If there is a miracle in our reading in Mark, I think it’s this – that an exhausted Jesus, still grieving the execution of his friend John, responds to the relentless, neediness of the crowd without annoyance, but with compassion.  I think that’s miraculous.

Because the effort to secure time away from the crowd is important.  Notice how insistent Jesus is about this.  First, he says, “come away.”  Then he clarifies that “away” means “to a deserted place.”  And just in case there’s any doubt, he specifies that in this deserted place they will be all by themselves.  Finally, in case anyone has missed it, the narrator says that “they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.”

Got it? Away.  Deserted place.  Alone.  Sounds lovely, right?  Except that it turns out the crowds have hurried ahead, around the lake, and are there waiting for them, in the now not-so-deserted place.

This is one of those times when we see Jesus’ remarkable exercise of Emotional Intelligence at play…  That in the midst of his own exhaustion, and concern to nurture the budding leadership of his little group of followers, he is still able to recognize the weariness and hunger of those in the crowd.  In his own need for renewal, he recognizes their need for healing.  In his own longing for time away with God, he recognizes their longing, their need, and the utter haphazardness of their lives.

It takes a certain spiritual groundedness to recognize when you need to get away to a deserted place alone for a while.  It takes an even deeper spiritual groundedness to respond with compassion rather than exasperation toward those who mess up your plans for solitude.  But then, as the author Anne Lamott puts it, “If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.”

The reading today is a bit of a cut-and-paste.  The first part describes the return of the disciples from their first experience of ministry.  Sent out in pairs, with little to sustain them, they have come back now both exhilarated and exhausted.

They are wired!  Excited.  Caffeinated.  Ready.  In their minds, what they need is their next project from Jesus.  Their next mission.  In their minds, the crowds are waiting, and it’s time to go.

But Jesus disagrees.  Where the disciples see energy, Jesus sees overstimulation.  Where the disciples see a tightly packed schedule, Jesus sees a poor sense of balance and rhythm. Where the disciples see invincibility, Jesus sees need.  The need to debrief and reflect.  The need to eat, pray, play, and sleep.  The need to learn the art of solitude.   “Come away with me,” Jesus says.

But the weariness and hunger he articulates is also his own.  It’s good to notice the throwaway lines in the gospels, the little phrases that precede or follow the big events in Jesus’ story.  Lines like, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”  Or, “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.”  Or, “Jesus was sleeping.”  Or, “He didn’t want anyone to know which house he was staying in.”

In these asides we see glimpses of Jesus’ humanity, the everydayness in his life.  His need to withdraw, his desire for solitary prayer, his physical hunger, his sleepiness, his inclination to hide.  These don’t take away from the story.  They enhance it.  In fact, in Jesus, God hungers, sleeps, eats, rests, withdraws, and grieves.  In all of these ways, God is in life with us. God… rests.

According to Genesis, the Sabbath – the seventh day, when God rested – is the only thing in the creation story that God called holy.  We should pay attention.

It’s a tension that church leaders – lay and ordained – face constantly.  The need to tend to the operational busy-ness of ensuring that the church is working – stewarding our resources, managing staff, and maintaining buildings – on the one hand… as well as discerning and fulfilling our shared mission and vision on the other.  Usually, the operational demands, which are easier to identify and to resolve, take up most of our time and attention.  Many people see this as the real leadership that keeps things running.  The more complex leadership required for discerning our way, focusing our priorities, deepening our faith, and inspiring us… can easily fade into the background.

But here, in Mark, it’s the opposite.  The need for time to replenish, to focus, and to deepen discernment is highlighted.  The operational stuff that also needs to happen, actually happens in the missing verses, where Jesus feeds a crowd and walks on water to rescue his terrified friends in a storm-tossed boat.

When it comes to leadership, the Bible is an odd reference point.  It could be read as a long list of examples of incompetent, self-serving, and generally toxic leaders, with predictably disastrous results: from Pharaohs to kings – including most of their own! – to emperors, and generals, and religious leaders in the Temple.  In fact, the Bible mostly consists of a minority report on the world, its leaders and systems, that foster an unjust, destructive state of affairs.

But beyond the protests of the powerless, there is also in the Bible a deep, prophetic concern about the danger that comes when people have no shared vision.  No commitment to common values, no concern for neighbours, no basis for trusting others, or no confidence that anyone’s individual contributions make a difference.

