11th Sunday after Pentecost Yr C Proper 16 Aug 21 2022

11^th Sunday after Pentecost Yr C Proper 16 Aug 21 2022

Isaiah 58:9b-14, Psalm 103:1-8, Hebrews 12:18-29, Luke 13:10-17

 

Behold, I make all things new, my favorite verse in the book of Revelation. Behold, I make all things new may very well what the gospel writer Luke is trying to tell us. Luke is concerned with the relationship of the Law, given to God’s people, and the new creation, Jesus, given by God to God’s people. 

 

So what is the purpose of the law?

According to the stories told in the Old Testament, the purpose of the law is to provide us guidance in how to live with each other so that all of us may get more out of this life and world we share. The law, in short, promotes civility, cooperation, and health. It lends a certain order to our lives, order that creates space in which to flourish and grow. For all of these reasons, the law is given to the Israelites by God not to help them become God’s people but as a precious gift because they already are God’s people. But that’s not always how we use the law. Simply because law does, in fact, lend a modicum of order to a chaotic world, we are all too often seduced into thinking that creating and maintaining order is the purpose the law. We forget that the order the law provides is not an end in itself but rather is meant to serve life and health.

 

Which is what happens here in Luke. The original commandment to keep the Sabbath holy and to do no work on the Sabbath was meant to ensure that people who had been slaves for years and never knew rest would finally be guaranteed at least one day of rest a week. It was, in this sense, the first labor protection law, ensuring that employees and servants alike were not overworked. The law of the Sabbath, in other words, was designed to promote life and health.

 

But in this scene we see how one who is charged with keeping the law turns a means into an end, chastising Jesus for bringing life and health to this woman because it disrupts the order we tend to prize above all.

 

Before we are too hard on this zealous religious leader of Jesus’ day, however, let’s keep in mind how often we insist on keeping the letter of the law at the expense of its intent, and let’s be honest about our own craving for order and stability that makes it difficult for us to imagine “exceptions” to the law that promote greater life and health. Jesus challenges the letter of the law, even breaks its ordinance, because Jesus remembers the purpose of all of God’s Law. 

 

The purpose of all of God’s Law is freedom. This woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years and was bent over and quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 

 

Any day that celebrates new life is a good day for healing. Today is the day to stand up straight and praise God. Not only is today the day to stand up straight and praise God, it is the day for walking, leaping, moving forward informed by the past, into a future of hope, a future of creativity, a future of wholeness and healing. You see, that’s what this is all about; this gathering each Sabbath. 

 

We are the same as the woman in our gospel today. This woman whom Jesus set free. This woman who was bound up, or enslaved, for all of her adult life. This woman whom Jesus released. This good news we hear today is true. You and I know it is true because it describes our lives, each one of us is set free, each one of us is released from the bonds that hold us at a distance from each other, we are released from the bonds that keep us believing that ultimately our needs, real or perceived, are the most important needs in the room. You see, unlike what we experience in so many places in our lives, God's relationship with us is not transactional, God's relationship with us is loving, giving, emptying, freeing.

 

We find ourselves here today not because we have to be here, or we are obligated to be here, but because we are free. We are free from the bonds of selfishness, from the bonds of self-absorption, and egotism. We are free from the religion of our culture that preaches our worthiness is in a transaction - you must buy, you must have, you must consume, you must be the most important or good looking person in the room.

 

And Keeping Sabbath matters, your being here matters. Just like this woman, we bring all our brokenness, we bring all our hurt, and we are healed. And in the healing and being made whole again, being put back together, we are freed. We are freed to show compassion. And in reaching out, showing compassion, we participate in bringing God’s healing, freedom, joy and peace to those in need, and that is a rejuvenating path, a creative path, to experiencing those things more fully in our own lives. We are free to be transformed into the persons we are created to be. So what’s really important here? God's dream is healing and reconciliation, God's dream is love and compassion. Keeping the Sabbath is about keeping God’s dream the main thing. And it is about the nearness of the kingdom.

