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Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 25 Year B
October 29, 2006
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Isaiah 1-19
Psalm 13
Hebrews 5:12-6:1, 9-12
Mark 10:46-52
This week I had to go to St. John's Episcopal Church in Waterbury for Clericus, a meeting of the clergy in this Deanery. Bishop Curry was scheduled to join us for lunch so that we could discuss our responses to Bishop Smith's address at the Diocesan Convention. I was a little early for the meeting so I asked the secretary if I could please go into the dining room where they were serving lunches to homeless people. The food smelled good and the place was packed with a motley assortment of people. The woman in charge of the proceedings was wandering around checking that their guests had what they needed. They obviously felt completely at home with her. She knew them by name, and asked often about things that were going on in their lives. I noticed her gentle touch for one, her ability to draw another out with a joke, a gentle chiding for someone who was being particularly annoying! After awhile I went up and introduced myself to her. She greeted me with the same warmth and openness she had greeted those who had come to eat that day. We chatted for a few moments after which I inquired if I might be able to come and help serve sometime in the future.
Reflecting upon my brief encounter with the meal program at St. John's I realized what had drawn me to go into the dining hall that day, why I experienced a sudden urge to be with those who were serving lunch to homeless folk. I realized that just for a few minutes I needed to leave behind of anxt of church politics to seek a place where people are simply involved in the expression of God's love for the poorest in our society. I wanted to remember the power of God's mercy for this world, to see it in action and experience it for myself. After the anger and the agony of this year's convention, the mixed responses to Bishop Smith's address, the fury of those who thought Bishop Smith had gone too far in welcoming our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ and those who thought he had not gone far enough my soul was parched, my heart crying out to experience God's mercy for myself. That morning I found God not in the agitated and intense conversation among the clergy of this deanery but among the homeless at St. John's and those who served them.
In our gospel story today it is blind Bartimaeus who cries out for God's mercy as Jesus enters the city of Jericho. Many in the crowd who surrounded him would have thought of Bartimaeus simply as a blind beggar, one of the dregs of society whose blindness must be understood as punishment for someone's sin - his own, or the sin of his parents or their parents before them - for that's how sickness was understood at the time. They are greatly disturbed when the blind man begins crying out to try and catch Jesus' attention. Mark tells us that there were many among the crowd who ordered him sternly to be quiet. They people saw themselves as the gate-keepers, the powerful ones who should decide who should and who should not approach a holy Rabbi. They try to muzzle this pitiful man in his desperate attempts to reach out to Jesus. Bartimaeus refuses to be silenced even by those whose handouts he must rely upon for his very existence. He cries out even louder this time, "Son of David, have mercy on me." And Jesus stops in his tracks.
Incredibly, in the midst of the noise and hubbub of the crowds, the shoving and the pushing, the frustration and the excitement the voice that is heard by Jesus is the one the crowds have tried to silence. He speaks to the man who has cried out for mercy, asks the crowd to let him come forth. Bartimaeus hearing his invitation leaps to his feet, throwing away the cloak that has kept him warm in the darkness of his world. This man who has been rejected by all around him now stumbles towards the voice of Jesus and asks to receive his sight. In that moment we catch a glimpse of a truth that can so easily elude us. It is those who are most aware of their weakness that are able to cry out for God's mercy.
The rest of us are more like the people in the crowd who are spiritually blind. We're distracted by our work, our families, our desire to get on in the world, to build the right social connections. Caught up in an endless swirl of meetings, practices, games, social activities or volunteer work we have become blind to what is really important in life. We forget God's mercy for those who are most needy in this world, those whom Jesus loved the most. We are guilty of the transgressions for which the prophet Isaiah condemns his people, where "Justice is turned back and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public-square, and uprightness cannot enter." (Isaiah 59:14)
We are in need of God's mercy to turn us away from our desire to silence the seemingly annoying voice of those among us who are suffering and oppressed, to make room for those who are crying out for God's mercy in their lives to come to the same table at which we feast, to receive the healing grace of God's love. We need God's mercy to relieve us from the perfectionism that so often plagues our lives. We need to know that it's okay not to be the prettiest girl in the class or the captain of the football team. We need to know that it's really okay to admit our failures and our defeats, because God is merciful to those who turn to him for help. Jesus never turns away from those who are aware of sin in their lives. In fact he does quite the opposite. He invites them to come to him so that in the warmth of his embrace they can find healing, release from their sin and the joy of living in his presence.
Jesus stopped in Jericho, on his way to Jerusalem to face his own death on the cross, simply to heal a blind man who cried out to receive God's mercy. Could be that we too are called to stop and listen to those who are most marginalized in our society, to stop deciding who should and who should not be allowed to participate fully in the communion of the faithful and invite them to the table? Could it not be here in Jericho as we see a blind man received by Christ that our eyes are opened to see the beauty of God's mercy, to recognize in our own suffering not a cause for embarrassment but an opportunity for God's power to be revealed?
Let us pray that our community will be one that like Jesus welcomes the outcast and the poor. Let us pray that God's mercy will flow freely in our midst for the healing of all who would come. Let us pray for the joy that comes from knowing ourselves to be free from the need to decide who should or should not draw close to the Lord. Let us begin to look for God's mercy at work in the world around us. And having been touched by God's mercy in our lives let us like Bartimaeus throw down our cloak and rise up to follow Christ with all that we have and all that we are and all that we are to become.
In Christ's name
Amen |