So, it’s not that the Bible promotes a specific style, or form of leadership.  It is, however, committed to promoting a quality of leadership, and raising alarm when that quality is missing.  And that quality is an exercise of leadership that fosters a thriving, life-giving community.  In other words, the Bible has no patience for leaders who are not committed to empowering, affirming, and liberating the people they lead.

When that quality is lacking, people have to deal with a lot more than discouragement, aimlessness, and conflict.  They suffer in their bodies and souls because of leaders who are predatory, arrogant, domineering, careless, inept, or absent.  Those who suffer most are powerless people, vulnerable people, poor people – the people in the crowd.

The crowd are being denied well-being and justice, and the offense of this seizes Jesus. “The system” has failed them.  They are vulnerable in a predatory world.  Nobody cares for their well-being, or even notices them – no one guards their human dignity.

Jesus is a magnet for them, not just because he provides healing, but because he restores people.  He refuses to lead by domination, or intimidation.  The people who are drawn to him have already been discarded, plundered, and denied dignity by their leaders.  With him they experience the opposite.  That’s powerful.  That’s leadership.

And, while some will always insist that faith must come before healing and belonging, Mark makes no mention of “faith” in connection with those who are healed, or those who are fed. Jesus simply feels compassion.  The Greek root for compassion means “gut.” Compassion is visceral.  It’s a feeling that (certainly for Jesus) generates a doing. Compassion hits you in the gut and sends you into motion for the sake of the other.  It’s what pushes us to go outside of ourselves.

However, drawing crowds of people attracts attention.  Giving support to harassed people, feeding hungry people, and healing sick people has consequences.  It’s risky.  It gives people hope.  And in a world where cynicism and fear are effective means of control, too many hopeful people become threatening.

So, the pairs of Jesus’ followers have returned from their foray into the surrounding towns. They are excited by what they have done and seen.  They – they! – have healed people and cast out unclean spirits.  They tell Jesus all about it.  There is a frenzied, manic quality to the scene.

They are distracted and over-stimulated.  Out of balance, running on empty, like children who are so tired they have lost touch with how tired they are.  Jesus has to get them away from these crowds or they will lose touch with reality.  They will lose their sense of grounding and get carried away by the throngs of demanding people.  It’s entrancing.  The membrane that separates them from the crowds has grown thin.  They are losing their capacity to keep themselves separate from what the crowd wants, and thinks.  The crowd could easily turn the disciples into the leaders of their fickle desires.  And a crowd suddenly turning violent is always a danger.

Jesus pulls them away.  He has to break the gravitational pull of the adoring, demanding and unpredictable crowd or he will lose the disciples.  And while they don’t get the kind of time Jesus wished for, they do get away.  After this, they are again centered around him, and in touch with reality. Now they could again be with the crowds.

We are among those who seek to follow Jesus today.  And our shared calling draws us all into the delight, mystery, and work that comes with being engaged in God’s emerging newness of life, its wholeness, and healing.

And so for us today, deserted places are liminal places.  Threshold places for the work of transition, and renewal.  Where creative seeds can be planted.  They are necessary places at certain points in life, truthful places.  They are not just “time to get away” places, or “we all need a break” places.  They give us time and space to recognize what’s necessary.  What’s absolutely needed.  And they give us time, too, for letting go of what’s no longer needed.

Mark sketches out the interplay of busy-ness and renewal in ministry and everyday life. The disciples are so busy doing good works that they barely have time to eat.  The busy-ness of living a meaningful, purposeful life can lead to burnout.  We end up emotionally, spiritually, and physically drained.  Jesus recognizes their needs, and his own, and gives them all time to recover wholeness.

But even so, sometimes our best laid plans, like Jesus,’ go sideways.  There is a necessary tension between the immediate tasks of church operations and the lingering need for breathing room and for self-protection in life.  Jesus lived with this tension too.  And when necessary, we – like him – err on the side of compassion.

These two scenes show Jesus and his followers trying to do three things that we too are doing.  They’re trying to live with some balance, tending to heart, mind, body and spirit. They nevertheless love with a raw openness to the pain and need of the people around them.  And they learn how to lead in the way of Jesus in balancing those things out – which he does by example and sheer passion.  It’s a tension that we, at Bloor Street United, are explicitly engaged with managing in this Transition time, and that all of us in the church, are still working to maintain as we find our way in such a time as this.  And so, once again… we are not alone.  May it be so.