 

The woman in our story today was released from the bondage of her ailment. We too are released from bondage, but you and I both know that we tend to choose to stay in bondage. We tend to believe the religion of our culture that says to us either “you are like God” and deserve to have anything and anyone you want, or “you are worthless” and deserve only what happens to you, both of which are lies. 

 

The truth is so very different from any of that. The truth is that we are God’s beloved creation, and that God loves us whether or not we love God, and that God came to be part of creation, to live, love, suffer and die, so that we may be reconciled, joined together with God and with one another so that we may be free. The truth is that the story is not about any one of us, but the story is about God’s relationship with us, and our relationship with God and our neighbor.

 

That’s the main thing, and what flows from that main thing, what flows from God’s amazing and abundant love for us is the freedom to love others, regardless of approval or disapproval, regardless of whether or not they deserve our love, regardless of whether or not they brought life’s circumstances upon themselves or if they are a victim of circumstances. What flows from God’s amazing and abundant love for us is mercy and compassion.

 

So this week as we reflect on the gospel, it might do us some good to linger where Jesus lingers, to begin in a moment of Sabbath, to start from a quiet place within, and remember the main thing. The main thing, that it isn’t about me today, it isn’t about any one of us, it is about what happens outside the walls of this church. It is about meeting others with God’s compassion, God’s mercy, and reminding ourselves of the dignity, the freedom, the blessing that is God’s desire for each of us as God’s child.

 

Behold, you are made new. You are made in God’s image. Amen

*Much thanks to David Lose with the work on Law.

 

 

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 8 Yr B June 27 2021

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 8 Yr B June 27 2021

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27, Psalm 130, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Mark 5:21-43

 

What would it be like to not be well for twelve years? Some of you have some experience with this, some of you know those who have chronic illness and have good days and bad days. Some of you are there yourselves. What would it be like to be a woman in Jesus’ time and bleed for twelve years, without relief? She’d spent any money she had on physicians, and she continued to grow worse. I imagine a body exhausted, listless, unable to really get up and do much of anything; and certainly unable to go far from home. What would that be like when you are a woman who must take care of a household, as well as caring for children and most likely for your parents. Would everyone leave you? What would they do with you?

 

And added to the misery of exhaustion and the inability to really do anything, she is unclean. To preserve the holiness of God’s people, Jews in Palestine avoided contact with lepers, menstruating women, corpses, and Gentiles, among others. Such contact defiled a person for a period lasting from one to seven days, until purification, ritual washing, and enduring a waiting period. So on top of her exhaustion, she was prohibited from participation in festivals, certain meals, and Temple functions.

 

What was she doing there? She should not have been there. At the end of her hope, she must have sensed something about this man Jesus. Jesus had just crossed back again over the sea, having healed the man who was Legion. And again, a crowd of people had gathered around him. One of the leaders of the synagogue came to him and asked him to come and see his daughter who was near death. So Jesus went with him. This crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Those kinds of crowds are a little less familiar to us these days, so we have to reach back to remember being in a crowd like that. Hot sticky people, craning their necks, looking for the rock star or the sports star, trying to get a glimpse of the hero. But she had nothing left to lose. All she had was a flicker, a glimmer, of hope. She was at the end of her rope, at the end of her life, at the end of his cloak. She touched it.

 

You know when your car battery is dead, and you jump it from another car, and it roars back into life? Or when your favorite song comes up on your playlist and you just gotta get up and dance? Or when you can’t get out of bed because you’ve got the worst sinus infection of your life, and you finally get the antibiotics you need and you feel like you can finally jump out of bed? She felt his power surge through her giving her new life. Jesus felt it too. It was as if they were the only two people alive in that crowd. Connected by an umbilical cord of life and power. 

 

Jesus moved on to Jairus’ house and pronounced life for the little girl. “Little girl, get up!”

 

Jesus’ life and power is connected to us too, is that a jolt of faith?

