A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. Jesus withdrew toward the Lake Of Galilee with his disciples. Now this is, of course, up in the North, remember. A great crowd followed him from Galilee, and now listen, and an equally great multitude came to Jesus from Judea, that's the farthest to the South, from Jerusalem, from Idemia, from Transjordan, that's going east according to across the river, and even from the neighborhoods of Tyre and Sidon, that's the shoreline of of the Mediterranean. And why were they coming to Jesus from all over that entire area?
Because they had heard what he had done. Notice what he had done. In view of their numbers, Jesus told his disciples to have a fishing boat ready for him so that he could avoid the press of the crowds against him. Because he had cured many, all who had afflictions kept pushing towards Jesus to touch him. Unclean spirits would catch sight of Jesus, fling themselves down at his feet, and shout out, you are the son of god.
While he kept ordering them sternly not to reveal who he was. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Let us not be misled by geography, by distance, by modes of travel, and the speed with which we can do it. Today, you can get in an automobile and go from Galilee in the North to Jerusalem in the South in a matter of just a couple of hours.
You can go from the seashore to the West to the Jordan River in a matter of a few hours. But remember in our lord's time, things were a little bit different. Communication was either by written word or by one's voice, and I mean by one's voice. It wasn't being transmitted over electric wires or what we call wireless. The point I'm making is, is to get this point, that the whole of that area from the lake in the North, from the capital in the South, from the river to the East, and from the sea to the West, people were coming to Jesus in such crowds that his only safe place was in a boat out on the lake.
And that tells you something. And it tells you also something why they be they came to him. Notice their Mughties weren't exactly the the the most exalted. They weren't looking up they were just looking upon him as a wonder worker. They were looking to go to him to get something from him.
That's the text says it explicitly. Explicitly, they came to Jesus to get something from him, and they got it. Notice they got it. But notice again, they wanted to touch Jesus. Why did they have to touch him?
I don't know. The text says, though. Now today, and not just today, but I guess it's almost always with us. See, we haven't we have always had people who are superior, who are elitist, who always see the highest kinds of ideals. They think they do.
Then it used to be called gnosticism, and it still is called gnosticism, and it is still with us. And there's a lot of it right in the holy Roman Catholic church today, believe me. There is nothing wrong in going to Jesus Christ for a handout. It may not be the highest form of religion. Who said it was?
But who said we had to have the highest form of religion? Who said that? Blessed lord didn't. Our blessed door lord didn't push people back because they didn't come to him with absolutely altruistic motives and the highest forms of love. They came to him if they could only touch their garment, they wouldn't be in pain, they wouldn't be afflicted, they would be freed of devils, whatever that means.
That's why they came to him. And did he re did he repulse them? Did he kick them out? Did he boot them out? Did he tell them, oh, my friends, you are just groveling.
You are rice Christians. Where where is your motivation? You're not coming to me because you love God or because you love beauty or because you love truth and because you love justice. You're coming to me to get rid of a toothache. Is that what Jesus Christ did?
Not at all. He pushed out on the lake so they wouldn't they wouldn't push him into the lake so he could address them all. He did not flee from them. He did not push them away because they were not moving in the highest order of thought and of love. Keep let's keep this in mind.
One of the most interesting things when you read the early history of the church, and I'm no authority in this, Don, I just happen to dabble in it once in a while of late years. Is the fact that the church of Jesus Christ has always been for the common man, for the ordinary person. Most of most most heresies most heresies, were the pursuit of high ideals. That includes even a man like Martin Luther. Almost all heresies have been of that sort when the church says no.
You can't have it that way. Here is the here is the truth, and the truth is that Jesus Christ came to save men and women, not saints. He didn't come because we are so marvelously good. See, we have in our going back to Rousseau and those people, we have this idea, and it goes back way beyond him. You have it all the way back in Saint Augustine's time with the Pelagian heresy's that we are so good.
You see, we came from God. Therefore, we've gotta be good because God couldn't make anything that isn't good. That's absolutely true. And therefore, you see, all we need to do is to be ourselves and we will be completely good. It's a more you see, Marxism has a lot of this on it.
Don't ever mistake it. Marxism is idealistic. I've extremely idealistic. It's so idealistic that it's completely unreal. See, that's like human beings going around talking about my soul and my mind.
They forget that they're Joe McAllister walking in the snow out there this morning. And so let us realize that Jesus Christ came to save me as I am, and there's nothing wrong in my going to Jesus and saying, Lord, I'm a mess. I need your help. I have a toothache. Help me to get rid of it.
I need a job. Help me to get it. I need this. Give me courage. Sunday, I was saying in that that here I am, lord, to do your will.
I said, what we we can't do it alone. Jesus never asked us to do it alone. And I pointed out Sunday how the church is praying for me. I wanna point out right now, this morning, how many of our parishioners have any thought that right now we, part of this parish, are praying for them? They haven't put a foot on the floor out of their beds yet.
And here are local parishes praying for them at the altar of god that when they put their feet on the floor, they can say, here am I lord oh lord. I come to do your will, but I can't do it alone. I'm being prayed for. You see, Jesus was so human. Jesus was so human that that some of these great gnostics couldn't accept that, you see.
And they said, oh, you cannot tell us that Jesus was a human being, that he had a body, a material body, that he needed things. Don't try to tell us that. That is beyond beneath us. How could God almighty ever become that kind of a thing? Now this isn't fiction.
These are the things that have been said, and they are still being said in another way. For example, it doesn't make any difference whether Jesus rose from the dead. It's what the community thinks. The spirit of God is what matters, not whether he came out of the grave. See?
That's right now. Jesus was one of us. He was in the womb of a woman for nine months. He was born. He was a kid.
He was a he he grew up. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He had we're told on one of the two occasions he was even angry. There's not this there's not a hint that he ever smiled or told a joke.
He was one of us, and people flocked to him for the for the lowest kind of reasons, and he didn't push them away. He said, come on. I'll move to give you the space. So let's keep all of this in mind. If if what I'm saying is united.
There's a point here is that we come to do god's will. We can't do it without him, but let's do it realistically. He doesn't expect me to be anything but myself, consecrated to him by baptism. Look at this story we had this morning about Jonathan and David and Saul. If you wanna see a a commentary of human nature, just look at that.
Here's this great guy, Saul, the the magnificent. Wants to kill David just because some women started to sing that Saul killed his thousands, but David has tens of thousands. So Saul says off with his head, I can't have that kind of nonsense. You notice these are the champions of God we're talking about, and they are so human. So let us not forget our humanity, and let us not neglect Christ's humanity.
He never repels a single person with one exception, hypocrites. They were the good people. In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.