Archives for October 2018
Eleison
Eleison, have mercy: it is our prayer and Christ’s command.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Sunday of the Reformation, Lectionary 30 B
Text: Mark 10:46-52
Dear friends in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Eleison. Have mercy.
That’s what Bartimaeus asked. Actually, eleison me, have mercy on me.
Jesus, his disciples, and a large crowd are leaving Jericho. It’s like a parade or a march. And Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, hears the crowd, finds out it’s Jesus, and cries out, have mercy on me.
And Mark says “many” tried to shut him up. They rebuked him, told him to be quiet.
Who are these who won’t hear the cries of someone in need asking for mercy, who even would prevent Jesus, someone who could offer mercy, from hearing?
And where are you in this story? Do you sometimes wish those in need would be quieter, quit bothering you and others? Do you stand next to such silencers in the crowd and let them shut out the cries for mercy? Do you reach out to Bartimaeus, help him up, saying, Take heart, Christ is calling for you?
Bartimaeus is real. He lives among us. And all he asks is eleison.
Our government not only tells Bartimaeus to be quiet, they insult him, try to throw him out of the city, even try to deny he exists.
The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services now proposes to define gender as strictly male and female, defined prior to and at birth. The 1.4 million Bartimaeuses in America who identify themselves in differing categories, fluid or changing genders, won’t exist for purposes of health and services. The administration claims this “protects” the health of Americans. We deny Bartimaeus his existence and say we all benefit.
A caravan of thousands comes north from Honduras and Guatemala seeking help, and our administration characterizes these impoverished Central American families with children as dangerous criminals, and says that ISIS – from the Middle East! – hides among them.
But it was U.S. policy and actions in the twentieth century that destroyed the economies of places like Honduras and Guatemala, destabilized their governments, and made U.S. businesses and their profit the priority. These thousands come from desperation created in part by us. We made Bartimaeus. But he isn’t welcome here.
But my friends, these are the easy ones for us to see and want mercy for. There are others who are your Bartimaeus.
She may live in a tent next to Hiawatha, and you’d like to have compassion for her. But then you see the needles and syringes lying around her tent, her children, and it’s not a feel-good story anymore. Maybe you just don’t think if Bartimaeus does drugs she deserves the mercy of her neighbors.
Maybe Bartimaeus has dark skin, and his cries of eleison include his claims that his life is radically different from yours. That he has to teach his children strategies to avoid police attention. That he has to worry about broken lights on his car lest they lead to his death. Maybe you’re just tired of hearing that Black Lives Matter. You wish they’d be quiet.
Sometimes you can’t even see Bartimaeus. She’s going to be waiting for you after church, though, holding a cardboard sign as you enter the freeway. She’ll be there again tomorrow, and if you’re careful you don’t even have to make eye contact, let alone hear her.
Maybe you’re thinking, I actually see all these, and I’m trying to find ways to help. That’s good. But there are so many Bartimaeuses in the crowds, there’s definitely one you don’t see or hear. Keep looking until you find that person who annoys you, whom you can’t bring yourself to care about. Whom you wish would be quiet about their needs.
Then look at Jesus.
It’s a crowd, a parade. And suddenly, Jesus stops, stands still.
He listens. He hears eleison me, have mercy on me. In the midst of the bustling crowd, the noise of the dogs and children, he hears the cry for mercy others would shut down. He commands: bring him here.
And then he asks, What do you want me to do for you?
Here is the glory of the Christ, the Son of God: there is no limit to mercy. There is enough mercy for the whole universe in God-with-us, this Jesus. His very next stop is Jerusalem, another parade with a crowd, this time waving palm branches, and he will leave that crowd and go alone to a cross. He will bear the mercy of the Triune God for the universe in his flesh and blood and offer his life. And there is enough mercy for all.
So, Jesus asks, What do you want me to do for you? What does mercy look like for you? And Bartimaeus astonishingly claims a relationship with Jesus in that moment. Rabbouni, my master, my teacher – the same trusting name Mary Magdalene calls the risen Jesus – my master, let me see again.
And mercy pours out from God-with-us. Bartimaeus the inconvenient, Bartimaeus the annoying, Bartimaeus the shouter of his needs, receives his sight. And he follows Jesus.
Today we once again celebrate the Church’s sixteenth century Reformation, and realize that the twenty-first century Church also needs to be reformed.
We need more than a reforming of doctrine, though. Our twenty-first century question of reform is simple: will the Church be Christ in the world or not?