 

Sometimes, when I am reading the newspaper, listening to the news, even talking with people, I hear hopelessness, faithlessness, despair, in our community, our country. I hear people wondering what is next. Where or what is the next way people are disrespected, mistreated, and distrusted? What is the next means of exclusion, violence, hatred? Why are we having so much trouble making space in our communities, our lives, our country, for people who are unlike us?

 

I think it may be because of the blood. This woman’s blood flowed out of her, through no fault of her own, making her unacceptable in the neighborhood in which she lived, and, they believed, unacceptable to God, yes, to God. These rules were to keep God’s people holy, and to keep God holy as well.

 

We continue today with boundaries and barriers that keep us apart, outward appearances that are no fault of our own, inward realities that are no fault of our own, to some exclude us from God’s love.

 

But Jesus changed those rules. Jesus said, the commandments now are, love God, love your neighbor, period, no exceptions. And yet we keep doing it. We keep people away, we put distance between us, we inflict animosity, because they are not like us. It is as if we need to keep ourselves unaffected, clean even, and it is as if we need to keep God in our box of holiness.

 

But we needn’t worry about God; God can take care of Godself, much better than we can. God is found in all sorts of objectionable places, places where hungry people live, places where homeless people live, places where boundaries are erected and walls are built. And yet, we see God in those places, in the faces of all of God’s beloveds. We see God in those places, in the faces of the helpers, those who go running toward trouble, those who go running toward violence and sadness. We see God in the faces of those whose color, language, and culture is unlike our own.

 

You see, we are the Jesus movement. In Jesus’ life, and in Jesus’ journey to the cross, and in Jesus’ love on the cross, Jesus crossed boundaries. Jesus heals any who need healing, regardless of their status, regardless of who they are, regardless of who they even believe in. And on that cross, Jesus healed the one who hung next to him, who uttered the words, “remember me, when you come into your kingdom”, and who does the same for us, regardless of our status.

 

Jesus’ life and power is connected to us too, what about that jolt of faith? We are the Jesus movement. We are connected to love, we are connected to healing, we are connected to dignity by that same umbilical cord of life and power. We follow the one who makes people free, the one who unbinds, the one who heals. We follow Jesus who crosses boundaries, who goes to the margins, who overcomes obstacles in the service of the kingdom of God. We are the Jesus movement, and we are followers who cross boundaries to proclaim the good news to the ends of the earth, and the mission is urgent, because the end of history, according to Mark, will come soon. I’m not so sure that Mark is wrong in his timing.

 

The good news is right here. Jesus crossed boundaries in his life to bring new life, to heal people, to make people whole. Jesus continues to cross boundaries to bring new life, to heal, to empower, through you, and me.

 

Just like that woman of so long ago, Jesus’ life and power is connected to us too, what about that jolt of faith? The good news is right here. Do you feel it? Can you feel it? “Little girl, get up!” Jesus says the same thing to us. Get up, be a part of the Jesus Movement. Stand up, be counted as one who is connected to Jesus; whose blood courses through our veins, whose body is broken for us. Stand up, be counted as one who is connected to Jesus. Stand up, be counted as one who loves God, loves others, and shows it. 

Fifth Sunday of Lent Yr B March 21 2021

Fifth Sunday of Lent Yr B March 21 2021

Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 5:5-10, John 12:20-33, Psalm 119:9-16

 

Location, location, location. The story we read today happens in the middle of the chaos and celebration of Passover in Jerusalem. A thousand people could be there, everyone goes. It is the center for commerce as well as where the temple is located. And, we are at the jumping off point. What comes next in John’s gospel is Jesus’ final words, all of the instructions that Jesus wants to impart to his followers, including you and me. 

