Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Mark 6:30-34 July 19, 2009

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.

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I'm going to begin with my favorite old golf joke. I just can't resist. I hope you don't mind. It's been around so long you've probably already heard it, but I hope you'll laugh anyway. It goes like this.

Jesus and Moses had a day off from their work in heaven and they decided to play a round of golf together. After signing in, they made their way up to the first tee and flipped a coin. Jesus won the toss, so he teed up his ball and went to grab a club out of his bag. When he stepped up to hit though, Moses noticed that Jesus was holding a putter. He said, "Wait a minute, Jesus. I know you don't play much, but you really need to use a driver from the tee." Not to be deterred, Jesus said to Moses, "Look. I've seen Arnold Palmer do it this way. (I told you it was an old joke) And ff it's good enough for Arnold Palmer, it's good enough for me.

Well, Jesus took a mighty swing, dribbled the ball down the fairway and right into a lake. Moses rolled his eyes, then pulled his staff out of his bag. He walked down the fairway, lifted up his staff and parted the waters. He walked in, retrieved the ball, and brought it back to the tee. "Here you are, Jesus," he said. "This time, you really ought to use your driver." But Jesus was adamant. "I'm tellin' you," he said. "I've seen it work for Arnold Palmer, and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.

Once again, Jesus swung his putter for all he was worth, the ball dribbled down the fairway and "ploop," right in the lake. Moses hung his head, pulled out his staff once again, parted the waters and retrieved the ball. But this time, when he brought it back to Jesus, he said, "Look, if you insist on using your putter from the tee, that's up to you. But you're going to have to go after the ball yourself. "Fine, fine," Jesus said, "but I know what I'm doing. If it's good enough for Arnold Palmer, it's good enough for me."

So yet again, Jesus took a mighty swing, and yet again the ball went right into the lake. Moses tried hard to keep the "I told you so" look off his face. Jesus shrugged, strolled off down the fairway, and when he reached the lake he just walked right out across the water. And just at that moment, another golfer appeared at the first tee, saw what was happening and stammered out to Moses, "Who does that guy think he is? Jesus Christ?" Moses said, "No. He thinks he's Arnold Palmer."

I love that story. Something about it has always tickled me. Jesus was no Arnold Palmer. Of course, he didn't exactly aspire to be. Being a great golfer wasn't his mission. It wasn't his mission. Rather, as he told the people in his hometown, God had sent him to proclaim release to the captives, liberty to the oppressed, recovery of sight to the blind. He had come to bring a divine compassion to all those who thought they were beyond the reach of God's love. Today's reading is just one of many examples.

Jesus had sent out his disciples to spread the good news around, and they had just reported back to him with all they had said and done. Jesus takes it all in. Then he tells them it's high time they all had a break. They had been in such high demand there hadn't even been time for them to get a decent meal. Ministry can be like that sometimes. But when they tried to go off by themselves, the crowd simply came clamoring after them. And rather than sending them away, Jesus "had compassion for them." They were "harassed and helpless" "like sheep without a shepherd." No rest for the weary. But, he might have said, "That's why I'm here."

James Taylor, maybe you know, wrote a song by that name. The song tells a story about him casting around trying to figure out what his purpose is. Finally, this is what he comes up with.

Oh, fortune and fame's such a curious game.

Perfect strangers can call you by name

Pay good money to hear "Fire and Rain," again and again and again.

Some are like summer coming back every year.

Got your baby got your blanket got your bucket of beer

I break into a grin from ear to ear,

And suddenly it's perfectly clear

That's why I'm here. Singin' tonight, tomorrow, everyday,

That's why I'm standing here. That's why I'm here.

You might think it would be easy for a man as musically gifted as James Taylor to know what he was meant to be. Maybe it is easy for some people, but I don't think it's all that easy for most of us. I remember struggling with it a lot when I was younger. Like most kids, I went through phases. I wanted to be a policeman, fireman or teacher. I wanted to be a part of the Riverside Mountain Rescue team. I used to make up games to entertain myself, which at one point had my mother convinced I was meant to be the CEO of Milton-Bradley. Of course, she also thought I would be good at advertising and she once suggested I think about going into dentistry. Significantly, ministry never occurred to any of us, until later that is.

My father, for his part, was always telling my brothers and me that we could be anything we wanted to be. You're only limited by your own drive and imagination, he would say. Honestly, it took me awhile to get over that idea. (Sorry dad) It's a very popular notion in this country that any child can grow up to be president, but it simply isn't true. Obama's presidency proves that the job isn't limited to white men, but that doesn't mean every child regardless of race, sex or religion has an equal shot at it. Parker Palmer calls this one of our "national myths." We've all taught to think that part of being an American is believing that there aren't any limits. "Despite the American myth," he says, "we cannot do or be whatever we desire. There are some roles and relationships in which we thrive and others in which we wither and die."

And that, it turns out, is the key to knowing why we're here. Palmer, in his book, "Let Your Life Speak," says that we are naturally good at some things and not others. We are naturally drawn to some situations and not others. It's not like we're all handed a vocational manifesto when we graduate from high school, and then go on to spend the rest of our lives doing what we're meant to do. Rather, we have to be willing to do a little detective work. Our lives give us clues to our true vocation and the trick is to be able to decode the clues. As an example, Palmer tells this story:

In grade school, I became fascinated with the mysteries of flight. As many boys did in those days, I spent endless hours, after school and on weekends, designing, crafting, flying, and (usually) crashing model airplanes made of fragile balsa wood. Unlike most boys, however, I also spent long hours creating eight- and twelve-page books about aviation. I would turn a sheet of paper sideways; draw a vertical line down the middle; make diagrams of, say, the cross-section of a wing; roll the sheet into a typewriter; and peck out a caption explaining how air moving across an airfoil creates a vacuum that lifts the plane. Then I would fold that sheet in half along with several others I had made, staple the collection together down the spine, and painstakingly illustrate the cover.

I had always thought that the meaning of this paperwork was obvious: fascinated with flight, I wanted to be a pilot, or at least an aeronautical engineer. But recently, when I found a couple of these literary artifacts in an old cardboard box, I suddenly saw the truth, and it was more obvious than I had imagined. I didn't want to be a pilot or an aeronautical engineer or anything else related to aviation. I wanted to be an author, to make books - a task I have been attempting from the third grade to this very moment!

The deepest question of our calling, Palmer concludes, is not "What ought I to do with my life?" It's the more elemental and demanding "Who am I? What is my nature?" "We must listen for the truths and values at the heart of our own identity," he says. "Not the standards by which we must live, but the standards by which we cannot help but live if we are living our own life." Isn't that great?

When we have a clear sense of who we are, answering the question "Why am I here?" becomes much easier. And naturally, the answer isn't going to be the same for everyone, but if it is true vocation we're talking about, there are some similarities. Frederick Buechner defines vocation as "the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need." Certainly, we are not all here to do exactly what everyone else is doing. But in one way or another, this is a definition that fits, or at least could fit, the vocations of all of us. Can you imagine how different this world would be if we were all motivated to find that place "where [our] deep gladness meets the world's deep need"? It's a beautiful definition. At very least, the world would be a much more compassionate place. It would be a place much more in harmony with the ministry of Jesus. No one would ever confuse him with Arnold Palmer, but he knew who he was and what he was here for, and he passed on to us a ministry of compassion that is a part, at least, of what we're all here to do.

Amen.