Tag: Sermon

Baptism

Today our celebration centers around the Baptism of our Lord by his cousin, John the Baptist.  This feast is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the Epiphany and marks the close of our Christmas observance.  This entire Epiphany season invites us to reflect on Jesus’ baptism and its importance for us who follow him.         

Luke’s version of Jesus’ baptism is more concise than the other Synoptic Gospels.  Luke’s intention is for us to focus on the work of the Holy Spirt in Jesus’ baptism, and, by extension, ours.  Catholic theologian Raniero Cantalamessa has written that: “John the Baptist presented Jesus to the world as ‘the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit’ (see Jn. 1:33). Not only through the sacrament of baptism that he instituted, but throughout the whole of his work, Jesus ‘baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ His entire messianic mission consists in pouring out the Holy Spirit upon the world.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit, that once again we have started to recognize and discuss in the church, is one of the ways in which the risen Jesus continues his essential work, which is to baptize all of humankind ‘in the Spirit.’ It has been described as a renewal of the Pentecost event and, as importantly, also of the sacrament of baptism and of Christian initiation in general, even though the two realities coincide and therefore never come about separately or in opposition one to the other. Pentecost does not cast sacrament into a lesser role (especially the sacrament of baptism with water), and neither does sacrament cast Pentecost into a lesser position.”

In his baptism, Jesus becomes aware of his full identity.  In the same way, we, too, are immersed into our full identity through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  There is an old Hindu parable about a tiger cub raised by goats.  The cub learned to bleat and nibble grass and behave like a goat.  One night a tiger attacked the goats, and they all scattered toward safety. But the tiger cub kept grazing and crying like a goat, without getting frightened.

The old tiger roared, “What are you doing here, living with these cowardly goats?” He grabbed the cub by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to a pond, and said: “Look how our faces are the same, reflected in the water! Now you know who you are and whose you are.”

The tiger took the cub home, taught him how to catch animals, eat their meat, roar, and act like a tiger. Thus, the tiger cub discovered his true self.

In baptism, we are gifted with our true selves.  This is more than mere identity, rather this sacrament allows who we are – created in the image and likeness of God to take root and bring our souls to light and life.  In a very real sense, the Holy Spirit brings us to the water and there we see our reflection and God’s staring back at us.  This is where we begin to discover our true selves as God intended us to be.

When this happens, we discover that along with being baptized with water we are also immersed in the Holy Spirit.  Thus, we are marked and sealed as Christ’s own forever.

Amen.

We’ve Got Work to Do

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

This year we are blest with having two Sundays in the Twelve Days of Christmas. Depending on what day of the week Christmas falls determines how many Sundays in Christmastide we’ll have.

In this morning’s Gospel, Luke tells us about an incident in Jesus’ life when he was twelve years old. Jesus and his family are in Jerusalem for Passover. It’s also the occasion of Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah, which is the Jewish rite of coming of age. In that ceremony, Jesus receives his prayer shawl, and says to his mother, “Woman, today I am a man.”  Jesus’ parents and their traveling companions – traveling in a group was safer that traveling alone – head for home in Nazareth. Jesus is not with the group, and Jesus’ parents discover he is missing when they had gone a days’ journey from Jerusalem. In a panic, Mary and Joseph return to Jerusalem searching frantically for Jesus. After three days, they find him in the temple talking with the elders. Mary’s exasperated response on finding Jesus safe and sound is typical for all parents when they have spent any significant amount of time searching for a missing child. Jesus’ response was one of a typical teenager who doesn’t quite understand why his parents are upset.

What Luke is doing in these early chapters of his Gospel is to paint a picture describing how this child is unique. While I personally believe that every child is unique in his/her own way, Luke wants us to know that Jesus is special.

According to Luke, even at an early age, Jesus is somehow aware that he is destined for a unique mission in life. Here he is at twelve years old, aware that he has work to accomplish; hence, he “must be in his Father’s house.”

What about us? What work are we being called to accomplish this Christmas and beyond?