 

And in the middle of all that commotion, a group of Greeks arrive on the scene. Who knows why they were there, at a Jewish festival, but they were, and clearly rather curious. They find Philip and make one of the most extraordinary requests of the entire gospel. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Just a reminder, those who make this request are Greeks, not Jews, it is an odd request. Jesus’ last words in public are a response to this request to see Jesus. Jesus says the time has come, if you wish to see Jesus, then this is what you will see and what you must see, and it’s not all pretty or neat. In fact, it’s messy and hard. But the way of love is messy and hard, and it is the way not only we get to see Jesus; it is the way we get to bring Jesus to those who are broken and in need of healing.

 

So let us see what we can see. First and foremost is the wonderful, amazing, and somewhat frightening image of death and life. A grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls into the ground and dies; but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest. I think you gardeners out there know this truth better than most. We will be embarking on the planting season very soon, I for one cannot wait. However, I have given up on growing vegetables, especially when I can walk a few blocks to the farmers market cart and buy a tomato, and a cucumber, and an ear of corn. This year my garden will be wildflowers, or weeds, who knows. I’ll add some good dirt to my little plot, and throw some seeds into it, and watch those beautiful flowers grow. 

 

As I sort out the seeds I will sow, I am taken by their shape before I throw them to the ground. Most of them are some variety of little black blobs, some bigger, some smaller. Recently, when I was in northern Minnesota, I picked some seed pods off a morning glory plant. That plant was all dried up and brown. You see, nothing we put into the ground looks anything like what grows out of the ground. This is what Jesus wants us to see. Those bulbs under the ground that are erupting in tulips, in crocus and daffodils, are not nearly as pretty as the flowers above.

 

Ordinarily, burying something in the ground is to lose it. Or to hide it. That’s the way our culture looks at it anyway. It looks like loss. Death looks like loss. Death looks like defeat. But what Jesus tries to show us over and over again is what looks like loss to those who have eyes to see is not loss at all, but change, transformation. This is the truth of new life, this is the truth of the story we will embark upon during holy week, this is the story of death and resurrection, this is the story that claims our lives. 

 

In these days of darkness and loneliness, these days of isolation, these days of meanness and hate, I’ve been thinking about darkness, and of course light. Maybe part of the reason that death looks like loss is that we hide in the dark. We hide our lies about ourselves and others. We hide our sense of shame and inadequacy. We hide from those we love, we hide from God. We hide all our broken pieces, never to be put back together again. Hiding for so long in the dark can make us mean and hateful, it may cause addiction or maybe even be a result of addiction. That is a complicated disease. Hiding in the dark is most assuredly about denying reality. Stepping out of the dark is the most difficult thing any of us may have to do. It takes telling the truth. But stepping out of the dark is where new life begins. It is the only chance of putting the broken pieces together in a whole new way. We may be lost, but we are not defeated. Because Jesus’ light shines even into that darkness. 

 

You see, this is what Jesus means, about himself and about us, because we are all flesh and blood. Jesus’ journey to the cross and on the cross looks to the world and to the empire that murders him, like loss and defeat. Jesus was mocked and ridiculed. This is not a game with winners and losers; it is a love story. An alternate translation of verse 32 is “And in my dying, and rising, and ascending, will be the fulfillment of the promise, for God so loved the world.”

 

You see, God’s dream for creation, for you and me, is this very reality. What looks like loss or death, what feels like deep darkness, is the place where creation is made new. What is broken is put back together, it is healed. And people are strongest where they’ve been broken. And those who came asking to see Jesus were looking for this new reality, this promise of something more. This way of love and of light. 

 

Healing is God’s dream for creation. Healing and reconciliation, and right relationship. That’s what John’s gospel is all about in the end, and the beginning and the middle. God reaches into creation to take on flesh and blood, that’s the descending part. That very flesh and blood living and breathing and doing what flesh and blood does. And that includes dying. But John tells us not only that, but this amazing thing, this something more, resurrection and ascension. That’s the ascending and glorifying part. That’s also the relationship part, we are not ever left alone. No matter how dark our darkness feels, we are not alone in it. We can arise out of it, stretching toward the light. 

 

Next week begins our journey to the cross with Jesus. It will be an odd journey for us, meeting in person sometimes, meeting virtually sometimes. But no matter how you do it, please be present in these days. Be present to God’s gift of love, and healing, and new birth.

