October 27, 2024 - Lord, Help me to see! Bartimeaus 30 OTB

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Mark 10:46-52

I remember when I fell in love with the story of Bartimaeus.

It was about 10 years ago when, for the first time

I went to the annual meeting of the 

Network of Biblical Storytellers in Dayton Ohio.

 

Anyway, This  group…the Network…

Was founded by a Methodist minister and Academic, 

Tom Boomershine

Book: Rediscovering the Gospel as Story

Systematic study of the Gospel narratives as story

 

If you were to visit Dr. Boomershine’s Church

You might experience the Gospel performed, 

rather than proclaimed from the Lectern.

 

It must have been year B because the workshops were all focused on the Gospel of Mark…

And one in particular centered around the Bartimaeus story. 

 

I remember it like it was yesterday

…there is POWER in a well-told story

 

There are standard characteristics of good storytelling

One of the most effective is the use of contrasts

 

In this story

There are 5 moves to the story…and at least 8 contrasts

1.    The very first line… “THEY CAME TO JERICHO.”
Period. Small sentence. 
And as they were leaving…disciples…large crowd, Bart, son of, blind beggar, sitting…
THEY CAME. THEY WENT.
JERICHO=PLACE OF HONOR, BEGGAR=SHAME

2.     No question…Bart is shouting. This is dramatic! 
Just like when the disciples try and shoo away the children, 
those around Bart tell him to shut-up…the Greek is that strong.
But again, Bart shouts EVEN louder “SOD HAVE MERCY!”
SHUT UP/GET LOUDER

3.    Jesus stops.
“Call him. “
short sentences, calm-clear command.
Bart=anything but calm…THREW OFF, SPRANG UP, AND CAME
hands searching for the way, out of breath

4.    The scene now gets intimate. 
The contrast is now between James and John and Bart.
Jesus asks the exact same question:
what do you want me to do for you?
They ask for power and honor
Bart asks for sight
I want to see

5.    This section of Mark’s Gospel
 is bookended with 2 stories of healing blindness
In the first the disciples brought the blind man to Jesus
begging him to touch him
Jesus LED him outside the village
SPAT on his eyes…laid his hands on Him…but it didn’t quite take
then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes. 
And the blind man could see.
Jesus says ‘GO HOME’ and he goes.

In the 2^nd…it is Bart who comes to Jesus
And Jesus does nothing
He simply sys ‘GO’
Your faith has saved you
And he DOESN’T go…he follows.

 

 

 

It seems to me that, as a whole, Bartimaeus is the epitome of CONTRAST

all along these past 7-8 weeks we have heard about the disciples

The inner circle

Those privileged to receive Jesus’ direct teaching
How they have been 

confused, uncomfortable…maybe even BLIND

 

And then Bartimaeus, who, by any standard, 

should know absolutely NOTHING
He…Gets it right.

 

This past week I asked myself, and Rob, and a few friends Jesus’ question 

What so you want me to do for you?

-less anxiety in the everyday lives of people close to me

-help to stop drinking so much

-lets just say MORE…MORE savings, MORE close friends, MORE energy, MORE adventure in my life, MORE!

These don’t sound so Bad

Beter than More Power and the privilege to sit at HIS right and left in the Kingdom!

 

But not Bartimaeus!

 

And maybe that’s the point of the story.

Maybe Bartimaeus’ ASK

Is the ONE, essential, prayer???

 

Lord, Help me to see!

Help me to see where you are in all this

Where are you

In the Middle East mess

In Iran

Palestine

Isreal

Where are you in Ukraine

Russia, China, North Korea

Where are you in the 

Blue or Red

Red or Blue

 

Lord, HELP ME to SEE

 

Give me whatever I need

To set myself beside the road

Willing to shout out in my blindness

Willing to leave behind

What I need to leave

In order to follow you.

 

Lord, Help me to SEE

 

 

 

 

 

October 6, 2025 - This At Last - Genesis 2:18-24, Mark 10:2-16

27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Genesis 2:18-24, Mark 10:2-16

 

What happened in you as soon as you heard the word

DIVORCE?