Howard Thurman, who lived from 1899 to 1981 wrote the following:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

The work of Christmas continues for us and for all who claim membership in the Body of Christ. Our task as Christians is to fulfill and complete the work Jesus began during his life. In other words, we are called to be in our Father’s house doing what we are called to accomplish. We are called to live fully and faithfully into our Baptismal Covenant. That is what is meant by the work of Christmas.

So, my friends, we have work to do. We need to be in our Father’s house, seeing to the work our Father has given us to do.

Merry Christmas!

Amen!

Christmas’ Meaning

Merry Christmas!

Today we shift our focus from the events in the stable to asking what does this all mean? Luke told us about that marvelous night when Jesus was born – the angels and the shepherds – Mary pondering all these things in her heart.  This is great story telling.  Now John comes along and says to us, “this is what all this means” – the Word which was in the beginning is now dwelling in our midst as one of us.

So, what does all of this mean?  Especially when we consider that there are more than two millennia separating us from the event. This is something theologians have been wrestling with since the day of Pentecost, and we continue to wrestle to this day.

For the ancient Israelites and Jews, the Word represents God’s creative power. It was by means of God’s spoken word that the heavens and the earth were created. Jewish people even regard their own spoken words as dynamic, as having an inherent power. This is why many Jews are careful with their words. They are careful in pronouncing blessings and curses, and in choosing meaningful, significant names for people and places. They also believe that the Word represents the “Wisdom” of God which is intrinsically creative.

The expression “the Word of God” can even refer to God himself. Out of reverence for God, whenever he was mentioned in the Scriptures as having human feelings and actions, some people substituted the name of God with the phrase “the Word of God” to avoid anthropomorphism. This overscrupulous paraphrasing, however, overlooked the fact that sometimes God does indeed act personally with humankind in ways that we, as humans, can identify with both emotionally and practically.

Certain strands of Greek philosophy held that the world was created by a mediator called the Word or Logos. The Greeks considered that all matter was evil and so a transcendent, spiritual God could never have been in contact with evil, base matter, let alone create it. However, the Greeks also recognized the beauty, order, and rhythm of the universe, and saw it as the work of a divine creator. Greek philosophers came up with the idea that the supreme God created the universe through an agent: the Word or Logos.

This Greek idea, that the world was created by the Word, interestingly enough, originated in Ephesus, where John wrote his Gospel. It was the Ephesian philosopher Heraclitus in 560 B. C. who came up with the idea of the Word as, not only the agent of creation, but also the sustainer and controller of the universe (cf Heb. 1:2-3).

Heraclitus also saw the Word as the Judge of Truth, and the mind, or Reason, of God. His philosophy spread and became established in many branches of Greek philosophy. The Greeks saw the Word, or Logos, as the creating, guiding, and directing power of the supreme God, so John cleverly used this Greek concept to introduce Jesus to his Greek readers.[i]

Keep in mind that the New Testament, especially the Gospels were written forty years or more after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  The world had changed for the Jews as well as the Christians. Hence, there was a need to link Jesus’ life with the people’s world view and their understanding of that world view.

It’s the same for us.  Our world is vastly different from the world Jesus and the earliest disciples knew.  Bishop N. T. Wright in his seminal work, Paul: A Biography (2020 reprint) stated that if Paul were to walk into either a Christian or Jewish worship service today, he would not recognize the service Jewish or Christian.

In other words, our understanding of the Gospel and of the early fathers and mothers in the faith have evolved; just as our liturgical practices have evolved through two millennia of lived experience. How we understand the Christ-event is nothing like the understanding of that same event that emerged in the last quarter of the first century, or the understanding of those who went before.

There is a story about Thomas Merton (known as Fr. Louis in his monastery) was speaking to a group of his novices:

He said,

          “There is only one thing for anybody to become in life.

