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Mark 3:7 - 19

⁷ Jesus departed with his disciples to the lake, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; ⁸hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. ⁹He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him;¹⁰for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. ¹¹Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ ¹²But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

¹³ He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. ¹⁴And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles,* to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message,¹⁵and to have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶So he appointed the twelve:* Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); ¹⁷James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Then he went home;

My life feels somewhat chaotic at the moment. We have a baby on the way and a rambunctious three year old, and I’m going through some professional changes. Not to mention the primaries, coronavirus, and climate change.

Most days it’s almost all I can do to care for myself and my family, let alone my friends and coworkers and the other seven billion people in the world.

I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this way. It feels a little like being crushed by the crowd of my to-do lists, the friends and family who I haven’t called in a while, the planning meetings with fellow activists I’ve missed, everything I can’t quite handle right now.

In recent weeks, saying morning or evening prayer has been helpful. The familiar prayers give me a chance to pause, like a moment alone on a quiet lake or peaceful walk on a mountain. The prayers help put things in perspective, reminding me that I am a small part of a much larger story, over which I have little control. The history of failures, small and large, that haunt me in the middle of the night can be forgiven. I do not have to face the fear I sometimes feel alone. These are things I know, but in these anxious times it can be easy to forget.

That pause for prayer and quiet, the chance to return to what I know is true, is only one part of the story, of course. Jesus goes back into the crowds and sends out the disciples to do God’s work in the world.

It’s an ongoing cycle of rest and return, prayer and service. I’d say it’s a little like breathing, in and out, but that implies it comes naturally, which it does not. Not for me, anyway. Making space for quiet is hard work. And so is doing the work of loving others - our family, friends, and the world. Yet, I believe, they are both required of us, and the only way to serve the world without being crushed by the crowd.

¹ Corinthians 4: 1 - 7

Mark 2:13-22

¹³ Jesus^* went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. ¹⁴As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.

¹⁵ And as he sat at dinner^* in Levi’s^* house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting^* with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶When the scribes of^* the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat^* with tax-collectors and sinners?’ ¹⁷When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people^*came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ ¹⁹Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

²¹ ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.²²And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’^*