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 7 2021

YouTube video

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Yr B Feb 7 2021

Isaiah 40:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39, Psalm 147:1-12, 21c

 

My mother-in-law, Rick’s mom, is an amazing woman. She has enough love in her heart for the whole world. She’s worked hard her entire adult life, often working overnights in restaurants as a waitress or a manager. She has been a caterer, and has been known to bake Christmas cookies and cakes for the people in her building. Food has not only been her bread and butter, but food is also the means by which she shows her love and finds her worth. And we love her dearly. We never expect her to prepare a meal for us, but, well you know, she does anyway. She’s made garlic toast and roast beef hash, and a dish only a son could like, Cedric’s casserole. Butterfinger bars, pink squirrels, Russian teacakes…. And finally she has compiled all her recipes and gave them to each of us for Christmas. You try to say, no, you know you really don’t have to, and it rings hollow, because really, she has to, it’s who she is. She is whole and complete; she is whom she truly was created to be when she is in her kitchen. 

 

Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law. And the first thing she does is to get up and serve them. This is a story that has always made me mad. No rest, no recovery, no getting back at things slowly, the fever left her, and she began to serve them. On the surface it seems like this is just perpetuating a stereotype, the woman’s role. And then I am reminded of my mother-in-law, and I remember that what they share is that their wholeness, their health, their being fully who they are, is tied directly to their love of serving. When my mother in law is sick and cannot putz around her kitchen baking this and that, she is not herself. She is aging, and she cannot move about in her home and her kitchen as she would wish. She is losing herself. 

 

What Jesus did here was more than just heal Simon’s mother in law, as if that isn’t enough, he put things right, he restores the order of things, he makes whole what is broken, he brings her to herself, he gives her a new life. The radical nature of this story is not necessarily that Simon’s mother-in-law was healed, and not necessarily that she served, the radical nature of this story is Jesus’ capacity to restore her wholeness, to restore her value and worth, to actually give her new life. And in so doing, purpose and meaning.

 

That’s what casting out demons and healing is about with Jesus. Jesus heals a leper, Jesus heals a paralytic, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand. Jesus heals a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years, and a child who has died. It is not just removing disease, as if that isn’t enough, but these are stories about Jesus’ power to bring people into a new relationship, to bring people into right relationship with himself and with others. These are stories about making whole what is broken, these are stories about bringing healing into a fragmented world, these are stories about this absolutely new thing that God is up to. These are stories about making the dead alive.

 

The Good News is that in a broken and fragmented world, you can live a life that is whole. That is not to say that the life you live will be perfect, whole and perfect are nothing alike. Perfect is what we see set before us as a standard by those who can sell us something to make us seem perfect. Perfect is what we will be if we buy the right skin lotion, perfect is what we will be if we buy the right house, perfect is what we will be if we marry the right person, or play the right game or have the right bank account or life insurance or whatever. The harder we work for perfect, the more frustrated, depressed, angry, and resentful we become.

 

The Good News is that in a broken and fragmented world, you can live a life that is whole. When Rick and I were married, we were given the chalice that was used for Holy Communion that day. On our 10th anniversary, we brought the chalice to church with us to use at communion in celebration of our anniversary. As I was getting out of the car that day, I dropped the chalice. We picked up the pieces, and I set about putting the cup back together. It is whole, but surely not perfect. It is now filled with 36 years of growth, of such pain, happiness, heartache, joy and of sorrow. We lived together through pain and suffering, death and resurrection. We were never a perfect couple, perfect parents, perfects siblings, not perfect, but in Jesus’ love he is whole, I am whole, we are whole. 