There’s no point in becoming spiritual — the whole thing is a waste of time. What you came here for is to become yourself, to discover your complete identity to be you. But the catch is that of course our full identity as monks and Christians is Christ. It is Christ in each of us. … I’ve got to become me in such a way that I am the Christ that can only be the Christ in me. There is a Louis Christ that must be brought into existence and hasn’t matured yet. It has a long way to go. There is a Louis Christ [a Thomas Merton Christ], a you Christ, a me Christ — each one of us is called and graced to be our true self — the self that God has made us to be.”

To put it a different way as St Irenaeus said, “God has become what we are, what I am, so that I/we might become what God is.”

My dear friends in Christ, we will continue to wrestle with what Christmas means, and that is one of the gifts given to us in this holy season.

Merry Christmas!

Amen.

________________________________

[i] Marg Mowczko at margmowczko.com

What I Want for Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Every year in my family it was the same question over and over – what do you want for Christmas?  The answer from every member of the family was, “I don’t know.”  Unfortunately, our gift-giving was reduced to gift cards which more often than not wound up in a drawer and forgotten.  Having a birthday so close to the holiday compounded this dilemma for me.

Several years ago, we, as a family, agreed that instead of giving gift cards because we couldn’t think of what to give; instead, we would find an activity that was open, such as a museum or state park, and visit that place as a family and spend the day together.

When I was younger, Christmas morning was spent opening gifts. Breakfast was cereal and sweet rolls.  We would spend the morning playing with our gifts. The Christmas feast was not the traditional turkey and usual trimmings – it would be hamburgers and hot dogs cooked on the grill.

How did your families celebrate the Christmas holiday? What traditions carried over from generation to generation in your families? What kind of gifts did you exchange?

Perhaps a question that needs to be asked, what would you like to receive this Christmas?

All birthdays have one thing in common – they are celebrations of a person’s life and the gift they are to us? What should come into clearest focus in these celebrations is the shared love made manifest. Geoffrey Tristram of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, or Cowley Brothers, writes:

Christmas is not about the arrival of a new philosophy, nor of a new religion, but the arrival of a person — a person who stands with me and holds me and strengthens me — whose words and actions and sufferings make sense of my life — and can transform my life with a love which is stronger than death.

Today we celebrate God’s ultimate gift to the human race. A gift that draws us deeper and deeper into God’s unconditional love for us. A gift that empowers us to love others in the same way that God loves us. A gift of love that will find its way to the cross in order to demonstrate the infinity of God’s love.

So, what would I like for Christmas? I would like to kneel at the entrance to the holy grotto – the stable offering shelter to the Holy Family – before the angels begin their singing; before the shepherd arrive from the fields. I want to listen to the sounds of a young mother in labor. I want to hear the first cry of a newborn baby in the night, and in that cry hear the whisper from heaven, “It is finished.” Amen.

It’s Not Christmas, Yet.

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent.  Four tapers burn on our Advent wreath, and many of will begin in earnest to prepare for the holiday later this week.  It’s not Christmas yet. 

If your family’s custom is to set up a Nativity Crèche you may do so, including the animals and the Holy Family.  The baby Jesus figurine, however, must remain in the box until Christmas Eve after Mass.  The shepherds will arrive at dawn on Christmas Day, and the Magi have to wait until Twelfth Night, or January 6th.

For three weeks now, we’ve been hearing the prophetic voices warning us of what’s in store for us; last Sunday we heard John the Baptist call us a “brood of vipers.”  Today we turn out attention to Bethlehem and the meeting of two very different women.  In some places, the hymn by Bishop Philip Brooks, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” will be sung as the processional out into the world; but it’s not Christmas yet. 

The prophet Micah was active in the southern kingdom of Judah during the middle of the 8th century BCE.  The northern kingdom of Israel was about to be conquered by the Assyrians and Judah was about to become a vassal state in order to preserve their way of life for a little while longer. 

Micah tells us that God is about to turn things upside down in the lives of the people of Judah.  In order to preserve the status quo with the Assyrians the nation of Judah had to pay tribute in order to keep the Assyrian army from marching in.  This tribute was paid through exorbitant taxes most heavily leaved on the poor and disadvantaged (if this sounds familiar …).  Micah tells us that God’s people will be taken back to a different time and promises the restoration of David’s throne.  However, we will not return to Jerusalem the home of King David, but to Bethlehem the home of the shepherd and peasant David.  It will be a restoration of God’s justice.

