“Jesus is Calling”
28 October 2018
Proper 25B
Homily preached by the Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP,
Ph.D.
at Trinity Episcopal Parish
Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. spoken Mass, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
This week saw some really horrible
stuff: pipe bombs mailed to opposition
voices by a right wing fanatic supporter of the President, and the murder of
Jews and policemen at a Synagogue yesterday in Pittsburg. Are we descending into Fascist hell? But we saw great signs of hope as well: the Havurah Shir Hadash here in Ashland held
a beautiful interfaith prayer service last night. Thank you, Rabbi David Zaslow. At Washington National Cathedral on Friday they
interred the ashes of Matthew Shepard in its crypt columbarium twenty years
after his hate-crime murder in Laramie Wyoming. What a wonderful thing to have the flagship
site of your church put out such a sign of hope and welcoming. Despite the horrors suffered then and now,
this act of grace by the Church reminds us of times in our country when hope
for things getting better and inclusion and love actually winning in the end
was not assaulted by new horrors each day by the nation’s executive,
legislative, and judicial leaders. I
thank Dean Randy Hollerith, bishop Marianne Budde, and bishop Gene Robinson for
welcoming Matthew’s parents, giving a safe place for the repose of his remains,
and reminding us all of the hope that is at the heart of our faith.
Today’s Gospel from Mark is about
welcome and healing, the only story in the Synoptic Gospels where the healed
person is named. Mark translates Bartimaeus
as “son of Timaeus.” Aramaic was the language Jesus and his
followers would have been speaking with each other. In Aramaic, the
word bar means son, and so clearly Bar-Timaeus means “son of
Timaeus.” But Timaeus was a Greek name, meaning “honored
one.” It was not an Aramaic name. If indeed the blind man was
called something like this in Aramaic, it would have been bar-tame’ or
“son of shame,” an insulting street name, “Loser,” given
him by people who thought God had punished him for some shameful sin by
striking him blind (cf. John 9:34).
Caught up in the excitement at news
that the healer from Nazareth is passing by, Bar-tame’ begins to shout to get
Jesus’ attention. “Have mercy on me, Jesus, son of David!” Maybe by
using this most extravagant and dangerous way of talking about Jesus heard on
the street—the ideal king of the future, the Messiah—Bar-Tame’ can get Jesus’
attention.
The disciples try to shoosh the
crazy beggar up. “Jesus is busy here! How dare you interrupt
him with your begging!”
How often do we, Jesus’ disciples,
try to keep people away from Jesus? How
many barriers do we erect around him, barricades aimed at keeping the church
pure and undefiled, and from keeping losers far away? We do it sometimes for the best of reasons,
but we are keeping people from Jesus all the same. Compare the Evangelical Right’s reflexive support
of fear, exclusion, and alienation as national policy, with National
Cathedral’s support and standing with the marginalized. Both claim to follow Jesus. But who actually welcomes people to him?
Jesus finally asks what’s going
on. Bar-tame’ shrinks back, afraid perhaps that he will be as hard on him
as his disciples have been. “Take heart!
Go, Jesus is calling you!” Hearing this encouragement, and the welcome on
Jesus’ face, he casts off his cloak and goes to Jesus.
The beggar’s tattered and filthy
cloak was the chief way of appealing for aid, kind of like a cardboard sign
saying “anything you can give helps.” So when Bar-tame’ throws off
his cloak, he casts aside his sole means of support, the little bit of security
he feels he has, all to meet Jesus. He also casts away the
dysfunctions his disability has wrought, his fearful assumption that he really
might be a loser.
So when Jesus asks him “what do you
want,” this one-time son of shame does not say “money” or “bread.” He
asks for his sight. He asks not to be broken any more. Jesus tells
him his faith has already healed him. Sight is restored. And
Bartimaeus—now a child of honor—starts to walk the Way with Jesus.
“Take heart—Jesus is calling
you.” This is the origin of a favorite evangelical hymn:
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me;
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!
