Duncan:The disciples think there's not nearly enough food to feed all these people. And Jesus says, you might be surprised. This is all very much part of the story. But they sat down in groups of 100 and fifties taking the 5 loaves and the 2 fish. And looking up to heaven, Jesus gave thanks and broke the loaves.
Jeremy Duncan:Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the 2 fish among them. They all ate and were satisfied. By the way, there's absolutely nothing here to suggest that anything miraculous has happened in the story. There is only the giving of thanks and the sharing of food, which results in the disciples picking up 12 basketfuls of broken bread and fish.
Jeremy Duncan:The number of men who had eaten that day was 5,000. Now, the text here is actually quite clear that the number is referring to the men in the crowd only. A lot of the time in the New Testament, you will see the words for men or brothers being used to refer to a gathered community. And it's not intended to be gender specific. It's just part of the cultural designation in Greek.
Jeremy Duncan:This number, though, is designated very much to refer to only the men in the crowd, which means that along with families, we're likely talking of 10 to 15000 people all with full bellies. But that's our story. There are a few pieces here, though, that I think are particularly interesting. First of all, in all of that section that I just read, Jesus only has 3 tiny lines. If you have one of those red letter Bibles in front of you, it's all pretty black and white, which makes me even more intrigued by what is in red.
Jeremy Duncan:Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. You give them something to eat. How many loaves do you have? And if you look at the narrative those are the 3 instigating incidents in the story. It starts because Jesus recognizes the need in himself and his friends to get away for some rest and food.
Jeremy Duncan:Unfortunately, that doesn't work the way he expected, and the crowds follow anyway, so the disciples ask him to send them away. So Jesus flips the script. Here comes act 2. If they're hungry, you feed them. Now, at that, the disciples turn immediately to economics, like, how can we afford all this?
Jeremy Duncan:And they think of real estate. Jesus, do you understand where we are in the middle of nowhere? For them, the idea of responding is a non starter. Scale of the problem is just too big. Enter Jesus now with act 3.
Jeremy Duncan:What do you have in your pocket? And then depending on how you read this story, we either get the multiplication of miraculous bread, or we get the miracle of demonstrated generosity that results in contagious mutuality. But in the end, they all ate and were satisfied. So let's take these statements 1 by 1 and see what we can learn. Let's get away for some rest and some food.
Jeremy Duncan:Mark doesn't connect this as directly to John the Baptist as Matthew does, But I think the implication is clear. He puts it directly after that incident, and I think He wants you to pay attention to that. If the Son of God, the CEO of peace, as it were, thinks it's time to take a rest and to get away from the crowds, to find a solitary place to process, maybe it's worth asking why. Here's what I would say. All of us are going to respond to grief or to stress in different ways.
Jeremy Duncan:And I don't think we should ever put ourselves in this prescriptive box saying this is the appropriate way to be sad. But I do think Jesus knows something that all of our therapists know, Grief and sadness and stress and anxiety, all of that takes a massive toll on our body. Do you know that your brain consumes 20% of your calories in a day? And that's on a normal day when you're not processing the death of one of your very few close friends. Rest, food, space, time alone to process, stepping back from your obligations to care for yourself.
Jeremy Duncan:All of these are spiritual disciplines, disciplines that were practiced by Jesus and modeled for his friends to follow. And if you're anything like me, when things get hard, you want to get busy. That's okay. Not only do I get that. I feel that very deeply.
Jeremy Duncan:In fact, I like that about myself. But I also know that I can't let that convince me to ignore my limitations because that's not going to end well. And so when I hear Jesus saying, hey, we need to get away and we need to find some space, and we need to get some food and some rest, then I wanna ask myself, well, what's going on that he's aware of that I need to pay attention to as well? And in this case, in this story, it's grief, but it could just as easily be stress at work or unresolved conflict in your relationships. It could be the thing you know you need to say, but you're not quite sure how to say it yet.
Jeremy Duncan:All of that needs attending to. And sometimes it needs lunch. And often that starts with rest. Now, that's good. But life is often complicated, isn't it?
Jeremy Duncan:Because act 1 unfolds and it feels very real, but then act 2 hits, and to be honest, maybe that feels a little too real. Because Jesus wants some space, and the crowds don't know how to give it to him. And this is what's really interesting here. The disciples who didn't know that they needed the rest in the first place, they're the ones who are like, well, we got a plan, Jesus. Send them away to look after themselves.