Our Gospel recounts the meeting between two marginalized women.  Mary is young, she is betrothed but unmarried, and pregnant – this put her not only on society’s fringes, but in potential mortal danger under Jewish law at the time.  Elizabeth is older, though married, she was past child-bearing age and barren, thus on the margins of society.  Mary has just had her encounter with the angel Gabriel announcing that she will conceive and give birth to a son.  Now, she off to see her cousin Elizabeth who is now six months into her pregnancy.

The two women greet each other, and the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy.  Elizabeth calls Mary “Blessed” and Mary responds with her hymn which is traditionally known as the Magnificat from the Latin opening “magnify,” or as we have it now, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. (BCP, page 119).  This hymn is traditionally sung at Evening Prayer as the response to the first reading from Scripture.

This hymn makes the idea of Mary as a meek and mild woman a lie – this is a statement of strength, specifically feminist strength that calls into question the social norms of her day.  During portions of the last century, this hymn was prohibited by several totalitarian regimes because of its subversive message.  It’s ideas are nothing new, Hannah’s Prayer (I Samuel 2: 1 – 10) is another example of the notion that God’s desire for justice places everyone on the same level no matter what their race, economic status, sexual orientation, or political affiliation.  Both Hannah’s Prayer and the Magnificat describe God acting in history to bring about his desire for justice and love in the human community.

Mary, along with Elizabeth and Hannah, are envisioning a world turned upside down.  The one who will accomplish this is God, and that plan is in motion and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.  Today’s Gospel is intended to give us hope that the world for which God long, for which we pray to come among us, is indeed taking place, and eventually we will find our world turned upside down.

Still, we have to wait – it’s not Christmas yet.

Amen.

The Prophetic Voice

We continue our journey through Advent, now two candles bear silent witness to our coming Lord. Advent’s purpose is to help us prepare our hearts and minds for the mystery that will unfold for in about three weeks from now.

This morning we turn our attention to the work of the prophets. A prophet in Jesus’ day and age was not a fortune teller who would predict future events in order to persuade people to part with their hard earned money for pipe dreams and the empty promise of get rich quick scams, or to convince God to give us something for nothing by investing in anyone of the many prosperity gospel schemes that attempt to convince us that wealth in this world equates with the amount of God’s blessing as well as the outward and visible sign of one’s faithfulness.

The Biblical history of the life, work, and ministry of the prophets is completely different. The prophet’s primary task was to give voice to God’s word, usually because our society’s acts and values are in conflict with God’s desire for us, and the standards to which we are called.

John the Baptist is considered by many as the final prophet in a line and heritage that traces its roots in Abraham’s encounter with God in the form of the three mysterious visitors under the oaks of Mamre through Moses, and the likes of Elijah and Elisha. The prophetic tradition includes notable figures such as Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

The common thread throughout the prophetic tradition is for the people (including us) to repent. This was the heart of John’s message. “Repent, (literally turn around or change your mind) because the Kingdom of God is at hand.”  In this call for repentance, we catch a glimpse of God’s grace and love. The prophetic message is not “repent or something bad will happen,” or “repent, and then God might do something good for us.”  No, the prophets’ call to repentance is always a response to God’s gracious presence already in the here and now. Our repentance, our turning around, is not a legalistic transaction but rather a response to the love already given to us. It is through this encounter with the Divine love that we are placed in a position of having God let go of our sins, which is the heart of forgiveness. Only God has the authority and power to let go of our sins. This is the gift we await in this Advent season. John is inviting us to prepare with him the way of the Lod.

So, on this Second Sunday of Advent, let us pause to listen once again to the voice of the prophets. Let us continue the process of repenting knowing that the One who will release us from our sins is coming.

Amen.

