Persistence rooted in faith. October 28, 2018 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Mark 10:46-52

Persistence: the quality that allows someone to keep at something in spite of opposition, obstacles or disappointments.  We love stories of persistence, where someone is able to keep on keeping on against all odds, but there are some situations where persistence instead of being inspiring can become rather annoying.  Take, for instance, the wiley squirrel and the humble bird feeder.  Squirrels love bird seed.  And manufacturers love to claim that their bird feeder with its creative wire guard or weight sensitive perch or creative baffling can outsmart squirrels.  But the reality is that squirrels usually find a way to get what they want.  After having no luck with all of the fancy contraptions one desperate bird lover decided to go back to basics with a simple feeder on a pole in the middle of his yard, but with one twist.  He coated the pole with vaseline.  It didn’t take long until a squirrel scurried over and jumped up to climb the pole.  But strangely enough rather than moving up he quickly slid back down to the ground.  Undaunted, the squirrel tried again and the same thing happened, again.  And on it went, jump up, slide down, jump up, slide down, over and over and over.  The bird lover watched with delight.  Could it be that he had stumbled upon the ultimate fix to such a vexing problem?  Sadly no.  And all because of persistence - that squirrel would just not give up.  Up, down, up, down he went until finally the vaseline wore off enough that on one of the jumps the squirrel gained enough traction to scurry up the pole.  And victory, once again, went to the squirrel. 

Blind Bartimaeus in our reading from the gospel of Mark is a bit like one of those pesky, persistent squirrels.  Hearing that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by this blind beggar sitting by the roadside hollers out into the darkness that surrounds him, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  But the crowd tries to shut him up.  Yet Bartimaeus persists.  Crying out even more loudly he yells, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”  And upon hearing Bartimaeus Jesus stops and tells the crowd to call for him.  Quickly changing their tune the crowd encourages, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you." 

That’s all that Bartimaeus needs to hear.  He springs up, throws off his cloak - which is a small detail, but a significant one - a blind man throwing off anything, let alone something so essential as his cloak, would likely never find it again.  Bartimaeus’ willingness to let his cloak go speaks to a confidence he had that Jesus would indeed have mercy on him.   And so upon coming to Jesus he is asked the question, “What do you want me to do for you?”  “My teacher,” says Bartimaeus, “let me see again.”  To which Jesus proclaims, “Go, your faith has made you well.”

Now there’s a danger here, as with any story where Jesus heals someone and commends them for their faith, to draw a straight, simplistic, and often painful line between faith and healing.  But that is not the way that God in Christ works.  God’s healing power is not given or withheld because of someone’s level of faith.  The gospels recount many examples of Jesus healing people where no degree of faith is mentioned.  That’s because God’s will is for all people, whether they have faith or not, to be healed and whole.  In this particular case, Bartimaeus’ persistence was rooted in his faith that God would have mercy on him which enabled him to encounter Jesus in a powerful and life-changing way.  He was healed immediately.  And with his sight restored Jesus tells Bartimaeus to go.

But Bartimaeus doesn’t go.  Instead he stays with Jesus and follows him on the way.  And which way is Jesus going?  Literally, he’s on his way to Jerusalem which was just a day’s walk from where they were.  Which means that Bartimaeus probably saw Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with throngs of people shouting hosanna, waving palms, and laying down their cloaks.  It must have been a sight to behold.  But it also means that Bartimaeus was also a likely witness to the horror of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross.  Watching that I wonder if there was a moment when Bartimaeus might have regretted the gift of sight.

But I’d like to think, although this would have taken a tremendous amount of persistence,  I’d still like to think that even as Jesus hung on the cross Bartimaeus was still able to see what he so clearly saw before he regained his physical sight, that Jesus truly was the Son of David, the Messiah.  And that in his dying God’s mercy and love was on display not only for Bartimaeus, but for all of us, to see.     

Following Jesus on the way calls on each and every one of us to develop the capacity to persist - to learn how to hold on and keep believing even when life gets dark and it’s hard to see.  To persist in trusting that God will have mercy in spite of any opposition, obstacle or disappointment.  Still there are times when it can be just too much.  We persist and endure and pick ourselves up and try again many, many times, and sometimes in that process we just wear out.  But take heart.  Because ultimately this scripture, and really all of scripture, isn’t an account of our ability to hang in there, but God’s.  God is the one who never gives up.  God is the one who never wears out.  God is the one who over and over and over again comes to us, calls us, heals us, loves us no matter what opposition we put up or obstacles that get in the way or disappointments we suffer.  None of that will ever deter the love of God in pursuing us and reaching into our lives with love and mercy.  The story of our faith, the story of our lives, is the story of God’s persistence.  The persistent love of God that surrounds us, enfolds us, is at work in and around us at all times and forever more.  “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.  Perhaps our best answer is, “Let us have eyes to see.”

Invitation. October 14, 2018 The Rev. David M. Stoddart

Mark 10: 17-31

Karl Barth was a Swiss theologian and arguably the most prominent and influential Protestant theologian of the 20th century. His magnum opus, Church Dogmatics, is a massive work, comprising 13 volumes, some 8,000 pages, and over 6 million words. It is the longest work of systematic theology ever written, at least in the Christian tradition. Toward the end of his life, someone asked him a provocative question. Since he had devoted his life to pondering the human condition and the mysteries of the Christian faith, this person asked Karl Barth what was the most profound thought he had ever had. Barth replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

The love of Christ for all people is the foundation of our faith. We count on it. And Jesus reveals his love in everything he does: in his healing of the sick and his feeding of the hungry, in his embrace of the outcasts and his acts of compassion towards all who are in need. But while the whole narrative shines with the love of Christ, only once in Mark’s entire Gospel does the evangelist go out of his way to explicitly tell us that Jesus loved someone, and that is in the passage we heard today, the story of a rich man who is seeking something he can’t quite find. Mark tells us that Jesus, looking at him, loved him.

