Trinity Episcopal Church, Galveston
Gospel: Mark 10:46-52
28 October 2018
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus shows God’s compassion with an act of healing. Jesus’ responds to a blind person begging from the side of the road, and this is contrasted with the hardness of heart demonstrated by many of the followers accompanying him.
This story is just “dust and ashes” unless we use it as a mirror to see ourselves. In some ways, I see myself in the crowd wanting to bypass the beggar. I’ve been in too many situations where I’ve looked the other way, walked to the other side of the street, or otherwise chosen to keep my distance when a stranger is asking for help on the street. Typically, I am suspicious; I find it difficult to trust folks soliciting at the street corners or in the parking lot at the grocery. On the other hand, there have been times in life when I related more to Bartimaeus. I remember feeling desperate after Hurricane Ike when payroll was coming due for the teachers and staff before we had re-established any kind of office at our devastated campus. The Diocese of Texas in Houston had a lot to deal with in those days, and they also found temporary office space for an anxiety-ridden head of school from Galveston. As it turned out, the Diocese agreed to front money and process the printed checks for the September payroll. Those checks going out when they did were an early sign of hope that Trinity Episcopal School had support and was going to come back!
Jesus did not meet every blind person in Palestine; that was not his agenda. Jesus' agenda on the way to the Cross was to teach those who followed him that God’s Kingdom begins in mercy. God’s compassion is real, Jesus made it known in word and deed... and ultimately, on the Cross.
There are only two basic choices in life, two ways of seeing the world, two paradigms….and these are love and fear. When we choose fear, the focus is on scarcity. When fear is in play, we are rendered blind to the abundance with which we have been blessed, and we worry about not having enough time, running out of resources, or coming up short of what we will need for self and family. When we choose love, the focus is on joy. The blessings we have received come readily to mind, and we want to pay them forward. Giving of self is a spiritual practice; it helps us connect to something greater than self. In our appointed Collect today, we pray for an increase in charity. Even though our acts of compassion, how we give of ourselves to others, may often be incomplete, distorted, misinformed, even self-serving to some extent, there is always grace in trying to follow God’s example in Jesus.
If you have watched any news lately, you have heard of the migrant caravan on route from Central America. The people are real and number in the thousands. Unicef says there are 2,300 children in this caravan. Does this modern day Exodus seem like an invasion? Do you feel that these folks are coming to take our jobs, to strain our social services, to change our way of life? Are they pawns of a political movement, on the right or on the left? The more interviews I hear, the more these people are given human faces, the greater my awareness is that they are not left or right, they just want to survive.
People in this caravan decided to leave their homeland, figuring that the danger of leaving and making the journey (even with no assurance at the end) was outstripped by the danger at home of facing gang death threats and no help from a corrupt government…. and the continuing threat of being unable to feed their families. I found it helpful to read some of the interviews of people in the migrant caravan, to see things from their perspective...to put human faces on them. These are folks who are desperate...that means, if you tell them not to come, they are still coming.
Bartimaeus believed that Jesus was God’s chosen leader and trusted that Jesus would show compassion for him. Bartimaeus cried out the words, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” At some point in the past he had lost his eyesight, but in his spirit he could still see. He trusted that Jesus was the one sent by God to save the lost. For people who are desperate, faith is not a luxury to take or leave. For people like Bartimaeus, life had to be lived one day at a time. His very existence was dependent on the gifts of others...faith was required just to make it from one day to the next.
Perhaps, Bartimaeus knew enough from the scriptures to know that the promised Son of David would be a servant of all. Jeremiah’s vision of a restored Israel included the blind and the lame, as we heard in our Old Testament reading today….Perhaps, Mark’s Bartimaeus knew this passage. Many in the crowd berated him, telling him sternly to keep his mouth shut... But he was desperate, and he believed that Jesus would show compassion to him. So, this beggar cried out even more loudly. When someone is desperate, they don’t have a choice….no matter what others say or what kind of abuse they shell out….they will keep on.
Jesus had left Jericho, and the next stop was Jerusalem...the “train had left the station,” so to speak….but, Jesus stood still when he heard a cry for mercy. The crowd did not know this, but Jesus’ work in Jerusalem, his death on the Cross, would show God’s unqualified mercy for all humanity.
Now here is an even more remarkable thing in the story. The beggar cries out, Jesus hears him and stops, and then…. he directs the crowd to call the man. Jesus asks the very people who had been hushing Bartimaeus to now deliver good news and to bring him before Jesus. Notice, he does not wait for the perfect, blameless people to assist. Jesus needs the ones who are with him to be his hands and feet. Jesus needs us to be his hands and feet in our own time and in our own community. He is not waiting for the perfect, blameless people because, truth be told, those people do not exist. Folks, it’s just us.
The story of Bartimaeus serves as a warning that fear can lead good people to show contempt. Fear tells us that the stranger is the enemy; that the needy will overwhelm us with their needs; that time cannot be spared to depart from the agenda we already have going. The story is a reminder that Jesus calls us to choose love over fear, to show compassion, and to respond as best we can to those, who in their desperation, cry out for mercy. We are followers of Jesus; we are not perfect, we struggle with hardness of heart, but we are loved, we are blessed with abundance….and we are called to be Jesus’ hands and feet in the world today. AMEN.