 

It is this Good News that we must proclaim to the world. Perfect people have no time for church, broken and hurting people, you and I, come to be made whole, come to be restored to fullness of life, come to be made new in the waters of baptism, we have been born again. God already knows us; we are wonderfully and fearfully made. In baptism we are perfection and beauty and potential and existence. When we are dropped into the water there is a new creation. The water takes the calluses, the armor, the prison around our lives, and sets us free. Very shortly this is also the journey of Lent, from baptism to new life

 

Jesus is a good Jew, he goes to synagogue on the Sabbath, but then he goes and breaks the law by healing on the Sabbath. What Mark is trying to show us is that the Word of God, God in the flesh, is active and healing. Jesus knows that there is a danger in people knowing that he is the Word of God, God in the flesh. Jesus knows that it is also dangerous for him to neglect his own relationship with the one who gives him life, so he goes to pray. Wholeness and healing involve prayer, into our brokenness comes the Word, alive and active, quiet and contemplative. 

 

Jesus was fully who he was created to be as he went about healing, casting out demons, turning over tables in the temple, eating with sinners, welcoming the children. It was all in a day’s work for him, albeit hard work. And he too needed to regain his balance, find his center, kneel before his creator, and pray. 

 

I don’t think the 1st century world in which Jesus lived is much different than the world in which we live. People are broken, disheartened, there is greed and there is idolatry. Through Jesus, God offers us healing and wholeness, through Jesus, God offers us the opportunity to be ourselves. Putting ourselves, like Jesus did, in the posture of prayer brings us to a place where we can hear the call to be ourselves, to be whole, to be healed. Prayer is a place in which we find our relationship with God, prayer is a place in which we find ourselves. 

 

Come and be healed, come and be who you are called to be, come, and find yourself.  Amen

 

13 Pentecost Proper 18 Yr C Sept 8 2019

This sermon departs from the lectionary on this day because I need to preach from Acts as an assignment for my Doctoral studies. 

Audio  Acts 16:25-34

Sunday September 8

I love a baptism. You all know that. I love the celebration. I love throwing the water around, I love the scent of the oil. I love that together, in the midst of community, we acknowledge that each and every one of us is a precious child of God, and that in some mysterious way that none of us can describe or imagine, God shows up with us, God makes us into community and we are made into a new creation. And I love the party, because, there’s always a party, with cake.

In this story from Acts baptism and hospitality are the response to many things that come before. Paul and Silas are wrongly accused and thrown into prison, they sing hymns, a miracle earthquake frees all the prisoners, the jailer contemplates suicide rather than face the dishonor of having allowed the prisoners to escape, Paul and Silas share the good news, and in response, the jailer and his entire household is baptized and the jailer takes everyone home and tends to their needs, including feeding and healing.

So much is happening in this story, but what I’d like to focus on today are two things, what did the jailer hear and see that caused his transformation and subsequent baptism, and what does that have to do with food and healing.

This jailer lived in a world in which his career and professional prestige are based in his job performance, and this thing that happened that set all the prisoners free, laid all of that to ruins. As far as he was concerned, he was already done for and was contemplating suicide. Paul stopped him, and the jailer asked Paul and Silas what he could do to be saved. Most likely, he wasn’t asking about eternal salvation, he was asking them how he could get out of this disgrace alive. But Paul and Silas must have answered him with a compelling story about Jesus, because at its conclusion, the jailer chose for himself and his entire household to be baptized.

What do you think that jailer heard?

Just imagine Paul, inviting the jailer and all who were related to him, to sit down, and listen. And then Paul tells them everything about Jesus. Maybe Paul’s story went something like this. “There once was someone who did such amazing things and said such wonderful things that people followed him. As they followed him, they heard him talking about a kingdom, but it surely wasn’t like the kingdom that they lived in. It wasn’t like any kingdom they had ever visited. It wasn’t even like any place they had ever heard of. So, they couldn’t help it, they just had to ask, what is this kingdom of heaven like? And Jesus said, it’s a kingdom in which people love their neighbor and even the one’s they do not know. And it’s like when we all sit down at table together, and everyone gets enough to eat and to drink. And Jesus said, share this meal of bread and wine and know that I am with you and among you, do this in remembrance of me, and know that in this meal, in this bread and this wine, in my broken body and blood which is raised up, you are healed.”