A Promise of Hope

Happy New Year! This morning marks the beginning of a new church calendar year. Once, again, we, as Christians, demonstrate that we are deliberately out of step with the rest of the world – especially the consumer world. Just look around, the stores have been decorated for Christmas since sometime in mid-October. Sadly, it will all be gone on the morning of December 26th – just as we are getting started celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Advent is intended to be a time of quiet reflection and contemplation, not just on the meaning of Christmas and the birth of our Lord. Rather this season is intended to give us an opportunity to give thanks for the year just past and prepare for the year ahead. Our Jewish brothers and sisters begin their celebration of Rosh Hashanah with the blessing, “May you be inscribed with a good and sweet new year.”  By the way, our Jewish brothers and sisters begin their observance of Hannukah tonight at sunset.

We begin this new year by looking at the last things. Jesus, in our Gospel reading from Luke, tells us to be on the lookout for the calamities that will strike the world before this generation passes away. Signs and portents that could cause fear and discomfort – the antithesis of how the world wishes this season to be about. Yet, Jesus invites us to live in hope for the promised redemption foretold by the prophets.

The prophet Jeremiah, in our first reading from the Hebrew scriptures, tells us emphatically that “the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to Israel and to the House of Judah.”  An assurance that God will keep the promises He has made. This is meant to give us a source of hope, even in the midst of desperate and fearful times.

God’s promises are all around us, reminding us that God’s faithfulness is something we can depend upon no matter what the circumstances. When I was at Nashotah House about this time of year, I became somewhat depressed because of the cold temperatures and gray skies. I called my Dad and told him what was going on. He told me to take a walk in the woods and take a close look at the branches of the maple trees (we had just finished raking up all the leaves earlier that week), and then call him back. I put on my parka and gloves and headed out. I didn’t have to walk far. I pulled down a branch and examined it closely. There on the branch was the bud that would grow into a new leaf once spring arrived. It began to dawn on me that here in the early winter with its cold temperatures, blistering wind, and dark gray skies was the promise of spring already present. When I called back, Dad explained that the emerging bud of the new leaf was one of the reasons the old leaves turned their glorious reds, and yellows before falling to the earth.

So it is for us on this First Sunday of Advent, we are called to live in hope, knowing that God’s promises are already in our midst; because “the days are coming says the Lord when I will fulfill the promise I made to Israel and to the House of Judah.”

Happy New Year! I wish you a joyful, and peaceful, Advent and a sweet and good new year.

Amen.

Instilling Hope

We are approaching the conclusion of Ordinary Time, next Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King which will be the culmination of the journey we have traveled over the past twenty-five weeks.

The Gospel for this morning is often called “the little apocalypse” or “revelation” where Jesus tells the disciples what to expect as the Day pf the Lord draws closer. There are more than a few fundamentalist preachers who will take these verses literally, then attempt to correlate them with current events and jump to the conclusion that our Lord’s promised return is just around the corner. This misses the point Jesus is trying to make – that our faith will sustain us even in the worst of times, as well as the best.

The Epistle to the Hebrews I think gives us a way to respond to this morning’s Gospel that is both faithful to the text and makes clear what is expected of us as faithful Christians. In short, we are called to live a sanctified, or holy, life. The question for us is how do we do this – how do we live a sanctified, or holy, life?

First, a sanctified life is a life liven in a posture of confidence before God. Jesus’ offering of himself (“through his flesh”) has cleansed us “from an evil conscience” (vers 22). This is an allusion to our baptism, as well as to Jesus as the one who renews Israel (Ezekiel 36: 25), the author asserts that Jesus has “washed [our] bodies with pure water. In other words, as baptized and forgiven people, we need not be crippled by guilt and/or fear, but we can live with confidence before God.

