October 28, 2012
Pentecost 22
Hebrews 7:25-28
Mark 10:46-54
(prayer)
There is worry and angst in the world, that is for sure. In 2012, we are more globally aware than at any other time in history. And so, we can carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. Every once and a while, it is wise to contemplate that there is much that is right with this life: we have valuable relationships that give us support and purpose; we are connected spiritually that remind us that we are part of something larger than ourselves. This is good. Even in the midst of difficulty, these are indeed ‘happy days’.
I believe that, as we explore the scripture passages for today, that this is one of the things we can come away with: we are not intended to be creatures of perpetual doom and gloom. We can admit that there are aspects of this life that are ‘perfectly fine’.
//
As we read into the later verses of chapter ten in the gospel of Mark, Jesus and his disciples are continuing toward Jerusalem. In today’s reading, they have made it as fair as Jericho, less than 25kms east of their goal.
Jericho would have been a natural stopping point on the journey from Capernaum to Jerusalem, but the historical significance would not have been lost on the first readers of the gospel.
Jericho was the entry point of the Hebrew people’s return to the land of promise after centuries of slavery in the time of Moses. Symbolically, to ‘rest’ there would be a sign of new life and freedom!
So, with that context in the back of our heads, we can hear the story of Bartimaeus in a new light.
The man begged at the roadside on the western edge of Jericho. Although unable to see, he had heard about this one called Jesus of Nazareth: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!
If you have ever been on a busy city sidewalk, as the people pass by others who are vocally panhandling, you have witnessed what happened next. It seems that, like in our day, not everyone in Jesus’ time appreciated the needs of those who were forced to beg.
Bartimaeus’ call for mercy was responded to with shouts to shut up!! Bart responds by upping his volume too: Son of David, have mercy on me!!
It is an interesting note of history and of today that the cries of those in need of compassion are given exactly the opposite - they are often ignored (most just avert their eyes and walk by quickly) or they are vilified for even asking for help.
Bartimaeus was rejected by the crowd...including the disciples, who I picture acting like bodyguards for Jesus.
It is Jesus who runs counter to the culture of the moment. Jesus stopped ... and asked someone nearby to call the man over to him. Then the crowd changed their mood of ‘ambivalence’ toward Bartimaeus to a mood of ‘benevolence’: Take heart, he is calling you. Come!
Simple words from Jesus resulted in an immediate change in the attitude of the crowd. On those words, Bartimaeus sprung up, threw off his cloak and ran right over to where Jesus was.
Bartimaeus found new life in Jesus. He, literally, saw his world differently as he was shown the compassion he needed. The text tells us that Bartimaeus became an active disciple of Jesus at that point: He followed Jesus on the Way.
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Our faith, as fellow followers of Jesus, invites us to experience a new wholeness in life along the Way.
When we look at the world through our Jesus lenses, what can we see that is in need of an experience of new life? We can each ask: as a follower of Jesus’ Way, how is my sight changed?
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Faith changes us, because we are given a new perspective on our lives and the world we live in. We can even pray like the old hymn says:
Open my eyes that I may see,
glimpses of hope thou hast for me.
Open my eyes, illumine me,
Open my eyes, illumine me,
Spirit Divine.
Faith changes our worldview. And that is perfectly fine.
//
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The context of the Hebrews letter is all about a changing worldview and can be summed up in this way:
As the Christian movement rolled into the later years of the first century, many of the believers had some significant soul searching to do about the relevance of their traditional beliefs.
For those whose path to Christianity was through Jesus’ own faith tradition, Judaism, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the year 70 left them wondering about all of those rites and rituals that were tied to Temple worship life. What about the acts of atonement, what about the bringing of first fruit and other offerings and what about the rituals of cleansing and purification?
How could people be assured of their right relationship with God in a post-Temple era?
There was no longer a Temple. There were no longer high priests at the Temple to confirm that all was ‘good’. Was there any aspect of the faith they held dear that still made sense?
Into a changing context, a first century church leader sought to assure the people that there was a continued relevance of what they knew and had experienced.
It wasn’t exactly the same, but there was an underlying familiar truth that they could hold on to.
