Homily
By The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA
25
Oct.
2015 Proper
25 Year
B:
Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52
God
is a mighty fortress & our help in the flood of mortal ills that
we see in our stories of Job &
blind Bartimaeus & in headline
news.
God helps us get through these mortal ills.
Our
opening hymn, A Mighty fortress is our God, is the work of Martin
Luther, whose work for reformation in the Church we remember today:
Reformation Sunday.
Like
Jesus fighting society's norms that marginalize & burden God's
beloved children, Martin Luther addressed the burdens in his day that
society imposed on God's beloved children, especially hard on the
poor: the selling of indulgences for sins to buy a better place to go
after death.
Luther saw clearly that this Church practice had
no basis in scripture, reason or tradition1
& was especially hard on the marginalized. This demand for funds
was a harsh norm. We
live in a world with harsh norms that burden God's beloved children.
Martin
Luther posted his 95 Theses on the local message board on Oct. 31,
1517, long before our online messaging. His message board was the
Church's doors.2
He nailed the message to the doors like other messages posted there.
We can reach more people more easily than Luther: we can email &
facebook important truths:
God
Loves You. No exceptions. All are welcome.
We
see harsh norms that make marginalized Bartimaeus unwelcomed. Look
what Bart does with the new life Jesus gives him today: he gives up
his old life & follows Jesus.
1st,
he shakes off his cloak, an important piece of equipment to keep him
warm by night & to spread out around him by day to catch coins
people might toss his way,
as several sources cited note. Notice:
Bartimaeus immediately
throws
away his “equipment”.
[Remember
last Sunday we read several verses earlier that the rich man turned
away from Jesus instead of giving away his riches to follow Jesus.3]
Bartimaeus
has been trapped by the belief that sees problems as a sign of God's
disfavor because of a person's sin. How different is that from people
in our day trapped in generational poverty? Our mindset
sees no
way out, no better life possible. Many see this as a choice to live
hand-to-mouth. Like Bart, people begging, people on welfare are
expected to accept what's tossed their way & keep their mouths
shut.4
But
Bart shouts out to Jesus, & the crowd of “acceptable” people
tell him: “Hush.
Stay in your place.”
Gutsy
Bart keeps shouting.
As one
commentator says in her blog5:
Staying
in his place hasn't worked. Gutsy Bart tries a courageous response:
break society's norm.
Remember: Jesus has challenged it, saying, to be great, be a servant,
the Son of Man comes to serve. The disciples & crowd have just
heard this message & yet quickly slip into their usual way of
treating outcasts.
Notice
how Jesus treats Bart the Outcast: Jesus'
stops what he is doing, stands still, & gives him quality time.
May
we have the grace in our busy lives to stop doing what we are doing,
stand still & give quality time to the Bartimaeus we encounter.
We see standing still & quality time in our
Bishop's latest
“eCrozier”.6
Bishop
Benhase, who
is recovering from his mastectomy for breast cancer,
tells of the inconvenience a flat tire made to his hectic schedule on
a recent Sunday. Driving from Augusta to his home in Savannah, he
pulls into an auto parts store where Pedro helps him get a $9 patch
kit. Then Pedro repairs the tire, using a new car jack, since the
Bishop said recent surgery prevents his lifting anything heavy.
Checking
out, the Bishop asks how much. The sales clerk says,
"Just $9 for the patch kit. The rest was just Pedro being Pedro.
And you know," she leans across the counter & whispers, "He
was just diagnosed with breast cancer & is having a tough time
waiting for the surgery."
The
Bishop says, “Suddenly getting back to Savannah on time seemed the
least important thing to do in my life.”
He
pays the clerk, walks
over to Pedro as Pedro returns the jack to its shelf & says: "I
have breast cancer, too. That was the surgery I told you about. It
would be my privilege if you'd let me pray for you."
Pedro
just nods. Right there in the aisle where the jacks are kept, the
Bishop & Pedro start praying. The
Bishop says,
“We went on at some length. I prayed for him & then he prayed
for me & then I prayed for him again...I don't know for sure, but
it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Pedro's last name [is]
Emmanuel, which,
as you know, means
'God with us.'”
God
is always with us. We just don't always know it.
Somehow Bartimaeus knows it. There's
something special about Bart. Our Gospel emphasizes his name. In the
Bible names carry meaning.