 

If you’ve been through a divorce

Or someone you love has been through a divorce

(which is most, if not all of us)

 

You probably cringed a little

Maybe even felt some bit of returning pain

 

Id like to try an move DIVORCE off to the side

Out of the way

So that we can hear a good word

 

CONTEXT:

We are still in the section of Mark

Where Jesus is leading his disciples toward Jerusalem

(Chapters 1-7 healings and wonders!!!)

And he is teaching, he is trying to help the disciples find their way into the heart of God

To see what God desires

But they have their heads…ummmm…stubbornly elsewhere

…if you remember the last couple weeks

We had the argument about “who is the greatest” 

and we had the scene where the disciples were all bent out of shape 

“we saw someone else doing good works in your name…should we go and stop them”

Their struggling…pride and ego re causing trouble! 

 

He isn’t calling them to some Spiritual greatness

They would have liked that

Rather simply

Jesus is asking the disciples

To live well in this, our common home

In our place

Our Family, work, community

 

And all these past few Sundays the gospel/Jesus’ teaching

Has highlighted care for the vulnerable:

Children, the poor, those without status

This has been at the Center

A couple weeks ago, 

Jesus placed a child on his lap to emphasize this care of the vulnerable

We are still in that same scene

Matter of fact

That child is still on Jesus’ lap

 

So it is into this scene

That the pharisees come with their trick question

(which is a hint that, at the deepest level, it might not be about divorce in particular)

 

Divorce in 1^st Century Judaism had basically winners and losers

Many biblical scholars have pointed out

That women and children had no power, no rights

When it comes to divorce

And that Jesus’ suggestion that a woman could ask for divorce

Was a way of offering her power and agency

 

But when Jesus takes the question/discussion

All the way back

Back “to the beginning”

He is making a statement about priority

He is stating that the particulars of the LAW

Are always subordinate/in service to the Grand Vision of God

God’s intent for human flourishing

 

And, my friends,

Here lies a word for us today

 

Reaching back to Genesis

When Jesus says the words “In the beginning”

Just hearing those words:

“in the beginning”

His audience/The hearers would have conjured that vivid Genesis scene: 

Garden

Paradise

Adam

Eve

One flesh

THIS AT LAST

 

Jesus is reminding the Pharisees to go back to the original vision

To look first at God's design an hope for creation

And that is what our Genesis text gives us.

This is a story…a vision

Maybe a recipe

About flourishing relationships/human flourishing

And I think, at least today, that the key line is 

“THIS AT LAST”

 

Can you remember...call to mind...

When do I find myself…you find yourself

Taking a deep breath and sighing…or feeling

“THIS…AT LAST”?

 

1)   When I reconnect with an old friend…who really knows me, gets me, loves me…THIS…AT LAST

2)   Last week-end was our daughter’s wedding inDenver…at the end of the night…so tired…I fell into bed with Rob…so FULL…THIS…AT LAST

3)   Maybe…think of reaching the quietest place you know…you are there…THIS…AT LAST

4)   After too much travelling (me these days)…being here…at St Stephens…THIS…AT LAST

 

 

The painful truth about Divorce...broken relationships

is real

we know of it intimately

But the hope in the midst of the pain/brokenness  

is that God desires our flourishing

God gives us this vision...this paradise This at Last Vision

That beckons us to deeper relationship 

Ones that lead us, more often, to that safe and comfortable deep sigh

 

And dare we imagine

When we gather in Jesus’ name

That here...this...is the place of origin

 

Where all persons bound up together in the love of God

Sigh together:  THIS…AT LAST

 

Believing = Staying in Relationship

 These are thick readings we have today

A lot to chew on

 

In the reading from Joshua

It is CHOOSING 

“Choose this day whom you will serve”

And then that famous line 

As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord

[…Joshua’s next few lines…]

 

And then in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians

At the end…It is a kind of recap

We hear some hefty military imagery 

Which is understandable as Paul is a guest of the Roman prison system.

 

But paying careful attention

We can notice that the image is static…calmly defensive.

Therefore 

Take up the whole armor of God

So that you may be able to stand firm
fasten the belt of truth

Put on the breastplate of righteousness

As shoes for your feet 

Put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.

