I’ve been in some big crowds in my life. The most memorable ones were from back in my thirties when I used to run marathons. The biggest race crowd for me was the Disney Marathon with over 16,000 on the starting line. Next in line were the two times I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. with crowds verging on 13,000. That’s a lot of people and crowds are destructive Like letting a herd of Cattle tear through your downtown.
The Marine Corps Marathon is an interesting experience. It’s hosted by the United States Marine Corps in the nation’s capitol. The route takes you by all the monuments and so forth in D.C. The hospitality that the Marines extend is outstanding. They are polite and extremely helpful. The water and medical stations are well supported. All along the course there are even Marines in dress blues standing at attention, one hand extended, and palm full of Vaseline so that runner’s could grab a dab and lube the places that are starting to chafe. But, there’s one oversight. For a crowd that big there is just no way you can provide enough portable potty support. So, racers just start going along the course wherever they can get behind a bush. All modesty just disappears. It’s ironic that at the invitation of the USMC a massive crowd of people converges on the nation’s capitol and literally lays waste to it. Someone needs to rethink that. We all know what Main St. looks like after a horse parade. It’s worse when its humans.
Speaking more personally, I have to tell you I’m not a big fan of crowds. Some people can go to concerts and crowded things like that and just have the best time in the world; not me. I become what they call hyper-vigilant. I’m always on watch for something to go insanely wrong. I have this predisposition to believe that people can and will do stupid dangerous stuff and when a crowd of people gathers the stupid dangerous factor increases. Therefore, Mr. Hyper-vigilance here becomes the extra security guard duty. I can’t relax in a crowd and so crowded events are not enjoyable for me.
Crowds are an especially touchy subject now in the midst of this pandemic. People should not be gathering in large crowds due to the high probability of a mass outbreak resulting from unknowing, asymptomatic carriers. A few weeks ago on the first really warm day of the year a huge crowd of people formed in Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto. Many would agree that was stupid dangerous behaviour and would ask was that afternoon in the park worth the possibility of people you care about becoming gravely ill or worse. Well, no need for guilt trips now. People are people and as a good friend of mine used to say, “There’s nothing stranger than people.”
In the passed week and a bit, crowd-gathering has become a totally different matter. It’s no longer a matter Spring Fever and isolation fatigue. Crowds are gathering to protest racism and to say that Black Lives Matter in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer as other officers watched and did nothing. The murder of Mr. Floyd became the straw that broke the camel’s back and people are risking life to gather in crowds to protest. In the States many of these protests have become full blown riots.
Canadians have been gathering to protest too. In Montreal the protests have been heated. Here in Owen Sound, this past Wednesday a university student organized a Black Lives Matter march. It was well attended. The mayor and the police chief both attended and took a knee at the Black History Cairn in Harrison Park. As you folks know, Owen Sound was one of the furthest stops north on the Underground Railroad, the network that African-Americans used to escape slavery in the United States. Even with that high note in our past, there is still racism in this area. It has reared its ugly head over that past couple of years with the arrival of many Newcomers from the Middle East and Africa.
During this pandemic, many similar events like Pride Parades have been postponed or cancelled this year. Yet, crowds are gathering to passionately say Black Lives Matter and that racism needs to end at the personal level and especially at the systemic level. Racism is embedded in our political and economic systems as much as sexism is.
People of all colours are crowding up for these protests. The reaction to them has been all over the spectrum from spontaneously joining in to taunting the protestors. In some places civic officials have joined while in others they have sent the police out in riot gear. Added to all that, there’s anger and righteous indignation at the disregard for the pandemic risk. It’s a tense matter.
I had a difficult time deciding what to preach on this week. I wanted to revisit the story of Abraham and Sarah and the impossible birth of Isaac. I wanted to talk about God being a promise-keeping God and how God makes possible the impossible. I thought I could preach on that yet again with the message that even though as congregations we are old and lack the energy for anything new, God is still the God who makes possible the impossible. So, we have to still be on the lookout for new life in our midst. I could have preached on that, but as I read the lectionary passage from Matthew a verse stuck out that wouldn’t let go of me; verse 36 which reads: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” So, I went with the crowds.
Looking at that passage, wherever Jesus went crowds gathered around him. They came for many reasons but at the heart of it all was that they were deeply dissatisfied with life the way it was. The Romans were there like a corrupt police force with oppression in hand. Their political leaders were corrupted pawns. The religious leaders either served the establishment or were hypocritical legalists. Many revolutionaries had risen up and been put down claiming to be the Messiah, the Spirit of God anointed king that God had promised to send at the end of the age to set up the Kingdom of Heaven. So, people crowded around Jesus wondering who was this teacher who teaches with authority the religious leaders didn’t seem to have, who heals the sick and casts out demons, who cries out for justice proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand? Could he be the one?
Matthew says that Jesus could see that they were like sheep without a shepherd. That’s a biblically-based, highly politically charged accusation against the leaders of the Jewish people in that day. Many of the prophets condemned the leaders of the people as impotent, unfaithful, and self-serving by referring to them as shepherds who had abandoned their responsibilities to serve God and his people in order to embellish themselves.
Jesus saw the crowd and Matthew says had compassion for them. The Hebrew/Greek way of thinking about compassion is pretty deep. The Greek word for compassion literally means “moved in the bowel”. That’s when something troubles you so much that in your gut is where you’re feeling it. Something troubles you to the point of you know you got to do something about it. Have you ever had a concern just churn in your gut? Well, Jesus saw this crowd and he was deeply moved in his gut by by them, felt compelled to do something for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He had an overwhelming concern for them for they were oppressed and hopeless, without solid leadership, and losing faith.
His response to the crowd wasn’t to judge and condemn them for their liberal political desires to be free and to enjoy justice, peace, and equity. He didn’t dismiss them by saying all lives matter when they just wanted their lives to matter rather than being expendable economic slaves undergirding the Roman imperial economy by doing the things the Romans wouldn’t do for themselves.
Jesus instead empowered his disciples to go to these particular lost sheep and do the things they needed done to restore their human worth and dignity. Jesus sent his followers into the crowd to proclaim and to embody the reality that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.
Now, as I said, this verse really spoke to me. We are in a moment when crowds are gathering and they are gathering over a matter that should have gone away several decades ago: racism and white privilege are still with us. Racism is a learned behaviour. Children are not born racist. They learn it from adults. It persists because the dominant white culture is afraid of losing its privilege.
When I moved to Canada I was taught that when it comes to racial differences Canada is different than the States and this is true. The States handles racial difference like a “melting pot”. If you throw a bunch of different colours of cheese into a pot and melt them, they will all become one colour. The unspoken assumption then is that the final colour will be white. So that, the “whiter” people of colour become, the better things go for them. In Canada we use the analogy of the “Salad Bowl”. All the different ingredients make up a unique and enjoyable salad. That’s a good ideal and it is noticeable that Canadians strive for that. But…there’s still white privilege and racist attitudes at play especially towards the First Nations.
People are crowding together like sheep without a shepherd and whether they know it or not they are looking for the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus comes to bring. He has compassion for the crowds. As his body, we should too. As white Christians, we have to be honest and own up to why people are crowding up today. The biggest thing we have to do is listen to our brothers and sisters of colour. Right now there is a wealth of church services on YouTube. Find a couple of black preachers to listen to and hear what they are saying about what its like to be Black in Canada. Listening with compassion is a good place to start. Well, I’ve gotten long winded here. So, I just want to say crowds are gathering. Jesus is moved with compassion. Can we, his disciples, say the same? Amen.