Second, the sanctified life is one lived in hope. Verse 23 urges us to “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.”  This is not a misguided or misaligned hope. Even though Christ has inaugurated a new age, the world is still “waiting” for the final defeat of all God’s enemies – including death. All believers, then and now, face the challenge of living faithfully during this “in between” time, perhaps even in the midst of “abuse and persecution.”  Christian hope is practiced against our outward circumstances; because our hope is rooted not in human effort, but solely in the faithfulness of God. We are able to “hold fast” to our hope because the one “who has promised is faithful”

Third, the sanctified life is lived in community. This flies in the face of our American tendency toward rugged individualism. The entire community is the target of the exhortation to persevere. In fact, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews scolds us for neglecting to meet together for worship and fellowship.

In urging us, and all, believers to gather, the author describes the “provocative” function of the Church. The Church gathers, in part, “for the purpose of incitement or provocation.”  This can carry a negative connotation of irritation or sharp disagreement, as well as the positive meaning of encouragement. Therefore, agitation is not simply a tool for community or union organizers, but one of the functions of members of Christ’s body. We are to stir up – if necessary, irritate – each other in to fulfilling, or living into, our Baptismal Covenant.

This model of the Church presents an image where the agitators are not “outsiders,” but “insiders.”  The Church is not a place where everyone “plays nice and gets along,” but a place where our duties to each other include difficult, perhaps contentious wrestling (but always wrestling together), with what love and good deeds available to us. This vision of the Church is the vision to which Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior called the clergy of Birmingham, Alabama in his famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” (August 1963). For King, the “love and good deeds” to which Christians provoke each other include agitation against an unjust status quo.

The fourth mark of the sanctified life is related to the third:  as Christians we are called to live in solidarity with each other. Holy living means growing in acts of love and Christ-like service to all people. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews warns us against complacency, against allowing the gospel of reconciliation to become a matter of cheap grace. Sanctification, the process of growing toward becoming holy, is both a calling and a gift. We are called to respond to God’s gift by engaging in those practices that will shape us into mature disciples. These practices are best cultivated with in the life of the believing community, in other words, the Church, as we gather for worship, to enjoy fellowship with each other, and provoke each other to acts of Christ-like service.

Finally, the sanctified life is lived with a sense of urgency because “the Day [is] approaching” (verse 25). By invoking scriptural images of the coming Day of the Lord as one of both judgement and redemption, we are offered both warning and encouragement. Therefore, as believers we should support each other in “love and good deeds.” So, on this Sunday before the Feast of Christ the King how do we live with the disturbing images of today’s Gospel, especially in light of current events? I believe is this. Jesus told us there would be “troubles,” it’s no different now as it was then. Our task is to live faithfully in love with each other, doing the things our Lord told us to do – feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the poor and advocating for those who have no voice in our society. Most of all we should lift our heads and rejoice because our redemption is drawing near.

Amen.

The Saints at Rest

Today is the transferred commemoration of All Saints’, which is actually a merging of three holy days: All Hallows’ Eve on 31 October (which gives us the holiday of Halloween), All Saints’ Day on 1st November and All Souls’ or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed on the 2nd.  These three days have a rich history in the Christian tradition. This is the only feast in our Kalendar that is allowed to be transferred to the Sunday following – Christmas doesn’t get this honor. The reason is that we need to remember that our faith and our religious practices do not occur in a vacuum, but rather is built on the shoulders of those faithful Christians who have gone before us.

The readings for today are also among those readings appointed for the Liturgy for the Burial of the Dead. It’s good that we hear these readings in a context other that a funeral.

The anonymous writer of the Wisdom of Solomon gives assurance that “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them” (3:1). Even though it would seem that they have suffered and died, they are now at peace where “their hope is full of immortality” (v. 4). Any suffering they have endured is like a refiner’s fire in which they have been purified. They will govern nations, and as God’s holy ones they will abide in the Lord’s truth, grace, and mercy.

The vision of the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1 — 22:5) in the Book of Revelation gives a description of life in the coming age when “death will be no more” (21:4). Originally written to bring hope to those who suffered in a time of persecution, these promises of God’s future continue to bring comfort and strength.

Here God’s work of reconciliation is reflected in the renewal of all creation (cf Is. 65:17; 66:22). In this vision, heaven and earth are completely transformed into “a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1). The Holy City of Jerusalem has been restored and is like a bride adorned for her groom.