We can’t ever really know what Paul and Silas said to the jailer. But surely it was about God’s power and God’s faithfulness. It is a story that changed Paul. It is a story that Paul tells that changed that jailer’s life. He was freed from the shackles that held him prisoner. He heard the good news that the value of his life did not depend on the manner in which the Roman government regarded it. For this jailer life was all about honor and prestige, not anymore. He heard the good news that includes the freedom to be obedient, to be authentic, in spite of all that society may expect of him.

How do we hear the story of Jesus, who is God in the flesh, who lives and dies and rises from the dead? Does it change us, as it changed Paul, as it changed the jailer in this story? Because what Acts narrates for us is a story about being freed to live an alternate existence as an alternate society, today we call that the Jesus movement. Acts shows us that the Roman empire does not offer a community of care, and of healing, of mercy and justice, only this community of followers of Jesus does that. And this new community is a community of rejoicing.

Hospitality, in Acts, is a response to the glory and love of God, and hospitality includes everyone, citizen and foreigner alike. Hospitality here, in this place, in this community, is a response to the glory and love of God and includes everyone. Not only is there body and blood, bread and wine, there is enough for all who come, all who come from the ends of the earth, and from the neighborhood that surrounds us.

This good news caused the jailer and his whole household to receive Jesus. What a great thanksgiving that party must have been. Baptism and hospitality, thanksgiving, sacrament, healing. They are linked. Rejoicing is a response to the gospel. The word Eucharist means thanksgiving, and so what we do together, in this community, every time we gather and even when we are far apart, is to be thankful that we are transformed, made new, in our relationship with Jesus and with others. And we give thanks that we are made in God’s image, that we are baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And we are freed to dine at the table of hospitality, to eat the broken bread which is broken body, and the spilt wine which is blood poured out, the body and the blood, the bread and the wine that makes us whole, that puts the fragments of our lives back together again, that heals us. What other essential activity could be more profoundly sustaining and healing?

Peter and Paul, in the book of Acts, were called to proclaim the Good News of God in Jesus to the ends of the earth. And there was much rejoicing, eating, feeding, healing, and even partying in response to that Good News. Peter and Paul were some of the earliest Jesus followers, they were some of the first of the Jesus movement. You and I are part of that Jesus movement, 2019 years later, and as followers of Jesus, we too are called to proclaim the Good News of God in Jesus. Inside these walls, we proclaim that Good News by welcoming all to this table, to be fed, to be healed. And, outside these walls, where being church is actually lived out, we do the same. We feed people, we feed them with meals delivered, we feed them with meals cooked and served, we feed them with our donations to ECHO and Salvation Army. And we feed them with love, and care and compassion. And in the feeding, we are all made whole once again, our broken lives are put back together, our broken hearts mended. Thanks be to God.

23 Pentecost Proper 25 Yr B Oct 28 2018

23 Pentecost Proper 25 Yr B Oct 28 2018 Audio

Mark 10:46-52

We take up with the gospel of Mark again in the shadow of Jerusalem, on the way to the cross. We've been on this road for a while now, partners with those in the story who are also on the way. Before the followers of Jesus were called Christians, they were, as we are, people of the way. This story of the blind Bartimaeus is the last story of Jesus’ ministry before the cross, the passion, and resurrection. I think this story of Bartimaeus is in stark contrast to the story that we heard last week, the story about James and John. James and John ask Jesus for power and status, Bartimaeus asks Jesus for healing. God lavishes love on them all, Jesus calls them as followers, and yet each of them must let go of something they’ve been holding on to live fully free, fully alive.

"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks Bartimaeus, it’s the same question that Jesus asked James and John only a moment ago in the story, and that we talked about last Sunday. But the gulf between the request that James and John make, and the request Bartimaeus makes is cavernous. James and John were somewhat confused remember, they ask Jesus for power, they think the kingdom is about a seating chart. But Bartimaeus, Bartimaeus asks to see. Nothing like the power and status, the place at the table that James and John were all about, and what’s more is that Bartimaeus wasn’t even officially a disciple.

