Creekside Church Sermon of July 20, 1997 "Turning Brown to Green" Mark 6:30-44	Rev. David Bibbee
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What's your color? What hues are you? I know now, more than I did three weeks ago, that my color is green. I won't take green for granted again. I won't ignore the verdant grass, plants, and trees, not after spending time in the Southwest where the brown sand, rocks, and brush of the desert rule. I was struck by the stark beauty of the desert, but especially by the utter desolation. Mile after mile with nothing but desert. I missed green.

It was while driving in Arizona, through a stretch that started with a sign that said, "No services for one hundred miles", that I thought about the desolate, barren land where Jesus taught and ministered, and how, in that hot, hostile place, he revealed the refreshing word of a hospitable God. Today I want to use the contrast between brown and green not just to describe the terrain of the land, but of our lives as well, and remind you, beginning with me, that Jesus continues to enter those barren places in our lives to feed us with himself.

You have heard me describe Mark as the gospel in a hurry to get to the point. No extraneous details. If Luke is a color television showing vivid detail, then Mark is an old black and white set. In our text, the disciples have returned from a preaching and teaching tour, and Jesus takes them to a lonely place to rest. The needs of the people were so great and many that the disciples barely had time to eat. They needed a break. So Jesus took them away from the throng to a lonely place, a deserted place...a desert place.

But when they arrived, the crowds were there waiting for them. They were the hurting and hungry. They latched onto Jesus not just to eat, but because they had been eaten by life. They followed not only with hungry stomachs, but with heavy, hungry hearts. And Mark says Jesus had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. As the shadows lengthened on the day, Jesus told the disciples to feed the people. Now remember, this is a deserted place...a desert. No service stations. No convenience stores. No golden arches. Over the disciples' protest, Jesus orders all the people to sit down in groups upon the green grass.

This is a verse I have read who knows how many times and I never saw the green grass. What is grass doing in the desert? Mark wasn't into detail, but here he dipped his brush into the paint and put a slash of green on this scene. It's not an insignificant detail. One of the clues to interpreting a text lies in finding what seems strange and out of place, and here we have it. Green in a desert.

I remember an Old Testament professor who said what an amazing thing it is that out of a parched, barren strip of land nine miles wide and twenty-one miles long, came three of the world's great monotheistic religions. Speaking of Judaism and Christianity he said that they share a central theme from start to finish. The story they tell is concerned with turning the brown into green.

By turning brown to green we're talking about what God does in the lives of people--turning darkness (that's brown), into light (that's green), slavery to freedom, exile to homecoming, hurt to wholeness, no people into God's people, death to resurrection. The hungry came to Jesus in a deserted place in a deserted condition, and the shepherd led them to green grass and fed them. In Isaiah 35 it says that this is what happens when the Messiah comes..."the desert shall rejoice and blossom. Streams shall appear. The burning sand will become a pool."

On our way back home we stopped in Southern Colorado at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. It's a forty square mile area where the sands blown from the high desert plains are piled at the foot of the Rockies. The largest dunes are nearly eight hundred feet high. The sands are constantly shifting and around the perimeter you see what happens when the sand overtakes an area. The vegetation dies. Trees slowly shrivel. The green becomes brown.

This process isn't something we only see, but we all experience as well. The desolation that characterizes life in the desert; the parched environment which struggles to sustain life, finds a counterpart in our own lives. Who among us hasn't known a time, even now, when we have felt alone, deserted, dried up, with just a little life left in us? The making of a desert is something which can happen very fast in our lives.

It takes only a phone call. It takes just a few words. "I have some bad news for you...I don't know how to tell you this...the MRI has confirmed our suspicions...we did everything we could...we're through...we'll offer you a severance package. Clean your desk out by five o'clock this afternoon." Those who have experienced the blows know what brown is all about. There come times when we resemble the description given by T.S. Eliot in his poem, "The Hollow Men":

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw, alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass.

Verse thirty-nine isn't an insignificant sentence buried in this story. It tells us that in the barren experiences of our lives, like a compassionate shepherd Jesus comes--to teach us, touch us, and feed our hungry hearts.

Father John Powell teaches at Loyola University. He remembers a student named Tom. He was the resident atheist, and as he turned in his final for a Theology of Faith class he said, "Hey father, do you think I'll ever find God?" Father Powell said an emphatic, "No!" "I thought that was the product you were pushing." Tom said as he walked away. Then Father Powell said, "Tom, I'm absolutely sure of this, God will find you." "Oh," was his reply. And he walked out.

Some time later, Powell heard that Tom was sick...with cancer. Then one day Tom walked into Powell's office. "Hi Father!" He was flesh and bones. "Tom, I hear you are sick." "Cancer in both lungs is pretty sick, isn't it?" "Are you dying?" "Yes," he said softly. "I have only a couple of months." He went on, "When I was in your class I was looking for God. I kept saying, 'If you're in there come out and speak!' But he never came and I wasn't interested.

Then when they began removing tumors from my body I pounded my fist against the bronze doors of God's supposed heaven and I screamed, 'Say something! Do something! I don't have much time!' God said nothing. 'I've just had it. I don't care if there is a God or not.' Then I remembered something you said in class. It's why I'm back. You said it would be a pity to go out of this world without telling those you love that you did love them. So I tried it.

The hardest one was first. My dad. He was reading the paper. 'Dad?' 'Yes, what?' he said. Without lowering the paper. 'Dad, I want to talk with you.' 'Well, talk.' 'It's really important.' The paper fluttered to the floor and my dad did two things I never remember him doing. He cried and he hugged me. We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. Next I told my mother and brother and we cried. Then, all of a sudden while I was sharing myself and my love with those close to me, suddenly God was there."

"Tommy, what you're saying is that God is love, and whoever runs the risk of love will find and abide in God." "Now I know," Tommy said. "He found me after I quit looking for Him." "Tom, will you come share your story in the Theology of Faith course?" "Yes." But Tom never made it. But as he was dying he said to Father Powell, "Will you tell them?" "I will."

Another story of being found. The transformation of brown to green. A coming home. Some lyrics from an old song come to mind here:

The home town looks the same, as I step down from the train
And there to meet me are my mama and my papa.
Down the road I look and there comes Mary
Hair of gold and lips like cherries,
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.

How good indeed, especially when we find ourselves tired, lonely, hungry, and wandering around in a desert-like existence. The one who came and saw the great need of the great throngs had compassion upon them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.

I learned something that is peculiar to sheep. It is almost impossible to get them to lie down unless four requirements are met. They refuse to lie down unless they are free from fear. They refuse to lie down unless they are free from tension with other sheep. They won't lie down if tormented by insects. And they won't lie down if they are hungry.

Neither can we. There is no rest where there is fear, tension, torment and hunger. But many of you can tell of being found in a deserted place by the shepherd who calmed your fears, who satisfied your hungers, who took the brown and made it blossom into green.

Together, let's say who he is:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
He makes me lie in green pastures
He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil; for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies;
Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

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