What was different was a sense of an eternal ‘right-ness’ with God. To be fair the tradition of repeatedly bringing temple offerings was not so much a belief that people had lost God’s favour and needed to regain it, but the rites were repeated as a means of keeping the promise of God front and centre – of making that memorial action a part of regular life.
For the early Christians, who did not (and even if they wanted to, could not, after year 70) adhere to the Temple traditions, one of the key interpretations of the stories of Jesus death and resurrection was to see the crucifixion as an atonement offering (a sacrifice) willingly given by Jesus and the resurrection was the assurance returned by God – in the tradition of the ancient Hebrew rites.
It is not the only way the events of Jesus’ final days were interpreted by the early church or in the centuries and millennia since, but it is one that made particular sense to those Christians who were used to that kind of language and practice.
We see this interpretation of Jesus’ passion most obviously expressed in the letter to the Hebrews.
//
The way that I read Hebrews in 2012 is to say that we are in a perpetual state of right-ness with God. Our short-comings, our mistakes, our sins (if you will) are set aside by God: NOT because we have bought that forgiveness through our actions or prayers or faithfulness, but because God gifts it to us.
It may simply be our faithful hearts and minds that allow us to see the grace of God in our lives.
But, I would go further to say that – even if we don’t see it – God’s grace envelopes us and holds us safe and secure.
And that is a perfectly fine notion to consider.
Instead of moving through this life with a sense of utter worthlessness and unworthiness in need of some future divine intervention (sadly sometimes promoted by Christians and other [so called] people of faith), we are already declared ‘good’ and we are already ‘made well’.
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Bartimaeus was annoyingly rejected by the crowd following Jesus and even by Jesus’ close disciples. In the same way, sometimes, people (sometimes even Jesus’ modern disciples) fail to see the wide reach of the grace of God extending into the lives of some people in this world.
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I believe that it is not perfectly fine to ignore the cries for compassion in this world simply because we might have cause to cast some blame on to people for their own problems.
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Panhandling is not a very visible circumstance in the communities of Beaumont and Leduc. Sure, people working with helping agencies or in churches see the need more easily, but for the average Jane and Joe on the street, it’s not an upfront issue.
I have been privileged in my life to have travelled to a few larger cities and spent time in the streets where panhandling is much more front and centre: Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, New York, Los Angeles, even Penticton and Kelowna. I have travelled with one or more children at times into these areas.
I am so pleased that my children (and I) have had the opportunities for worldview changing experiences and for an education in the potential of the human spirit.
When I am in a big city, I always carry loose change and small bills in my pocket so that I can initiate some contact with individuals who are simply asking for compassion. I have engaged in conversations of life and generosity with people in need and I have been chastised by other people on the sidewalk for this: “don’t encourage those people.”
I ‘beg’ to differ – it is perfectly fine to bring encouragement into the lives of others: especially those who hunger for compassion.
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As I engage the scriptures and read the stories of faith passed on to us, I am increasingly convinced that the God-at-the-heart-of-existence is far more liberal that the most progressive among us, when it comes to being open to new welcome and compassion. We may have our moments when we want to block out the calls for compassion – to ignore or chastise this calls, but God is closer to this perfection than we are able to achieve. This God (and we see this embodied in Jesus) is perpetually forgiving, eternally encouraging, everlastingly hopeful and steadfastly faithful.
The Apostle Paul knew it and tried to express it in words:
unconditional love (agape - agaph), he wrote, is the greatest of all gifts, without which we are nothing (cf. 1st Corinthians 13:13).
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Even though, Jesus is the perfect high priest, capable of deeper compassion and love than we can realistically achieve, we can still strive to be perfectly fine in how we live out a belief in the grace of God in our lives. We can do this in being consciously compassionate to each other as our first and best reaction in the journey of this life. After all, it would be what we would need in that situation.
This is the promise that accompanies a compassionate worldview – that we all matter, we all are cared for and we all deserve to be loved.
This is how new life can be experienced in our lives and in the lives of the people we meet.
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Let us pray:
God, when others cry out, help us to listen and not turn them away. When their cries are to us, give us the strength and courage to respond on your behalf. When we cry out to you, help us to listen then, too, and rejoice in the answers you give. Amen.
#371VU “Open My Eyes”
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