Will we claim the mercy of God we see at the cross for all creatures? We don’t need to struggle over the doctrine of grace and mercy. The only issue is if we’ll be grace and mercy, if we as Church and as individuals will be Christ. If our lives from waking to sleeping will reveal that there is no limit to God’s mercy.
We start by forcing ourselves to see Bartimaeus, wherever they may be. We start by learning to name our inner protests and justifications as delaying tactics. We start by finally, as Church and as individuals, doing what Jesus does. Stopping in the middle of the crowd, opening our eyes and ears, listening, looking for Bartimaeus.
Then calling her to us, and asking, what do you want me to do for you?
That’s a Reformation desperately needed across the Church. And it’s a Reformation that would cause rejoicing in heaven.
Eleison. Have mercy. That’s our prayer.
We are overwhelmed by God’s love that we know, that we’ve seen at the cross, that we receive in Christ’s meal of life. Eleison is our breath, in and out, because we know how much we need mercy, and we know Who it is who gives it.
But the One who answers your eleison commands with the same word: eleison. You have mercy. Be mercy. Live mercy. Find Bartimaeus and ask what you can do. Listen to the cries for mercy you want to silence and ask what you can do. Stop those in government or in your city who would shut out the cries, who would answer with cruelty, and stand alongside Bartimaeus.
As you struggle with this command, hear one more miracle: Christ asks you the same question. What do you want me to do for you?
Now you know: you are Bartimaeus, too. “My teacher, my master, let me see again. Open my eyes, my ears, my heart, my hands, my mind, my life, that I may follow you. That I may have mercy as you have mercy.”
And Jesus opens your eyes. And now you can follow wherever he will go.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
The Olive Branch, 10/24.18
One Question
There’s really only one question before us, before you: do you want to follow Jesus, as Jesus describes it, as Jesus calls you, or not? The rest is simple after that.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 29 B
Text: Mark 10:[32-34] 35-45
Dear friends in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Apparently the third time isn’t the charm.
The disciples hear Jesus predict his own suffering and death three times, all as he moves his ministry closer and closer to Jerusalem. Each time, the disciples miss the point.
So how many times do you need to hear it before you understand it? This whole fall we’ve heard challenging words from Jesus about what it is to follow him. We’ve heard these predictions three times ourselves. We even know the whole story, which they didn’t.
But we’re not much better at understanding, at following Jesus’ train of thought, much less Jesus’ path of life, than they seem to be. Mark today says that some of Jesus’ followers were amazed, some were afraid. That sounds about right for us.
Maybe it isn’t a problem of understanding, though.
Look at their responses. At the first prediction, Peter takes Jesus aside and says that facing suffering and death is not a good plan for a Messiah. Jesus rebukes him, and says following him will mean dying to everything, losing what you think matters, perhaps even literally dying.
The second prediction falls on silence. But after, on the road as they walked, the disciples argued about which one of them was most important. Jesus confronts them on this, and says that to be greatest is to be a servant to each other. To be the least.
With today’s third prediction, James and John are still stunningly tone-deaf. They hear Jesus speak of terrible suffering and death, and ask for the seats of honor when Jesus comes into his glory. Again, Jesus responds with talk of losing, of being least, pointing out that their society has power structures where those on top lord it over those on the bottom. Not with my followers, Jesus says. My followers who wish to be great – repeating himself from before – must be servants. But then he goes a step further. He says those who wish to be first must be slaves of all.
Maybe they understand just fine. Maybe they just don’t want this path. A path of losing, dying, willingly being a slave. This is the only question that really matters: do you even want to follow a Jesus like this?
The Church – at least in English speaking countries – is so reluctant to follow Jesus in this we’ve translated the worst of his language out.
Jesus explicitly uses the word “slave” here. It means exactly what you think it means. But this word is translated “servant” pretty much only by Bible translators. Everyone else who translates ancient Greek knows it means “slave”. Jesus knew it meant “slave”.
There are over 120 instances of the word in the New Testament. It’s a central point in the early Church’s understanding of the Christian life. But virtually every English translation translates the vast majority of those instances as “servant,” not “slave,” even though it’s perfectly clear what’s meant. Even our current NRSV, which does translate the majority as “slave,” very often renders “servant” when the reference is to how Christians might live or act.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the first disciples weren’t the only ones who didn’t like Jesus’ plan for himself or the Church. When you can’t even translate honestly because you don’t want to hear what Jesus or the apostles are saying, that’s a pretty clear sign.