Our
Gospel emphasizes beggar Bart's name. Bar, a word for “son”,
joined to a name means “Son of that Name”. BarTimaeus, means “Son
of Timaeus”, as several sources note.
So “Bartimaeus Son of Timaeus” is like saying “Bartimaeus
Bartimaeus” or “Son of Timaeus Son of Timaeus”.
Why
does our Gospel double name him?
Sources note
the name may have 2 meanings: Son of Honor or Son of
Uncleanness/Dishonor...,
The
Rev. Gareth Hughes notes7
this may point us to
the contrast between the title “Son of David” that Bart calls out
to Jesus & “Son of Timaeus”, a son of Israel who cries to
the Son of David. If Bart's name refers to uncleanness, he may
represent his people as unclean people, blind, lacking spiritual
understanding, people bigoted against the disabled because of the
belief that disability is caused by a parent's sin.
Whatever
the reason for the double name, we see the double portion of
self-worth Bart has: he sees himself as worthy of God's love despite
his disability.
As
The Rev. Deon Johnson says in his sermon, “Healing our Blindness,”
although people try not to see him, Bart knows God sees him.8
What
really matters in life, blind Bart sees clearly: he is a beloved
child of God, & he insists on being treated as a beloved child of
God. The
crowd can't hold him back.9
Johnson
challenges us:
What if we, the
crowd of Jesus' followers, are the blind in this story & not
Bart?
Notice:
When Jesus stops & calls for Bart, the crowd suddenly sees Bart &
instead of praying for Bart or calling a meeting to discuss Bart's
merits, the crowd sees Bart & shows him to Jesus...Jesus does the
rest.
We
can quickly become like the crowd & look away from the needs
right outside our red doors. When we are the crowd, we are the ones
who need healing, need our vision focused to see clearly in a world
that sees our Bartimaeuses as being of no account, these beloved
children of God labeled by norms that measure worth by what we own, &
use labels such as illegal & immigrant & refugee. We
are to show our Bartimaeuses Jesus so that they, too, can follow
Jesus.
As
Johnson says:
Following Jesus, we share the Good News of God's amazing grace! In
our Gospel we see God's grace that sounds amazing. How sweet that
sounds.
God's amazing grace saves a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
but now am found,
was blind but now, but now...but now what?
I see
amazing grace: I see YOU!
Bibliography
Benhase,
The Rt. Rev. Scott A. eCrozier #277. Oct. 23, 2015.
http://ecrozier.georgiaepiscopal.org/
Accessed: 23 Oct. 2015.
Eerdmans'
Handbook to the History of Christianity.
Ed: Tim Dowley. Carmel, NY: Guideposts. William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co. Berkhamsted, England: Lion Publishing. 1977.
Harper’s
Bible Commentary.
General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1988.
Harper’s
Bible Dictionary.
General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1971.
Holy
Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Hughes,
The Rev. Gareth.“The name, fame and shame of Bartimaeus'. Accessed:
23 Oct. 2015.
https://christhum.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/the-name-fame-and-shame-of-bartimaeus/
Note:
The author is is a priest of the Church of England, who is Chaplain
of Hertford College, Oxford, and doing Syriac research at Oxford
University.
http://www.behindthename.com/name/timaeus.
Accessed: 23 Oct. 2015.
Johnson,
The Rev. Deon. “Healing our Blindness, Sermon for Proper 25(B) –
2015”. Sermons That Work.
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2015/10/09/healing-our-blindness-sermon-for-proper-25b-2015/
Accessed: 23 Oct. 2015.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Woelk,
Cheryl. “Throwing Off the Cloak”. Posted Feb 11, 2013. Accessed:
23 Oct. 2015.
http://www.canadianmennonite.org/blogs/cheryl-woelk/throwing-cloak
©2015 Canadian Mennonite Magazine
3
Woelk,
Cheryl. “Throwing Off the Cloak”.
http://www.canadianmennonite.org/blogs/cheryl-woelk/throwing-cloak.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Benhase,
The Rt. Rev. Scott A. eCrozier #277. Oct. 23, 2015.
http://ecrozier.georgiaepiscopal.org/.
7
Hughes,
The Rev. Gareth.“The name, fame and shame of Bartimaeus'.
Accessed: 23 Oct. 2015.
https://christhum.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/the-name-fame-and-shame-of-bartimaeus/.
9
Ibid.
