Last month I stayed at the Premier Inn in Stratford, overlooking the Olympic Stadium. As technicians assembled the BBC studio on top of a sequestrated car park, crowds massed through the gleaming Westfield Shopping Centre, anticipating the serious shopping which will be going on there during the Olympics. Imagine the crowds passing through there today, hungry for a celebrity sighting, yearning to touch the glory of the Olympics, determined to visit Prada. Crowds just like those who pursued Jesus as he made his way through Galilee.
Mark’s Jesus is constantly pursued by crowds, all wanting his attention, wanting to touch his flesh, holding their hands out, expecting him to feed them. Like fans mobbing Usain Bolt on a London street, they hemmed Jesus in, wanting more and more, giving him no time to himself, even to eat. Jesus tried to escape them to recuperate. They kept looking for him until they found him again.
Though the crowds wore Jesus down he was 'was moved with pity for [them] because they were as sheep without a shepherd'. In a most memorable action he produced enough bread and fish to feed five thousand. You'd have thought that this would have satisfied their hunger: but no, soon after, here they were again, looking for Jesus, wanting more. They couldn't get enough of Jesus; their appetite for him was relentless; they were addicted; they were suffering what Gil Bailie calls a ‘famished craving’.
Our Olympic obsession – is that a ‘famished craving’? Or our driven desire to shop for that one item which will satisfy us – and having purchased that, to need to shop for something else? Our hunger to be fed, physically and emotionally, is insatiable. In Stratford, in the world, satisfaction is unachievable. But compassionate Jesus gives us more than we ever imagined. Jesus gives us twelve baskets full to overflowing.
– my note for this week's Parish newsletter. Got it in early as my contribution to the Olympic bandwagon.