Trinity Episcopal, Church Galveston
Gospel: Mark 10:2-16
7 October 2018
Early in my career as a priest I learned that seminary does not train young men and women to be pastors. I graduated from Virginia Seminary in 1987, a twenty-something, having learned Bible, Theology, Greek, and lots of other “book” learning. But I didn’t learn how to integrate that learning into the work of caring for souls until I had real responsibilities for pastoral care in my work as a curate and chaplain. Seminary helps with the Master’s Degree, but it takes a parish, school or other real-life ministry to make a pastor.
I have a poignant memory of this “on-the-job” pastoral education from my first assignment as chaplain at Christ Episcopal School in Covington, Louisiana. At one point, it was brought to my attention that one of our 2nd Graders, an only child, let’s call him Sam, had some bad news in his family. I was advised that Sam’s parents had just announced their separation and intention to divorce. My immediate naive assumption was how this boy must be devastated. At that age, surely his entire world must be his parents….and now, like a rug, that world was being pulled out from under him. I filtered my imagination through my own idealism about marriage. The words of Jesus, came to mind, “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Marriage was an institution ordained by God, and its failure must always represent a complete, unmitigated disaster, especially to a child. And this poor 2nd Grader must be hurting and needing to talk to someone.
Here’s where Sam became my teacher. I arranged a time at school to conference with him. “You must be very sad that your parents are no longer together,” I said with concern. And, then, this kid (in tears but with a wisdom beyond his years) responded that his parents, no longer being in the same house now, this situation living with one parent at a time from now on, meant that he would no longer have to hide under his bed at night! The new situation was not devastating. What Sam was experiencing now was relief and the hope that his own home would not be day-after-day of “Defcon 5” emotional intensity. What I learned from Sam was that life is more complex than any one set of fixed ideals. What I learned is that compassion has to rise above adherence to ideals. What I learned is that sometimes the perspective of a child helps reveal the truth.
Our Gospel reading for today has two parts. In the first, Jesus is being tested by the Pharisees. John the Baptist had been beheaded, indirectly at least, because of the stance he took regarding Herod’s marriage to Herodias, who was divorced from Herod’s own brother. This subject was highly volatile to say the least; perhaps, Jesus’ comments on marriage also would incur the wrath of Herodias, and that would be the end of him . The second part of our reading from Mark gave me a sense of déjà vu. The last time I was up here preaching, Mark’s Gospel portrayed Jesus teaching his disciples using a child as an example. Today, the example has been underscored by its repetition. The most critical concepts in any curriculum are repeated. (If you hear teachers speaking about this repetition in “eduspeak,” they will say that the concept is “spiraled.”) So, this point that Jesus is making with the example of children must be critically important to the Christian life.
Jesus does not often become “indignant,” but when he does we should pay attention. He became angry when Jesus’ disciples discouraged people from bringing children to him. Apparently, Jesus felt strongly about welcoming children, being affectionate with them, and blessing them. In today’s reading, Jesus makes clear that only those who receive the kingdom of God like a child, will be able to enter it.
This second story provides Jesus’ counterpoint to the rules-based religion of the Pharisees. For the Pharisees, being right with God meant adhering closely to God’s laws. Their encounters with Jesus were typically asking him about rules (or criticizing him and/or his disciples for breaking them). For Jesus, being right with God was not about following rules. Yes, Moses allowed a man to go through a legal proceeding to divorce his wife. But, Jesus is very clear that observing this rule does not make it all OK. Generalizing from this, the overall point is that even following all of the rules would never make us right with God.
Rules are necessary to protect us from one another, but they do not solve the underlying problem of human selfishness. In modifying our behavior in order to avoid consequences (or, better, out of respect for the rules), we help our community to be more just and enjoyable for all, but God is after something more profound than civil society as good and necessary as that is.
Remember last week’s Gospel? It’s hard to tell the inflection of Jesus’ speech from the text, but consistent with the Gospel, I imagine Jesus said something like...well, if the foot is the problem, go ahead and cut it off, better for you to enter heaven lame than to go to hell with both feet. Well, if it’s the eye that is the problem, by all means pluck it out. I bet Jesus knew his words would get our attention and make us think. But, here’s the deal: the problem is not the feet...the problem is not the eyes, the hands, or any other body part for that matter. The problem is the heart, the seat of human desire. And, there is, in fact, no surgery that makes us right with God. So if it’s not rules, and it’s not surgery, what is it, then, that can make us right with God.
This is so important that Jesus repeats the point; He again welcomes children into the lesson….in fact, to become the lesson. Children are dependent; they cannot fix their life situation but must place their trust in those who love them. I will never forget the hope Sam displayed to me those many years ago when he learned that his parents would live apart. He loved them both but knew that things would work out better being with one of them at a time. This kid was resilient, ready to forgive, flexible, and hopeful. He knew the old way was not working and was ready to embrace a different way. Jesus is saying to us, be like a child in your faith. We cannot fix our own fallen nature or that of anyone else for that matter. Sometimes, we experience our world deeply divided and pulling apart around us, and we wish we could find a metaphorical way to hide under the bed. Jesus calls his children to place their trust in God’s love… and, in turn, to forgive others, and to be resilient, flexible, and hopeful in God’s transformation. We are Jesus’ children, and we are called to embrace a different way...the way of love.
With the help of the Holy Spirit, let us respond in life like children who are deeply loved, not for how we measure up to the rules, but simply because God has made us. And, may we ever remember.... the perspective of a child can help us cut through the distortions to see the simple redemptive, trans-formative truth of Love. AMEN.