Jeremy Duncan:And it's Jesus who just called for the rest in the first place. He's the one who's moved by compassion to change course. I think we've got to be really careful with this. As I promise you, every time you think you need a rest, there will be, hot on its heels, a very good reason not to. And we do not want to use act 2 as an excuse to ignore act 1.
Jeremy Duncan:That's a recipe for something very bad. But there are moments where our plans have to give way to compassion. And I wish this story gave us a more clear delineation of when we make that choice. That that'd probably be a little bit too tidy and therefore a little less real. But I will note this from the text.
Jeremy Duncan:It says that Jesus had compassion on them. And compassion is one of those words that sometimes feels a little bit too nebulous to us. Like, what does compassion mean exactly? When do we respond to compassion exactly? But the Greek here is actually kind of helpful.
Jeremy Duncan:The word is splagnizomai, and what that means is that Jesus felt their hunger in his splagnon. Now, that means his bowels. But the colloquial equivalent here would be something like he felt their hunger in his gut. And I know that's not a perfect hermeneutic for you to decide when to give up your plans or when to sacrifice your needs to care for someone else. But I do think what's important here is that we don't do that because we feel guilty.
Jeremy Duncan:There's a time to put someone's needs above your own. And there's a time to respond with compassion. But it's not because you feel pressured to do it. And it's not because you feel guilty. And it's not because you're interested in the fawning praise that you might receive somewhere down the line.
Jeremy Duncan:It's because in that moment, you know in your gut, this is right, and this is good, and this is where God wants me to be. There's a difference between the compassion that moves you and the guilt that pushes you. Sometimes it's very hard for us to know the difference, but I think that Jesus did. And I think we should listen to that. And so we find that the Jesus who calls for rest now redirects his friends' attention and points them toward the need that's in front of them right now, To which they respond, look, are you kidding me?
Jeremy Duncan:And, again, that feels kind of real. I mean, we've had some big crowds here at the church, but nothing like the tens of thousands of people the disciples are staring at. Where do you start with lunch for that? And Jesus says, you start with what you've got. And look, I get it.
Jeremy Duncan:That's about as cliched as it gets. And yet, like, what other answer is there? When you see a need and you feel it in your gut, and you know somewhere deep inside that this is more than just an opportunity, this is where God wants you to be, Then I think dreaming is great, and I think planning is important. I think prayer is essential. But sometimes before anything else, what you do is you reach in your pocket, and you see what you have, and you get to work, and you trust that God will meet you there.
Jeremy Duncan:That's how every good thing starts. And so you give or you volunteer or you offer or you invite, but you trust that the miracle is in the responding. And that sometimes that matters more than the outcome anyway. See, I'll be honest here. I don't think it's an accident that Mark leaves the miraculous up to interpretation.
Jeremy Duncan:As I said before, there's no indication in the text here how we get from the blessing in the food to the handing out to everyone eating. And I think that's by design. Because sometimes you start with what you've got and God responds. And sometimes you start with what you've got, and your neighbor responds. And both of them can be absolutely equally supernatural, because that's the kingdom of God.
Jeremy Duncan:It's not how we get there. It's that no one is left empty in the end. And that's about as good a place to enter Lent and our journey toward Easter as I can imagine. This reminder to rest, this call to change course when necessary, This beauty of starting with what's in your pocket right now and trusting that something unexpected can actually come from it if you trust. That's the story that all of us are invited to.
Jeremy Duncan:That's the story that leads us to resurrection and new life. Let's pray. God, thank you for these stories that you continue to invite us into. Stories where we are unsure if we have enough in our pocket right now. Stories where we are struggling to find our place.
Jeremy Duncan:Who are we? What character are we? What's our role? Stories where the need seems too big, and so we back away. And yet in this Lenten season, you call us forward into each of those tales to say, you start with what you have.
Jeremy Duncan:And that small moments of generosity can inspire divine response. They can inspire a mutuality and commitment. But in the end, together, our stories connected and woven together, pointed toward the kingdom of God, can tangibly change our slice of this world. And if we can believe that, and we can bring our full selves to that story, perhaps we can see something incredible, something like resurrection in ourselves this Easter as well. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Amen. Hey, Jeremy here and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information. You can find us on all of the socials at commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community.
Jeremy Duncan:You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.church/discord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.
Jeremy Duncan:We'll talk to you soon.