Woe to the shepherds
who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture,
says the LORD.
Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel,
against the shepherds who shepherd my people:
You have scattered my sheep and driven them away.
You have not cared for them,
but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.
I myself will gather the remnant of my flock
from all the lands to which I have driven them
and bring them back to their meadow;
there they shall increase and multiply.
I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them
so that they need no longer fear and tremble;
and none shall be missing, says the LORD.
Behold,
the days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David;
as king he shall reign and govern wisely,
he shall do what is just and right in the land.
In his days Judah shall be saved,
Israel shall dwell in security.
This is the name they give him:
"The LORD our justice."
R. (1) The Lord is my shepherd; there
is nothing I shall want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is
nothing I shall want.
He guides me in right paths
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
with your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is
nothing I shall want.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is
nothing I shall want.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is
nothing I shall want.
Brothers
and sisters:
In Christ Jesus you who once were far off
have become near by the blood of Christ.
For he is
our peace, he who made both one
and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his
flesh,
abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims,
that he might create in himself one new person in place of
the two,
thus establishing peace,
and might reconcile both with God,
in one body, through the cross,
putting that enmity to death by it.
He came and preached peace to you who were far off
and peace to those who were near,
for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the
Father.
The apostles gathered together with
Jesus
and reported all they had done and taught.
He said to them,
"Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a
while."
People were coming and going in great numbers,
and they had no opportunity even to eat.
So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted
place.
People saw them leaving and many came to know about it.
They hastened there on foot from all the towns
and arrived at the place before them.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them,
for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things.
The
gospel text of today is very short, not even 130 words. In
that very short text, Mark, the author, mentions Jesus’
compassion twice, in a way, even three times.
First he took pity on his disciples. They were coming back
from their first apostolic trip. They had been preaching,
teaching, and chasing evil spirits away. (Sure are a lot of
them moving about in this country these days) They had even
been healing. Power had gone out of them all the time, a
power they had never expected in themselves. They were
excited about it. They told one another, and him, story
after story. They were sure the world was going to change.
It had cost them a lot. They dropped their sandals, they
brushed their hair, they massaged their tired legs and
arms. While they giving their reports, they were constantly
interrupted by dozens and dozens of people who wanted to see
him and them, who wanted to be touched, who wanted to draw
their attention to their sick children.
They
didn’t even have time to eat, nor a second drink as they
were swamped by all the others. Jesus took pity on
them and said, “Let us go out of here. You need rest, some
time for yourselves alone.” He got a boat ready, a skipper,
and off they went. They left those people, the dozens, the
scores, the hundreds, and the thousands. They left them
behind. It was so obvious where they were going that the
crowd first started to walk and then to run around the lake
so they were all there when they reached the other side,
waiting again, hoping again to be touched. But Jesus took
care of them and then attended to the crowd himself.
We
might think that compassion of his was not very
important in the total richness of his life. Since it is a
sentiment that is so often mentioned as the moving force in
his work, we have to be careful about understanding it in
his personality. It was such a moving force in his life
that it is not an exaggeration to say that he came into this
world because of his pity, because of his compassion.
We all
know what compassion is, don’t we. We see it everyday,
every time we see a smashed up car, every time we hear about
a child being sick with cancer or any other illness, every
time a mother and father has to bury one of their own
children, every time we see abuse or hear about it, every
time we see someone hurting, alone, or get an email for a
prayer request for the innocent people in the world who are
murdered by terrorists in other parts of the world. We feel
compassionate toward those who are loosing jobs today,
loosing homes, loosing children to the evil in this
country. More than three hundred years ago, a mystic in
Whales, Henry Vaughan, wrote this:
Charity is a relic from paradise, and pity is a strange
argument
That we are all descended from one human being.
Sounds
kind of mysterious, mystical, yet perhaps he was right: Our
compassion for others derives from the fact that we are
one. We all participate in the same human, God-given life.
Though many, we are one. We form one communion, or at least
we should. The reason for this website was borne out of
compassion for others. That is why many folks have shared
their hurts and sorrows, their joys and triumphs, their
praise and worship of our Lord in the videos that we make,
in the pages that we make. Because we realize that other
folks feel and go through the same things we do, from all
over the world. We realize that you need to get away and
find out that there are people who share what you are going
through, though each is unique to each person, the
experience is basically the same. We share in the oneness
of each other, we are given to each other because of the
ONENESS we are in of GOD.
My
friends, it is that pity, that compassion, that awareness of
our oneness, that is at the heart of the growing concern for
justice and peace in this country and in the world, despite
the attempts of a decaying moral fiber, or a moral decaying
government and leaders who wish to abandon our Constitution
and throw us into a socialistic state. That man Henry
Vaughan foresaw this very long ago, when he added that he
believed that words like alien and stranger
would disappear. Yes those words are in italic for a
reason. He believed and I share that belief, that those
words, often indicating a total lack of pity or compassion –
were notions received from Cain and his posterity among us.
They feature in the vocabulary of the killers and murderers
among us.
We are
many, though one. We are one, though many!
Doesn’t
that sound like the echo of the divine Trinity: One though
three, three though one? Weren’t we made in their divine
image? Let us pray that Jesus’ compassion may grow in all
of us. Thank you and God bless you all. I hope this
message was meaningful to you.