It’s a hard topic to discuss. people who look like me talking about slavery as a model for our life can be a really bad idea.
The horrible stain of racism that still exists in our society stems directly from the violent, wicked original sin of our nation, the sin of slavery. The torture, humiliation, starving, murder, oppression of millions of human beings to build our country cannot be erased from memory. These slave texts were often used by Christians in power to justify their evil.
But remember that Jesus, a brown, Palestinian man under Roman oppression in the first century, also knew slavery as a horrible, wicked reality. It was no ideal. The brutality of the slave trade in our world today, and in American history, also existed in Jesus’ day. He chose an image that his own people would shudder to hear.
But Jesus turns it upside down. He sees the Christian’s path as a chosen slavery. A willingness to put yourself at the service of everyone else. Jesus is saying, to follow me is to let yourselves be slaves to all. People who relinquish free choice to do what you want, and become obligated to serve the needs of everyone, without question. Not because you are forced. But because you choose this path.
And then Jesus reveals this astonishment: he will choose this path first.
The path to the cross, offering himself to the whole universe, his body, his blood, his pain, in order to reveal God’s love for the whole universe, this is Jesus’ willingness to be a slave, to all, for the sake of all.
Paul explicitly lays this out in his beautiful hymn in Philippians: “though Christ was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” (Philippians 2:6-7)
And Paul led the apostles in claiming this same status with their congregations. To his church in Corinth he wrote: “We don’t proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Corinthians 4:5)
As Jesus entered into servitude for the sake of the world, now his followers choose the same path for the sake of the world.
Do you even want to follow such a Messiah? Are you willing to enter into that new reality?
We too often keep faith, and our relationship with God in Christ, fenced into its own place. Hear Jesus’ commands and teaching as options to consider. So, when he says feeding those who are hungry and clothing those who are naked is doing it to him, we agree wholeheartedly. Then we ponder when we might do that. Instead of seeing every person in need as someone we are obligated to serve.
Love your neighbor as yourself? Sure, Jesus, that’s good. Let me think about when that works for me.
We’re sitting on the edge of the pool of faith. We’ll dip our toes in if we feel a need for cooling. We’ll maybe splash around.
But Jesus says, Jump in the deep end. Let the water of my love, of the Spirit, hold you up and bring you life. But jumping in means not touching the sides or the bottom. Not being in control.
So Jesus, our relationship with God, and the walk of faith, stay at arm’s length.
We also avoid the question by distracting ourselves with the “how.”
It’s likely some of you are thinking, “tell us how we are to do this.” That’s good. There’s a lot of help. From the teachings and modeling of Jesus, to the preaching and writing of Paul through First John, the New Testament is full of wisdom, of models, of specific advice, of practical descriptions of what such a life where you are slave to all would be like.
But if you don’t want to do it, none of that matters. We’ve had the New Testament in our hands for years; this isn’t new information. But for it to help, you need to want it.
Do you remember this summer, when Jesus asked the remaining disciples if they also wanted to leave? They said, “where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
That’s your dilemma. If you’ve heard God’s promise of love and forgiveness in Jesus, have found the joy and support of the community of faith Jesus established, if you’ve believed the promise of life in Christ with God after you die, if you’ve found wisdom for understanding your world, hope in Christ for a world where people live in love and peace and justice with each other, where else can you go for that?
So how many times do you need to hear Jesus before you follow?
Following is hard. Living your life as a slave to everyone else for the sake of the love of God in Jesus you know, changes everything. No options to love or not love: there’s only the command. No options to partially follow or do some of the plan: there’s only “follow me.”
But as you struggle, even as these disciples struggled, remember their experience. They ultimately followed. Many gave their lives. They embodied being a slave in love to others, because that’s what they knew in their Lord. They saw it in the suffering, the cross, the empty tomb. They saw it in their Master kneeling before them, lovingly washing their feet. They were filled by the Spirit at Pentecost who empowered their new lives of being slaves to all. Willing, choosing that life, not being forced.
You’ve known all this too, you’ve experienced the Spirit. These disciples can remind you in that knowledge and experience of the Spirit that following Jesus is, in fact, following Jesus. Following the pattern of love and service and grace that Christ has already given you and the world. Following the way that has already shown you the possibility of life. Letting God transform you into this new way.
So: what do you want to do about Jesus and his call to you?
In the name of Jesus. Amen