October 26, 2003

Jeremiah 31:7-9 + Hebrews 5: 1-6 + Mark 10:46-52

It is Jericho; the last stop on the way to Jerusalem. The journey to Jerusalem started with the cure of blindness at Bethsaida. In the meantime, Jesus has spoken clearly of what is to come. Three times he has referred to what is to happen in Jerusalem. Each time, the disciples, thinking it’s a all about them, miss the point. All they can imagine, all they can think about is: “What’s in it for me.” But now, the end is near. Jerusalem is just up and around the last hill.

And there he sits with his cloak spread out.It is more than a cloak. It is his visible means of support.Like those who beg today, he has spread his cloak on the groundand those who would not look the other way when they passed drop their coins in the cloak. When his day is finished, he folds it up to collect what he has received. His name is Bartimaeus. It means “Son of the unclean.”

This is hardly a simple story of miraculous healing. The story of Bartimaeus is an example of the way faith works. He sits at the side of the road with is cloak. His beggar’s faith leads him to Jesus. No one takes him there. He stands in stark contrast to those who are already with Jesus on the road but fail to see his real mission. They could not see that his mission was one of love and compassion for all. They want to be selective about who gets to Jesus because they think it’s all about them. They try to keep Bartimaeus away.

The sense of urgency in Mark’s Gospel, the frantic movement here and there, the rushing of the crowds and the pace of Jesus moving toward Jerusalem suddenly stops, and all eyes are on the two of them: the Son of David, and the Son of the Unclean.  In a gesture that says more by action than by word, the Son of the Unclean rises up and comes to Jesus. He throws aside his cloak, his means of support and probably his only possession. What a contrast between this man and the rich young man who passed by Jesus earlier on this journey unable to sell what he had.

With cloak gone and all it symbolized in terms of security and support, blind Bartimaeus doesn’t seem so blind at all. He can see where to put his trust. He can see who can answer his needs and will not fail him. He can see what the other cannot. Unlike the blind man cured at the beginning of this section, Bartimaeus does not “go home” after his cure. He follows Jesus on the “Way.”

The “Son of the Unclean” becomes a “Son a David.” The barriers that would have kept him begging have fallen. Those who would have had him be quiet, begin to speak of Courage. The journey on to Jerusalem picks up the pace again, with one who knows that discipleship is found in living out the fate of the Master.

The challenge to follow Jesus is put before us this autumn weekend

because we still cling to our cloaks. Yet we are more like Bartimaeus than James and John of last week. We know where this is going to end, and we have heard often enough that the mission of Jesus is one of love and compassion for all. The timid and the cautious will let Jesus pass by. Those coming to faith, even blind faith, will cry out: “Have mercy.” The Gospel gives us hope and speaks the best words we might ever hear. “Take Courage. He is calling you.”

October 19,2003

Isaiah 53:10-11+ Hebrews 4:14-16 + Mark 10:35-45

Many people read the gospels to ask what Jesus would do. Many see the gospels as a way to look back in history, find what Jesus really said and did, and so renew their commitment as disciples.

But Mark writes to communicate with the future. His concern is not “what would Jesus do”, but “what will those do who hear the Good News?”

When he wrote this Gospel, James and John are already dead.

Recalling the story of their brash ambition is not just an excuse for Jesus to teach about greatness. It is also Mark’s method of drawing us into the mystery of suffering, service, and love. It is an invitation to wonder about how these two who could not get it right who could not stay awake in the Garden of Olives and ran away from the crucifixion ever found a place in the New Covenant.

All of Marks Gospel tells the story of how slow to believe disciples of Jesus have been. And why would he tell it that way except to hold our attention and make certain that we are included. In story after story when a miracle happens, Jesus insists that the one who is cured tell no one. Not until his hour has come, until the passion and death, is the story to be told lest anyone think that glory comes anyway except through obedience, suffering, and service.

There will be no instant miracles bringing the Kingdom of God. It will not be a matter of privilege, who you know, or what they can do for you. Citizenship in the Kingdom of God comes only the hard way; by faithfulness in love no matter what it costs.

Talk of a “cup” is Covenant Cup. It has to do with identity and mutual fidelity. There is no suggestion here that God likes suffering and is its cause.

The proposal made in this Covenant talk is that we are the cause of the suffering because of our failure to make Justice and live in peace. The suffering of Jesus Christ is not because God likes it,

but because of our failure to bring an end to the kind of behavior

that makes anyone who is innocent suffer. The news here is that God will not shy away from even that behavior, and that God will still claim as his own people like us, like James and John. The Good News is that eventually they got it right, and so must we.

The future for which Mark writes is now. Our easy ambitions and a culture of privilege are challenged by this Gospel.

Those who expect instant success and live in a culture of instant pleasure will be impatient and wander away to seek easy glory that will not last.

The issue is simple and straightforward. We have to be here for the long haul. It is fidelity in face of trouble, suffering, and disappointment that matters.

When miracles do not happen and the way seems difficult and painful, those who do not turn away from a Jesus of suffering

those who do not abandon the covenant of Blood poured out in love will be those who have their place with the Jesus of Glory.

These are the ones who will, as Isaiah says, “see light in the fullness of days”.

October 12, 2003

Wisdom 7: 7-11 + Hebrews 4:12-13 + Mark 10:17-30

The man in this Gospel wants insurance, not assurance. He wants to do something to guarantee his reward. The response of Jesus in this poor translation missed the mark. The scholars insist that what Jesus says is: “You lack one thing.” It is not as though there is a list of things you have to do – the truth is, there is something you must become. It is not a matter of doing something. It is a matter of being something.

The rich young man gets the point, and he goes sadly away. The challenge of Jesus is finally not a matter or wealth or poverty, but a matter of confidence and trust, a matter of priorities and security.

This Gospel text is serious business for you and me. I can’t imagine how this Gospel is heard in the third world, and I could not begin to think of what someone would hear in these verses who goes to be hungry tonight. This Gospel is about us – it is about church-going people, who, in the sense of being here today, have come running up to Jesus. Our piety is largely a matter of keeping the rules, just like the man in the Gospel, and we most often think of salvation as being the result of something we do. Keep the rules: get to heaven.

A hard look at the Gospel of Mark today does not give us the comfort of that kind of thinking. We are not going to have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven because of something we do. Our place will be there because of something we are, and no one is closer to the Kingdom of God than a faithful steward. Stewardship is a lifestyle, a way of seeing oneself in relationship to everything else, a way of perceiving what we have what it is for, and where it came from.

What happens in this Gospel today changes the question. It is no longer for us a matter of what we must do to be saved. It is now a matter of what we must become: radically dependent upon God.

For the disciples of Jesus this is news comes as a surprise. Always before they thought that they had to do something to be saved

Jesus puts before them a thoroughly new idea and proposes a whole new way of living in relation to things and others. It takes some imagination to get this right, and then some desire. I have always thought that this is exactly what was lacking in the rich young man: imagination and real desire. He could not imagine life without his stuff, his property and the prestige it afforded him.

And for all we can tell, he did not desire what Jesus proposed as necessary: at least he did not desire it enough to risk what was suggested by Jesus.

Yet, he was good, and Jesus looked on him with love: details of this Gospel story we cannot ignore. This is about us, good people loved by God. It is about our desires, our relationship with all things, about where we place our trust, and how much we really trust God to care for us and have a place for us. It is about assurance for good stewards, not about insurance for people afraid of losing it all. and maybe after today, it is about asking the right question: “What must I be to be saved?”