Sung as an altar call to people who
feel trapped by their shortcomings and deliberate wrongdoings, the hymn speaks
to our need to feel pardon. But reducing the call of Jesus to pardon
alone misses a lot of the power in this story. Jesus is
calling to fix whatever is wrong with us. He calls us to follow
him. The only right response is joyfully throw off anything that might
get in the way.
When we encounter Jesus, he
transforms us. He brings new ways of living, feeling, being. If we
haven’t been transformed, we just have not encountered Jesus. Whether
sudden or gradual, transformation is a sign of having met him: we learn to cast off old ways of thinking
and feeling about ourselves and others, and bit by bit learn the Way of
love. It happens as we slowly forget our
old name “loser” and “child-of-shame” and realize our true name has always been
child of honor.
From the beginning, those following
Jesus have met him in his body, the Church: the sacraments, teaching, worship,
service, and prayer. Unhappily, sometimes we are hurt by the Church, and
told by well meaning disciples to shoosh up and hide from Jesus. But Transformation is what the Church is all
about. If we are not being changed for the good by our participation in
Church, something is wrong.
We may have searched for God on our
own for years. We may occasionally have tasted God on our own in nature, the beauty of the
world, or what the Celts call a thin place.
But we come to a point where the
isolation of individual spirituality fails us. When we come into the Church, we
are invited and seduced into a powerful dance of worship that has been going on
for centuries, where beauty in colors, smells, resonant words and music all
work together to create a world where it is easy to fall in love with God and
be carried away, challenged, transformed. At first it might be confusing or overwhelming. But we become accustomed to this new life’s
rhythms and tides. We begin to innately
sense the depth and meaning in what we do at the Great Thanksgiving, of common
bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ, and in Holy Baptism, when
common water washes away our old selves.
We learn the prayers and songs of a great daily dialogue of prayer more
that 2,000 years old. The Psalms begin
to form our hearts and refine our feelings. We begin to rely on each other and
on God more and more, and make greater and greater commitments in service,
sacrifice, and compassion. We see examples
of holiness in our midst, and learn gently and steadily, how to become part of
the communion of saints. We see we do not
have to be alone any more, howling at the moon.
Our life in the Church gives us the
strength and empathy to reach out to others: to feed the hungry, clothe the
naked, comfort the sick, stand with the downtrodden, and give shelter to the
homeless. You can do this without the Church and without
prayer. But a great curiosity is that the more active the sacramental
prayer life of a congregation is, generally the greater its corporeal acts of
mercy and social justice.
Like Bartimaeus by the wayside, do
we undervalue ourselves? Do we feel wholly constrained by our
disabilities and failings? Do we have a vague sense that there must be
more to life than this?
Jesus is passing by. He can heal and
take away whatever weakness or handicap holds us down.
God’s kingdom is here, in our
midst. Things once cast down are being raised up; things once old are
being made new; all things are being brought to their perfection by
Jesus. Take heart, child of shame, Jesus is calling you.
Don’t heed those who think you are a
loser, unable to change, who say you are daydreaming if you think Jesus is
calling you. Don’t listen even to Jesus’ disciples when they
tell you to shut up, sit down, be quiet, and accept your lot.
Jesus heals our blindness. We often
cannot see things clearly because we are so beaten down by experience. Fear
immobilizes us, hardens our hearts, blinds our eyes. Jesus
empowers and transforms us from passive bystanders to active and compassionate colleagues,
ministering and healing, bringing interest and flavor to the lives of
others.
Let him in. Let worship,
prayer, and the sacraments wash over you and carry you away in that great
stream poured out from the beauty of God’s holiness. Say the prayers and
sing the psalms. Eat the bread, drink the wine; feed on
Jesus. Then feed others. Don’t just come to Church. Be
the Church. Be the body of Christ.
Go forth and heal. Go forth and shelter.
Come, Jesus is calling us all.
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