The Fringe of His Cloak
“As he went ashore, he
saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep
without a shepherd.” Can you imagine
what this might have looked like? If you
read on in scripture, we learn that the crowd includes 5,000 people not
including women and children. Where do
we see crowds like this today?
I am sure many of you
have seen crowds like this gather for sporting events, concerts, political
rallies, protests, and so on. When
visiting Newburyport, Massachusetts last spring, I read that evangelist George
Whitfield would preach to over 10,000 people in an open air setting there
during what was known as the Great Awakening.
And of course mega-churches today see crowds like this gather all the
time. Closer to home, Selma saw a crowd
of almost 100,000 people gather around and on the Edmund Pettus Bridge just a
few months ago for the Jubilee.
For the most part, the
crowds we are used to seeing gather because of some kind of shared interest or
belief. The crowds we are used to seeing
gather because they all like the same football team or the same band or the
same politician. But something else
seems to gather the crowd we see in today’s lesson.
There seems to be a
spirit of desperation among this crowd as they hurry ahead to try and catch a
glimpse of Jesus. Even more, Jesus
describes this group as sheep without a shepherd. Because of the famous parable of the Lost
Sheep, we usually just think of one lost sheep.
But here we have over 5,000 lost sheep all in one place.
Here we have a group of
people who gather because they are all in need of one thing—healing.
Here we have a people who are broken and are desperate to be made whole. Even more, here we have a group of people who
are so desperate that they don’t care that the whole world knows it. They are done trying to make it seem that
they have their life together.
So when Jesus sees the
desperation in the crowd, scripture says he has compassion for them.
Scripture doesn’t have Jesus saying, “Gosh what a pitiful site or what a
group of ne’er do wells—they need to get their act together.” Scripture says Jesus has compassion for this
group of lost sheep. Even though Jesus
and his disciples are headed off for a much needed rest, Jesus’ compassion compels
him to delay rest and continue his ministry.
Jesus teaches, feeds, and heals this group of desperately broken people.
In her book Searching for Sunday (the book we are
using for our Summer Series), Rachel Held Evans argues that most authentic
church communities gather not because of a shared belief rather because of a
shared brokenness. As a child, Rachel
was taught that church was for those who had it all figured out and for those
who had their life all put together.
There was little to no room in her church for those who had doubts or
for those who didn’t have their act together (at least on the outside).
So when Rachel had a
crisis of faith, when she started asking questions that challenged the shared
belief of her church community, she was met with parishioners who would say
stuff like, “This book will give you the answers you need to get your faith
back.” Or others would say, “Are you
praying hard enough?” These kinds of
responses left Rachel isolated from her church community and ultimately led her
to leave church.
I had a different
experience in church. Unlike Rachel, I
grew up in the Episcopal Church. There
have been times in the Episcopal Church when I wondered, “Are we giving too
much room for people ask questions that challenge the shared belief of the
church?” I went to seminary with classmates
and even professors who reduced the resurrection of Jesus to a metaphor. I even know people in church who skip the
virgin birth part of the Nicene Creed.
But I digress.
My point is that when I
had a major life crisis that might have left me isolated from many church
communities, I found instead a measure of compassion that actually led me to
find deeper relationships within my church community and ultimately a deeper
relationship with God.
As some of you know,
when I was seventeen years old, my dad committed suicide. Growing up in a culture where some Christians
are obsessed with saying who gets to go to heaven and where suicide is
considered an automatic ticket to hell, a part of me was ashamed to admit to
the nature of my father’s death.
Sometimes when people asked me how my father died, I would say, “He died
of a broken heart.” Other times, I would
just say, “He died of a terminal disease.”
But thankfully, there
was St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. There
were people who reminded me that I didn’t have to be ashamed. When I remember this time in my life and
remember the people who reached out to me, I remember faces of compassion.
I remember one of the
priests Susan embrace me with tears and a hug instead of a prescription for
salvation. I remember my best friend
Reed, who visited Selma last Sunday, curse in disbelief and that was his
prayer. And sometimes those are the best
kind of prayers.
I remember my Uncle
Richard affirm me when I asked, “Did he die of a broken heart?” He didn’t try to correct me. I remember my history teacher pull me out of
class when I returned to school and tell me that I had nothing to be ashamed of
and that I could excuse myself whenever I needed to.
I remember my youth minister
Michael coming over to visit that night, and he just sat in the living room for
hours waiting to lend a hand when he could.
He didn’t have to speak. His presence
was enough. I remember my mother letting
me and my sisters cry and cry without ever stuffing a tissue in our faces.
A decade later, I helped
officiate at a funeral for a successful middle aged man who killed
himself. And he had teenage children at home
too. In many ways, it was like
officiating at my own father’s funeral.
I did my best to hold myself in check.
When the funeral was over, I bit my lip until I made it into the
sacristy when I collapsed in grief.
I collapsed into the
arms of a parishioner named Shannon who just happened to be standing
there. As it turns out, Shannon was a
year behind my dad at John Carroll High School and one of my Aunt Lutie’s good
friends. More than most, Shannon knew
the weight of my grief, and I didn’t have to explain myself. I was allowed to be broken without any
excuses. I didn’t have to hide from my brokenness.
Isn’t it amazing what
the compassion of Christ can do? The compassion
of Christ doesn’t try to explain things.
The compassion of Christ doesn’t try to tell you how you should feel or
pray. The love of God doesn’t make you
feel guilty for having doubts or questions.
Instead, the compassion of God meets you in your brokenness in hopes
that you will know true healing through Christ our Lord.
In each of these people
I talked about earlier, I touched the fringe of his cloak and was healed. As I have learned over the years, I am still
being healed. The compassion of Jesus
still lives in the heart of humanity because Jesus is still healing broken
hearts through the people he has chosen to be a part of Christ’s Church.
Jesus still lives and
walks and gathers those who desperate for healing. And this is the good news of the gospel. And guess what, the Church gets to be the
fringe of his cloak! The Church gets to
be God’s agent of healing in the world.
We, the Church, get to live by a faith that knows that all the world
needs for wholeness and healing is the compassion we know in Jesus.
The Church doesn’t need
try and explain the path to healing and wholeness through better prayers and
better theology. The Church doesn’t to
prescribe the fastest or most efficient way to salvation. Instead, the Church needs to continue and
preach all are welcome, continue to preach the compassion of Christ is the way
to life.
People sometimes ask if
I can give them advice. And I often
respond, “I am actually really bad at giving advice. And I am not sure it is my job as a priest.” Instead, I believe I am called to invite
people to know the compassion that I have known in Christ.
As Christians we are called to extend that
invitation. “All who are broken are
welcome. All who are weary are
welcome. All who are fed up with the
Church are welcome. All who think they
have it figured out are welcome. All who
know they don’t have it figured out are welcome. All who believe they are not welcome are
welcome. All who are desperate to know
what it is like to be made whole are welcome.”
I hope this makes room
for everybody. I know that God’s hopes
this invitation makes room for everybody in the Church. Because God will not stop until every lost
sheep is found even if our Good Shepherd has to go out again and again to find
that lost sheep.
And the good news is
that the Church doesn’t have to fix the broken hearted, the Church doesn’t have
to try and fix the sinner. The good news
says that the Church is a place where all people can grow in grace, where all
people can grow into the full stature of Christ by learning to accept a compassion
that never gets tired of healing. The
good news that we get to experience and that we get to share says that the inexhaustible
compassion of Christ is enough to heal a broken and exhausted world. Amen.
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