In this new age, God will dwell among mortals and will be their consolation, wiping every tear from their eyes (v. 4a). Suffering, evil, and death will be vanquished, causing God to declare, “See, I am making all things new” (v. 5). Furthermore, we can be assured that these words are a present as well as a future reality — true from the beginning to the end, for “It is done!” (v. 6).

The Gospel reading from John’s Gospel recounts Jesus’ encounter with Martha before he raises Lazarus from the dead. It gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ power in the face of the ultimate human existential crisis. Jesus tells Martha that her brother will rise because he is the source of Resurrection and Life.

All three of the readings serve to remind us that death is never the final word – in fact death is fleeting in the face of God’s dominion. The Good News here is that because of Jesus’ resurrection we are able to stand beside the open grave of a loved one and NOT go stark raving mad.

As I write these words, I am aware that my father is in Hospice (I covet your prayers), preparing for his own death, just as he prepared many of his parishioners during his ministry as a pastor – death he cheated several times during his service as a Marine in the Pacific Theater during World War II.  He is a part of the “Greatest Generation,” yet he has lived as faithfully and humbly as possible.

Physical death is a part of the natural order – something not to be feared but embraced because our faith teaches us that God alone will have the final word, and we have heard that final word in our readings. “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God …;” “…death shall be no more…” and “… I am the Resurrection and the Life…”  This is the final word on the subject. Perhaps we should consider this verse from St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun.  A translation is in our Hymnal:

And even you most gentle death, waiting to hush our final breath. You lead home the child of God, for Christ our Lord that way has trod.

Hymn 400, Episcopal Hymnal, 1982

The Good News on this Sunday in All Saintstide is that the whole of our lives are caught up in God’s unchangeable, infinite, redeeming love. That love will ultimately have the final word for our souls; and at the last we hear “I am Resurrection and the Life.” “Death shall be no more.” And “the souls of the righteous are in in hands of God [and]… they, and we, will be at peace.”

So it is now and will be forever even unto the Ages of Ages.

Amen.

What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

Our Gospel reading this morning marks a turning point in Mark’s Gospel.  This is the last healing miracle Jesus performs.  He and the disciples are heading to Jerusalem where eventually he will be arrested and crucified.  He is in Jericho taking the pilgrimage route from Galilee, down the Jordan River valley (thus avoiding Samaria) and begins the climb to Jerusalem.  When the New Testament talks about “going up to Jerusalem” or “down to Jericho” it means what it says.  Jerusalem sits at 1400 feet or so above Mean Sea Level (MSL) while Jericho lies near where the Jordan River empties into the Dead Sea at approximately 1250 feet below MSL.  The lateral distance between the two cities is approximately 20 to 25 miles.  So you can imagine how steep the road was (and still is).

The Gospel story of the restoration of sight to Bartimaeus (cf Mt. 20:29-34; Lk. 18:35-43) provides an example of a new way of seeing — on both a literal and a metaphorical level.

As the passage begins, Jesus and his disciples are part of a large crowd leaving the city of Jericho. The blind beggar Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (10:47). Evidently Bartimaeus was familiar with Jesus’ reputation as a healer; but the people around him did not want to be bothered by the demands of the blind man and ordered him to be quiet.

However, Bartimaeus would not be silenced, and he called out again even more loudly. His use of the title “Son of David” is a messianic reference (cf 2 Sam. 7:4-17; Ps. 89:3-4; Mk. 12:35-37). Whereas Jesus had previously refused to encourage such a title (Mk. 8:30), he does not prevent Bartimaeus from using it here.

Hearing the cries of Bartimaeus, Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here” (v. 49). In response to Jesus’ authority, the crowd now encouraged Bartimaeus to come forward. “Take heart; get up, he is calling you” (v. 49). Immediately he threw off his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. In contrast to the rich man (Mk. 10:17-22) who could not give up his riches to follow Jesus, Bartimaeus readily abandons his only possession to come to the Lord. His cloak, which would have been spread out on the ground to catch coins tossed from passers-by, may also serve as a symbol of his former way of life that he now leaves behind.