 

And for the Gospel

We have been reading from Chapter 6 of John for 5 weeks

We have been hearing A LOT about bread and life
actually more about LIFE

 

In John’s gospel LIFE

Is being in relationship with Jesus…the one who comes from God and returns to God

And who invites us into that shared life.

 

From the first reading we get the idea of Choice/Choosing

and from Ephesians it is Peace, proclaiming the Gospel of Peace

 

And in the Gospel
Let’s paint a picture
the crowds that have been following Jesus

Signs and wonders have kept them close by

But the closer they get to Jerusalem 

The harder the teaching

I can see the back of the crowd

Its getting thinner

People are beginning to do the “I wanna get of here” shuffle

 

Many of the disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.
And then the question to Simon Peter
Do you also wish to go?

“Lord, to whom can we go?
You have the words of everlasting life.
We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

 

The next lines 

(which we didn’t read but which give important context and contrast to this passage) 

are about Judas for whom the teaching is just too much
Judas’ betrayal in John’s gospel is not about handing him over…
Jesus hands himself over in John’s Gospel

For John

Betrayal is walking away

Not staying in relationship

Not believing

 

This believing or not believing…isn’t about cognitive ascent.
Peter doesn’t do that
Peter rests in a relationship that he has come to trust

Even though his understanding is limited 

 

 

SO

We have these two characters

Peter and Judas

One staying

One walking away

 

This past week 

Rob and I were watching a couple episodes of 

Season Four of The Chosen.

 

Do you remember, in the sermon on the mount

Jesus says:

“If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile,

Carry it two miles.”

 

This becomes an actual scene in the series
Jesus and his disciples are walking down a dusty road

All of them carrying a portion of their nomad-life essentials 

When a cohort of Roman soldiers

Pulls up alongside them

Acting in full-on bully mode

They make the Jesus-group drop their belongings and pick up the soldiers’ equipment.
Mockingly, the soldiers put their heavy helmuts on the disciples, including the women,

And there is all the predictable laughter and jeering.

 

This is the law

Romans like their laws .

The road is marked with stone mile markers.

When the requisite distance is reached, the soldiers begin to take back their belongings…

But Jesus keeps walking
his disciples follow His lead

And they quietly, without discussion, carry the burdens another mile

 

This completely baffles the Romans

And slowly

Time seems to be in slow motion

The soldiers begin to take back some of the burden
Nobody is jeering

Confused and questioning faces appear on the screen
They simply don’t know how to understand this…

 

I tell you about this scene 

Because the camera focuses in on both Peter and Judas from time to time

Judas, has been struggling
and he just kind of scrunches his face and shakes his head

 

He is trying

Really trying

But he is beginning to get angry

Peter, on the other hand, while not understanding fully, he is untroubled.

 

This scene stuck with me 
As a kind of image of belief 
that I can hold on to

For me, it offers Both a WHO and a WHAT 

That I trust that I believe in

Karoline Lewis 

a Lutheran scholar of the Gospel of John 
is quick to say that the hard teaching referred to in todays tet

is not only the Bread of Life discourse

but everything that has come before

This tough teaching is all of it.

 

This worship service

Is full of statements of belief
Maybe, like me, you have wrestled with most them over the years
often believing, like Peter, more with trust than with full understanding

I’m not sure full understanding is necessary, or even possible

For Jesus in John’s Gospel 

The criteria for discipleship

Seems to be a continual

“Coming to believe”

Staying in relationship with Jesus whose life comes from the Father
And who bids us to join in that love.

Staying in relationship…might sound easy

But we know better…
It demands our prayer, our eagerness
our attention…

 

 

In that scene in the Chosen
The disciples, following Jesus’ lead to walk another mile
Were doing the work of “staying in the relationship”

And something changed…in the disciples and in the soldiers…something changed

And it had everything to do with proclaiming the Gospel of Peace.

I found myself thinking of our NH Food Pantry this week
Many of you know that Ken (and Rose) are retiring from their years of good work
leading the NH Food Pantry.

 

For someone, for a few someone’s, maybe for you, maybe for me 

This is that next ‘Coming to Believe’ move

 

What does it mean, today…

To “stay in relationship”

To “proclaim the Gospel of Peace”???