Imagine Bartimaeus, sitting in the road, probably at the main gate of Jericho, day after day, all day, in the hot sun, begging. But Bartimaeus knows who Jesus is, he’s listened to the talk, he calls out to Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Let me see.

Two things here that are so unlike the James and John story, or the story of the rich young man, which we also heard a couple weeks ago. First, the request, have mercy on me, heal me. Second, the ramifications of that healing, what it means to follow Jesus.

Have mercy on me, Bartimaeus asked, mercy. You know what mercy means? A heart for other peoples troubles. Bartimaeus was asking Jesus to have a heart for his troubles. That’s all, hear me, see me, and if you’ve got it in you, heal me. And that’s what Jesus did, Jesus heard him, Jesus saw him, and having a heart for his trouble, Jesus healed Bartimaeus.

So once Bartimaeus is healed, what does he do? Bartimaeus’ profession is begging. Once he is healed, his life is changed, he can’t go on begging anymore, so he follows Jesus. Just like the others, he gets up and follows. Bartimaeus exchanges a life of begging, a life of blindness, for this life of following Jesus. And you and I know where that’s going, straight to the cross.

No matter how much we think we have, no matter our wealth, our status, our power; no matter what we think we don’t have, our lack of health, our lack of wealth, our lack of support, we leave it all behind when we follow Jesus. We get so wrapped up in our own shortcomings, or we spend so much time valuing our worth by what others think is important, that we forget that we are God’s beloveds, and we forget to have mercy, a heart for other people’s troubles.

Jesus calls us to follow, Jesus calls us to surrender things that poison us, or things that keep us from seeing what is around us, Jesus calls us to be merciful, to have a heart for other people’s troubles.  Jesus' call to us, the call to be followers, is to open ourselves up, to surrender the stuff that insulates us from our neighbors, to let Love win. Being healed isn't easy for us. Last night, I had the privilege of hearing Anne Lamott talk about her new book, Almost Everything, Notes on hope, and all her wisdom really, Anne said, “when you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, it’s time to surrender.” Being healed is like that; it’s finally recognizing your loveliness in Jesus’ eyes and finally letting yourself be loved, and finally letting go whatever it is you’re sick and tired of, because you can’t control it anyway.

But there is risk involved in being healed. There is risk involved in letting Jesus change you. Life will never, can never be the same. Out of what seems like death, letting go sometimes feels like death, comes resurrection. We cling so desperately to that which we believe is our identity, no matter how healthy or unhealthy; it's nearly impossible to give that up to an identity as beloved of God. Letting go of what we believe defines us to take on our true identity as God’s beloved, is hard. But unless and until we let die what is killing us, we can never be healed, we will never be transformed into the new person in Christ. The Good News is that when we make room for Love to interrupt our precisely organized patterns, we make room for Love to change our path; we make room to go home by a different way. And there will be new life in ways we can hardly begin to imagine.

Bartimaeus is called, and healed, and follows Jesus. But the journey to the cross is as difficult as it is exhilarating; following Jesus is not for the feint of heart. It was only a very short period of time between Bartimaeus being healed, being restored to the community, and Jesus’ passion, suffering, death and resurrection. But the good news is that we are all in this life together. The good news is that we are capable of mercy and love. The good news is seeing, seeing, the grace, the joy, the wonder, in all that life throws at us. Unlike Bartimaeus and the others, we know the end of the story. We know that resurrection happens. We know that life always wins over death. We know that we are part of resurrection. There is hope.

Following Jesus is not about having the right answers; it’s not about being perfect. Following Jesus is seeing healing right in front of us; following Jesus is having a heart for other people’s troubles. Following Jesus is being transformed, being changed; becoming the creation that God calls us to be. Following Jesus is loving our neighbor, our neighbors who don’t look like us or worship like us.