Year B Proper 11 2024 Charisma

 Year B Proper 11, 21 July 2024

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Charisma”

Collect: Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Jesus had something that people wanted. And I would argue, he had something that they desperately needed. They just did not know it yet.

Most of us don’t. Things have not changed. He drew throngs of folks, some not even knowing why. Some came with an intent and purpose. Healing of friends or family, stretching them along his path just for the chance of touching the hem of his garment. As they said of Ferris Bueller, he was a “righteous dude.”

No matter what our felt needs are, no matter what gets us out of our complacency and drives us to reach out and connect with Jesus, he gets to the real point very quickly. That’s what he does.

In the opening of today’s passage, we see him trying to give his disciples a much deserved and even more needed break. It says that they could not even get a chance to finish their meals, they were being pulled in so many directions. So Jesus got them in a boat and headed for a place apart, separated from their daily business, or should that be their “busy-ness.”

But even then, people saw where they were headed and ran ahead to meet them when they landed. They could not catch a break! But Jesus did not yell. He did not plead for them to give him and his disciples a breather. I love how the reading puts it:

As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

As tired as they were, his love for the people came first.

You may have noticed, our reading skips several verses, so today’s lectionary could focus on Jesus’ ministry to the people. What was skipped was two miracles in Mark 6, the Feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus’ walking on the water. Two big miracles which are next Sunday’s reading, just John’s version.

As we come to Jesus’ interactions with the people, never forget how charismatic he was. Never forget how people were drawn to him.

We don’t talk about that aspect of Jesus much, how he drew people in. One of my favorite descriptions of that indescribable quality of attraction some are gifted with, comes from the opening lines of Primary Colors by Anonymous, which was about Bill Clinton, sort of.

He was a big fellow, looking seriously pale on the streets of Harlem in deep summer. I am small and not so dark, not very threatening to Caucasians; I do not strut my stuff.

We shook hands. My inability to recall that particular moment more precisely is disappointing: the handshake is the threshold act, the beginning of politics. I've seen him do it two million times now, but I couldn't tell you how he does it, the right-handed part of it--the strength, quality, duration of it, the rudiments of pressing the flesh. I can, however, tell you a whole lot about what he does with his other hand. He is a genius with it. He might put it on your elbow, or up by your biceps: these are basic, reflexive moves. He is interested in you. He is honored to meet you. If he gets any higher up your shoulder--if he, say, drapes his left arm over your back, it is somehow less intimate, more casual. He'll share a laugh or a secret then--a light secret, not a real one– flattering you with the illusion of conspiracy. If he doesn't know you all that well and you've just told him something "important," something earnest or emotional, he will lock in and honor you with a two-hander, his left hand overwhelming your wrist and forearm. He'll flash that famous misty look of his. And he will mean it.

Anyway, as I recall it, he gave me a left-hand-just-above-the-elbow plus a vaguely curious "ah,

so you're the guy I've been hearing about" look, and a follow-me nod. I didn't have the time, or presence of mind, to send any message back at him. Slow emotional reflexes, I guess. His were lightning. He was six meaningful handshakes down the row before I caught up. And then I fell in, a step or two behind, classic staff position, as if I'd been doing it all my life. (I had, but not for anyone so good.)

And Jesus was 1,000 times better than that. Jesus actually had power, he was not seeking it. He actually had authority, it was not imposter syndrome.

Think of Zaccheus up in the tree, scared of his own shadow, but he could not let Jesus pass by without a glimpse. Or the Triumphal Entry on what we call Palm Sunday. 

Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

“Blessed is the king

    who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven,

    and glory in the highest heaven!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Or the good Jewish folks on this side of the lake, or the Gentile folks across the way in Gennesaret. No matter your stripe, people were just attracted to this one. He preached with authority. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He had a quality that drew people to him.

Charisma is the word we use for that strange attraction. Jesus had it. You might not know this, but from the Greek, charisma is from the word for “gift.” A good gift is a eu-charist. The same word we use for communion. And Charis by itself in the Greek is Grace, the greatest gift we can receive.

We are showered with charisms, gifts, and Jesus exhibited it repeatedly. God is a god of Abundance. God is a gift giver. A few of you say I love you with gifts. It is one of the Love Languages. I was overwhelmed when I got back because a few of you ran to give me “welcome home” gifts.

And Jesus came to give his good gifts to those around him and down to us as well. Healing in his touch. The blessing and breaking of the bread. Love and Grace. A way to live a life of peace and sanity in the midst of a chaotic and insane world.

Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving. And he is even better when we give him away. We do not lose anything when we do that. We actually gain everything.

Think on that at the altar today. Think on that as we share fellowship in his name. Think on that when you are hurting and in need of healing. Think on that as we face death. Jesus is a gift to us. He is and was and always will be.

He is the quintessential human. The second Adam (see Romans 5:12-21), who gives us all a second chance. He is indescribable and unbelievable. My poor kids, I have made them watch World War II movies most of their life. If all I did was watch old and new World War II movies, it would be potentially never ending. New ones come about all the time. But Jesus is bigger than that. Every day I can learn something new, and I would never be done. As John finishes his Gospel:

This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

He is the author of creation and the judge of the universe. The Alpha and Omega. The standard by which we all fail and the door by which we all enter. Friends, take some time today to merely contemplate who Jesus is to you.

Is he who you say he is, or is he who he says he is. If you do not know the difference I invite you to explore that. Read the Gospels, get a red letter edition, and look at what he said. Read them again and make it a green letter edition, maybe underline what he did. And then you have the Hebrew Scriptures where you can look for what he would be like. And then we have the Christian Scriptures describing what it is like living fully into this new reality of Jesus in our lives.

Friends, Jesus was in the flesh. A man who was born, who lived a full and complete life, a man who died. Do not be tempted into making him an abstract idea. Do not allow yourself to put him on a pedestal separate from the hardships of the life you live. He was fully one of us, and yet more, full and completely one with the Father. As Paul says in Colossians 2:9-10: 

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him…

We can be who we are, or better yet, who we are meant to be, because of who he was. We find our fullness in him.

If that does not draw you to him I do not know what would. 

Seek him. Embrace him. Celebrate him. Amen