“My heart is moved with pity…”
--Mark 8:2
I have been thinking about this gospel passage quite a bit lately. It has woven itself into everything else I am reading: scripture, novels, poetry, everything. This little nugget is found in Mark’s version of the feeding of the 4000 (Mk 8:1-10). In the past, I have always focused on the 7 loaves and the few fish, or the sudden miraculous abundance, baskets full of leftovers; but I don’t think I had ever stopped to consider that important detail revealed by Jesus. I guess I mostly just glossed over it, as I rushed headlong into the familiarity of the miracle.
But, for some reason this time I was stopped by that phrase: My heart is moved with pity. Jesus looks out at the crowd that has followed him, a mass of people who have followed him for three days. They have come with Him so far that they cannot go back home without risk of collapsing. And, as the disciples point out: they are in a deserted place. There is no where to send for supplies, no Uber-Eats to call for take-out (for 4000).
In my prayer, I looked out at that crowd, hungry, tired, and yet still clinging to this strange Rabbi who spoke with such authority, and love. The first person I saw in my mind was a woman with three children. They were huddled together. One of the children was pulling at her robe, wanting only to be held, to be comforted, perhaps to be nursed. The other two sat at her feet drawing in the dirt, trying to entertain each other. The mother looked at the children and back at Jesus. She was beginning to wonder what she would do. They were too far from home to go back, but her small supply of food (perhaps bread and cheese and olives) was gone. She was beginning to doubt herself, to wonder if she’d made a horrible mistake. Why hadn’t she brought more food? Why hadn’t she just stayed home where they would be safe and secure?
And then I looked again and saw an old man sitting by himself on a rock. No one spoke to him. He was staring at the ground, feeling lost, out of place. He too was growing hungry and beginning to doubt his choice. Always alone, ignored, even avoided by others, the old man had heard in the young preacher an invitation to come and follow; to become part of a community—he thought. But even here no one seemed to notice him. And he felt foolish, and out of place. The others were families, friends, seemed to all know someone here. But he was still alone.
And then I looked at Jesus and I saw him speaking to one of the disciples, telling them: My heart is moved with pity for the people.
And in those words I sensed something new, sensed the tenderness of God’s care for His creation. He looks at us and feels pity for us, for our struggles, our hungers, our fears, our failings. He doesn’t look at us with judgment or even sighs of exasperation. Even in our most desperate and dreadful moments He looks at us with love, and with mercy, and with pity.
But there was something else that I sensed in this passage from Mark, something from the broader context of the story. Jesus has lead the people out into the wilderness, far from their homes and their neighbors, from their family and friends, from all their support groups (so to speak). And I remembered the call to Abram:
“The Lord said to Abram:
Leave your country, your kindred and your father’s house,
and go to the land I will show you… And I shall bless you…
And make of you a blessing…” (Genesis 12:1-2)
It is a call to leave behind all those things of the world that seem to make us safe and secure and to let God lead us to a place where we may feel like strangers, but in that place, that may feel so deserted and desolate, so lonely even, we are promised that we will become a blessing.
But, the key is, we have to let God lead. In Mark’s Gospel, the people have followed Jesus for 3 days. They have come to a place of vulnerability, a place where many of them may have looked around and felt—helpless, lost. Uncertain even which direction would take them home. But by remaining with Jesus, they found themselves blessed, and found themselves becoming a blessing.
I like to imagine that the old man in my meditation was
handed a basket and began walking among the people passing out bread.
And that at some point he came to the woman with three children and seeing she
needed help, set down his basket and took one of the children in his arms. Holding
the child, he watched as the woman took bread and broke it and fed her littlest. And as he stood there, the other child took his hand and pulled him down to show him a picture
she’d drawn in the dirt.And the old man smiled, because he felt needed.
“My heart is moved with pity…” I hear in Jesus's words a reassurance that we are never alone. Even when we feel most vulnerable, most lost, most hungry for whatever it is we lack, we are never alone. God is right there with us, watching over us, tenderly, and with such love, such care. He knows our needs even before we ask, and longs to fill us with good things, blessing, even to overflowing, that we might overflow with blessings to those around us.
