October 29, 2006 Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost,
Reformation and Reconciliation Sunday
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 126; Mark 10:46-52
I would like to begin the sermon by reading the Psalm we read responsively earlier in the service:
When God restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
"God has done great things for them."
God has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.
Restore our fortunes, O God,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves
We can guess from ancient Hebrew history that this was written by someone who remembered hard times, someone who had either lived through or heard stories of the humiliation of seeing Israel become corrupt and filled with injustice, neglecting the poor, and then further humiliation of seeing their nation defeated and led into captivity. The prelude to the Psalm was long, hopeless suffering and despair. That is why it can be so euphoric: "We were like those who dream...Our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy."
The person who wrote this Psalm remembered past agony followed by exultation, but now times were bad again, and so the second half of the Psalm is a prayer and affirmation of faith for the present and future. "Restore our fortunes, O God, like the watercourses in the Negeb."
The watercourses in the Negeb is an apt metaphor. The Negeb is a desert region in southern Israel-the word Negeb means dryness-but occasional rains refresh its wells and streams and make it habitable. It is a place where scarcity and plenty come in cycles. The Negeb knows what it is to thirst, and it knows what it is to feel overwhelming joy at the end of drought-to sow in tears at the hopelessness of a dry time and to reap with shouts of joy when the rain makes a harvest possible.
The reason we celebrate Reformation and Reconciliation Sunday every year is that churches are like that, too. Churches are like that because the world is like that and people are like that. For some reason, God's creation is like watercourses in the desert. We find ourselves parched, all dried up, on the brink of despair sometimes. Then by the grace of God something beyond our control changes. Or by the grace of God people find it in their hearts to rise up and make changes. Good times return and we are like those who dream, we are overjoyed. We remember this even in the midst of dry times, and so we search glaring skies for some sign of change, some hint of cloud in which we may hope.
At the Grafton-Orange Association meeting last week a woman in her eighties or nineties told a story about her parents when they were young. They moved to a new town where there were two churches-North Congregational and South Congregational. They attended both for a while, unable to decide which to join. Finally they chose the church that seemed likely to lose its minister sooner than the other. Apparently both churches were rather dry, and, as the woman concluded, "Where there is change, there is hope."
You can imagine how that story went over in a room full of ministers. There were some gasps and some nervous clearings of throats. One minister was quick to point out that change for the better doesn't always depend on the minister leaving.
It is true that sometimes there is no other choice, but the evolving wisdom of strategic planning offers choices churches haven't seen before. The planning process we are going through now is asking specific questions about how to improve our Calling and Caring and Youth Programs and our church administration, but it is also asking bigger, open-ended questions like who are we as a church, and who is our neighbor that we are called to serve, and what is God calling us to do? These are questions that can lead to positive reformation without firing the minister.
The strategic planning experts we are following call these "frame-bending" questions because they open us to change even our frame of reference. The experts also insist that the most important element of the planning process is listening and remaining open to the movement of the Holy Spirit through our church-wide conversations. I think they would qualify the phrase "where there is change there is hope," by saying, "where there is the Spirit of Christ, there is hope in change."
Blind Bartimaeus sat by the Jericho roadside. Day in and day out, the crowds flowed past him and he called out begging for money or food or maybe a drink for his parched throat-trying to change his circumstances enough to survive, but with no hope of permanent, frame-bending change. Then Jesus came along. Moved by the Spirit, Bartimaeus shouted out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" People tried to shut him up but he cried all the more loudly, "Have mercy on me!"
Where Jesus was, there was hope in change. Hope of healing for the blind or the lame or the leprous, hope of inclusion for the women and children and the poor. Jesus fed the poor, he overturned the tables in the temple that exploited and excluded the poor, he chastised the wealthy who neglected the poor. Where Jesus was, those who were having a hard time, those for whom life was as dry as the watercourses in the desert, felt hope that they might be restored.
It is crucial to understand that Bartimaeus serves as a symbol or representative in the gospel Mark. This story comes as the climax to the tense final journey to Jerusalem. The very next story is the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. All the way there Jesus has been trying to teach his disciples about the meaning of discipleship and the fact of his coming death. In story after story the disciples appear to be blind to what Jesus is trying to teach them.
He tells them that children are blessed, that we need to be like children and welcome children, yet the disciples turn around and try to keep children from him. Jesus tells the disciples that he must suffer and die-three times he tries to explain the path he must take and yet every time the disciples prove they do not get it. The last passage before today's shows them arguing again about who is going to be the greatest and most powerful when Jesus becomes King of Israel. Jesus explains again that his way requires suffering servanthood and self-sacrifice, not glorious thrones.
As we read Mark, we find ourselves asking, "Won't those disciples ever get it?" Bartimaeus comes along as the answer to that question. There is hope-but it is not the hope of human greatness that the disciples have been thinking. It is the hope of divine mercy and grace.
Jesus hears Bartimaeus and asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" And Bartimaeus says, "My teacher, let me see again." Notice that Bartimaeus calls Jesus teacher in that moment, not healer, not Son of David, King, Messiah- but "Teacher, open my eyes so I may see." Jesus heals him, and the end of the story is that Bartimaeus follows Jesus. He can follow because now he sees. By divine mercy and grace, the teacher has made the way clear to see and understand.
As Jesus healed Bartimaeus he said, "Your faith has made you well." Bartimaeus now sees with the eyes of faith. As we look at the church, we are like the disciples sometimes-there are so many things we do not understand, so many things our eyes cannot make out as anything more than vague shapes or shades of darkness. Some are at the heart of our religion, like the nonviolence of Jesus and what the Apostle Paul called the foolishness of the cross. Only the eyes of faith can see that what appears most foolish is truly most wise.
Or we look at how divided the church is today and at how far some churches are from our interpretation of the gospel message. We look at how many churches stand by helplessly as the society around them becomes less Christ-like, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, as the poor are increasingly excluded from America's temples of privilege and power. We look at a church that seems sometimes like a dried up watercourse in the desert, and we ask how will this ever change? We can't see it.
The answer is in the symbolic story of Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus represents all of us struggling disciples. Change will come through our faithfully seeking the power and grace of Christ. That is what we celebrate today-the reformation whose slogan was, "Faith alone!" Faith is what we need. Our faith will make us whole by opening us to divine mercy and grace. Our faith will lead us to see what we need to see. Our faithful serving will show us what we need to do to follow Christ.
So let us continue in the faith and courage of all those reformers who have gone before us, trusting in the Holy Spirit to guide and empower us and restore us like the watercourses in the desert.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.
Let us pray in this faith, whether today we are weeping or rejoicing. Let us call out from our heart, "Jesus, have mercy, show us the way," trusting that the end of that spiritual practice will be grace and vision and joy. Let us pray in silence...
Sermon 10/29/2006