Jesus then asks Bartimaeus the same question he had previously asked James and John (Mk. 10:36): “What do you want me to do for you?” (v. 51a). Bartimaeus’ simple request for restored sight — “My teacher, let me see again” (v. 51b; cf “Rabbouni” in Jn. 20:16) — is in sharp contrast to the previous request of James and John for preeminence among the other disciples (Mk. 10:37). Bartimaeus was not asking for money or other material gain; he was requesting that Jesus, as the agent of God’s mercy, heal him.

Just as in our own prayers, God knows our needs before we ask, it was obvious what Bartimaeus lacked. But if we are truly to receive God’s provision, we must first acknowledge our own helplessness. So here, Jesus requires Bartimaeus to name his need.

In the C. S. Lewis “Narnia” book The Magician’s Nephew (N. Y.: Macmillan Publ., 1955), one of the children is hesitant to make a request of the ruling lion Aslan.

“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” said Polly. “I’ve no doubt he would,” said the Horse. “But I’ve sort of an idea he likes to be asked.”

What about our own requests to God? Although God knows our needs before we ask, the act of articulating our desires in prayer helps us to discern what we want to bring before God, and whether or not our desires conform to God’s. In response, God may say “yes” or “no” — or surprise us with something else entirely.

As soon as Bartimaeus asks to have his sight restored, Jesus assures him that his faith has made him well. In contrast to a previous healing of a blind man (Mk. 8:22-26), this healing is instantaneous, without touch or further words.

“Go; your faith has made you well” (v. 52a) is also what Jesus said when he healed the woman with a hemorrhage (Mk. 5:25-34). Like Bartimaeus, this woman was considered an outcast, and she also took a bold initiative to bring her needs to Jesus. The persistent faith of both of these individuals meant that their lives were restored to health and wholeness. Bartimaeus and the unnamed woman bear out Jesus’ saying that the first shall be last and the last first — as the marginalized and powerless are given a prominent place in the Kingdom that Jesus proclaims.

Bartimaeus, his sight restored, followed Jesus on the way (v. 52b). To follow someone can be used in the sense of becoming that person’s disciple; or here it could simply mean that Bartimaeus joined the crowd on their way to Jerusalem. In either case, once Jesus calls us and touches us with God’s healing power, our eyes are opened and we make the way of Jesus our way as well.

This section of Mark’s Gospel (8:22 — 10:52) began with the healing of an anonymous blind man and concludes with the healing of blind Bartimaeus — the only person healed by Jesus who is called by name in Mark. The emphasis here has been on helping others, primarily his disciples, understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus — a call to service and sacrifice rather than prestige or power. Ultimately, the healing of Bartimaeus holds out the hope that the disciples’ spiritual blindness will eventually be overcome as well.

As the last of the healing miracles in Mark, the story of the faith of Bartimaeus brings this portion of the Gospel to a close and serves as a bridge to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the Cross.

The Gospel theme of a new way of seeing is reflected in the Old Testament reading, with Job’s declaration that “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). To have one’s eyes opened, both literally and figuratively, is a manifestation of God’s grace.

The series of readings from Job concludes, as Job makes his final response to God (42:1-6). Throughout his ordeals, all Job asks is the opportunity to bring his case directly before God. Thus, when God finally speaks (38:1 — 40:2; 40:6 — 41:34), Job begins to understand that there is transcendent purpose and order in God’s created universe beyond what Job is able or expected to understand (42:3b).

In the end, God does not directly answer Job’s questions, but through his direct encounter with the Divine, Job’s eyes are opened to new perspectives. Ultimately, to be human is to be vulnerable to suffering; and as mere mortals of dust and ashes, we can never truly comprehend all of God’s ways.

All in all, when we come to Jesus here at this table, we come with but one deep soul stirring request when he asks us “what do we want?”  Our answer which sums up all the other answers we could give is, “Lord, let me see again.”

Amen.