Christopher Thomas
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 11, Year B – 7/18/21
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
“What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?”
What’s the buzz? What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening!
What’s the buzz about this thing, this Jesus thing, this movement, that’s out there, that’s afoot, that’s alight, that’s aloft? There’s something out there, in this. Can’t you feel it? Don’t you want to know? I want to know, what is it, that’s got the whole world buzzing?
But this is not the first time that I’ve wanted to know, what it is, “What’s the buzz?”
I’ve stood on a corner before, not unlike the one I’m at today. They liked to call it “The Crossroads of the World,” and at 5th and 55th, in midtown Manhattan, to my sensibilities, it seemed like it very well could be, the crossroads of the world, for all of humanity poured by those doors, each and every day they did. I stood there in the shadows of a “high steeple” edifice, one that would have made King David proud! And I asked the world going by, “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?”
The reason I stood out there, on that corner, so many Sundays, so long ago, interrupting those comings and goings, those who had no leisure even to eat, was because I wanted to know, what did the world think of us? It’s easy, therefore we spend copious amounts of time considering what we think of the world, but what does the world think of us?
For, in spite of all of our inspiring programming and majestic works (and trust me, there were many of both), for the most part, they, the world, didn’t know we were even there. They might look up in awe at an historic structure and marvel at its beauty, and then rush on about their business.
“Gosh, I thought that was a museum!”
Seriously!
And so I found myself looking at just what we were offering the world, through the lens of the world.
The parallel universe of these two questions, “What do I think of the world,” and “What does the world think of me,” is a fascinating place to do some wondering, because we ought to know if these two ever intersecting? Or are we spending all our time and energy thinking we’re meeting the needs of the world, and they have no idea we’re even here. “I drove right by your crossroads and never even saw that you were there!” “Gosh, I thought that was a museum!” “Is that a church?”
What’s the buzz? What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a-happening?
“Oh, come away to a deserted place, a wilderness place, all by yourselves and take rest for a while!”
So many were coming and going that they could not even stop to sustain themselves. They saw them take leave, to the wilderness, and rushed ahead to meet them, the great crowd. You won’t, you can’t get away from us! We know!
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening!
They crowd around, running to and fro, dragging sick in on mats, hoping against hope, to catch a glimpse, to touch a hem, to hear a word, to scrape up any morsel, to seize the crackle of electricity that sizzles off this Jesus movement! Why? Did anybody bother to ask them?
Did the apostles know, what was the buzz? They were so busy doing. Doing. Doing. It’s who we church folk are, after all, doers of the Word (capital W), the hands and feet of Jesus! Stop and ask. How is this so? How do we get fed, in the midst of all this teaching, and preaching, and begging, and touching, and healing? Where is the scrap, the morsel, the world for us?
The word that they circled around and around and around, in the wilderness, and in Gennesaret, and, quite frankly, everywhere they went, the word that multiplied fish, and gave life and light to the broken world, the word that was at the center of it all, the buzz was and is, “compassion.”
For when they had compassion, when they “did” compassion, the world thronged, in ways they could not even begin to ask or imagine! They had more ministry than they could handle!
What is compassion, after all? If you think that it is doling potatoes on a soup line to the homeless, you are wrong. If you think that it is collecting school supplies, or money to send to South Dallas, you are wrong. If you think that compassion is collecting canned goods or writing a check to North Dallas Shared Ministries, you are wrong. These can be signs and symbols of compassion, but they alone are NOT compassion. They simply are not.
Compassion is co-suffering. The German word for compassion, mitleid, is literally “with-suffering.” Be with suffering. Stand with suffering. Presence in suffering. This is compassion.
“As he, Jesus, went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had COMPASSION for them (“he compassioned” them, he co-suffered with them), because they were like sheep without a shepherd…”
What does all of this say about our God, who is so wholly and so authentically involved in the passion of God’s people, so much so that God bears God’s self in human form, and yet still divine, to suffer with us? Divine compassion. God incarnate, humanity divine. Does God, can God, should God, will God expect anything less of us? We are, after all, created in the co-suffering image of God, imago dei.
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening is compassion.
Compassion is not the rest of the story, Paul Harvey. Compassion is the story!
When we are “compassioning” God to the world, standing with those in suffering, they will know we are Christians. How? By our love!
This should not be news to the Episcopal Church of St. Thomas the Apostle. I did not know you during the 1980’s and 1990’s, but the world certainly did. They had all kinds of wonderful names for you. The Gay Church. The AIDS Church. Fags Go Here. Who knows what all they called you. What’s the buzz? There was definitely a buzz about St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Dallas, Texas!
You must have been doing something right! Every single one of those names told the world something about who you were. Everybody knew that you were a people of compassion, a people and a church that knew how to “compassion,” how to co-suffer, how to go stand on the margins and stand in the gap for those that the world wanted to cast off and to cast out and to disappear, all those people who were clamoring to get to Jesus that day in Gennesaret. They got to Jesus through you! They got to Jesus through compassion.
What is the world saying about us in 2021? What is the world saying about the Episcopal Church of St. Thomas the Apostle? Are they clamoring to get in here, because they have heard of the great and mighty programming, or education, or preaching, or teaching that goes on here? Have they heard about compassion in our story line lately? Have we been co-suffering of late?
Do they know that we are Christians by our compassion, or are we hoping against hope that among all the bushes and trees that hide these buildings, that someone might spot a sign and wander in and experience the warmth and love that is St. Thomas?
What do we think of the world?
What does the world think of us?
We have to go “compassion” to the world! Then they will know who we are! And they will be beating down the door!
What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening!
Amen.