This is one of those Gospel passages that we quickly try to explain away or defend ourselves from. Let’s just admit that right off the bat. We may think, for example, that this is just about wealthy people, and since we can all think of people who have more money than we do, then it applies to them, not to us. Or we might think, “This is a story about that particular man. Jesus commands him to sell his possessions and give his money away to the poor, but he doesn’t command me to do that.” Or like Peter, we might think about what we have already given up for God, like our pledge to the church, and feel like we should get some credit for that. We play these mental games because this passage seems threatening and scary, and somehow we have to tame it and make it manageable.

Rather than avoiding the tension in this passage, however, I’m going to ask you to sit with it for a few minutes. Like that rich man, all of us here want abundant and eternal life, want to be close to God. Presumably that’s why we’re here right now. And all of us here are probably very attached to our money, our possessions, our careers, our lifestyles, our social status, and a host of other things that are easy to be attached to when you live in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. The tension comes when we feel in our guts and know deep down in our hearts that some of the stuff we are attached to really does get in the way of living a full life in communion with God. So feel that tension for a moment and remember the Gospel: Jesus, looking at him loved him. That “looking at him” detail is crucial. Jesus never just glances at anyone. When he sees you, he sees you: he peers into the depths of your soul and observes everything. He saw that that man was conflicted and struggling. And he loved him, just the way he was. And he sees how conflicted we can be, and he loves us, just the way we are. Therein lies our salvation and the practical lesson of this Gospel.

And that lesson isn’t “Don’t be attached to anything.” Of course we get attached. We just had a wedding: we want Lizzie and Zach to be deeply attached to each other for the rest of their lives. We are attached to the people we love; we’re committed to work that is meaningful and fulfilling; we’re engaged with the church; we need homes to live in and food to eat and resources to share. Jesus himself is deeply attached to his friends and disciples, and he enjoys dinner parties and wedding banquets. He doesn’t preach deprivation. But he does point us right to those places where we are overly attached, those places where our attachments actually get in the way of leading a full and Spirit-filled life.

So I would phrase the practical lesson of the Gospel this way: we should not avoid the places of tension in our lives, the places where we are overly attached. That is where our growing edge will be. In the story, Jesus does not condemn the man: he loves him. And the point is not that this guy won’t go to heaven when he dies. The point is that he is not experiencing heaven now. The free and abundant life Jesus wants everyone to have is eluding him, which is why he comes to Jesus to begin with. He follows all the rules, but that’s not enough. His over attachment to his possessions has impeded the flow of God’s love and God’s Spirit in his life, and Jesus pinpoints the problem and offers him a way forward, a way into fuller and better life.

The heart of this Gospel, then, is not judgment, but invitation. We don’t need to be afraid to look at those areas where we are too attached to our money, our possessions, or any other feature of our earthly life. Jesus doesn’t condemn us: he loves us. And he wants us to experience the best life we can now. Years ago, when I first started tithing, giving ten percent of my income to the church, it was for me a real movement away from fear and towards trust. Over the years, that adds up to thousands of dollars I could have spent on my family or my security or whatever. But it’s been so liberating: I’ve seen over and over again that I always have enough, and more than enough. God always provides what I need. And that kind of freedom can happen in many ways. I know a guy, a church-going man of faith, who used to have an extensive and expensive collection of single malt Scotch. He would often have tasting parties—it was a big deal to him. And then one day he gave it all away. When asked why, he said, “I realized that I was thinking about Scotch all the time, that it dominated my life. And I didn’t want to live that way. So I got rid of it, and I’m so glad I did.”

Where is that point of tension in your life? Where are you overly attached, clinging to something out of fear or obsession or just plain habit? Jesus sees you in that very place, and loves you. And he is inviting you to let go and move forward into a fuller, freer, and better life. I urge you to pay attention, heed the invitation,  and take him up on his offer.

Hardness of heart. October 7, 2018 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Mark 10:2-16, Genesis 2:18-24

Divorce.  Likely everyone gathered here today has been affected by it.  Either we are people who have divorced or we love people who gone through a divorce.  Even marriages that have remained intact often have at least one story of struggle where divorce was weighed as an option.  But there are other ways to handle difficulties that arise in marriage.  Once when Ruth Graham, wife of the famous preacher, Billy Graham, was asked if she ever considered divorce she innocently replied, “Divorce?  No.  Murder, yes.”

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  This is the question the Pharisees pose to Jesus in our gospel today.  Let me just say here that a superficial read of Jesus’ response has caused way too much pain and suffering to the people who have needed God’s grace the most. Now everyone around Jesus knew the answer to the Pharisees’ question.  The law of Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce his wife.  Jesus doesn’t bother to quibble with this.  Instead he goes straight to the heart of the matter.  "Because of your hardness of heart,” Jesus explains, “Moses wrote this commandment for you.”  And he goes on to reference the act of creation and relationship where the two become one flesh and declares, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 

It’s important to remember that marriage in first century Palestine was quite different than marriages of today.  Back then marriage was not a choice between individuals, but an arrangement between families, in particular the men in the families.  Marriage was a tool to ensure economic stability and social privilege.  A woman’s body was treated as property belonging first to her father and then to her husband.   Debate within Jewish circles of the time was not about if a man could divorce his wife but how - under what circumstances was it lawful.  One popular teaching coming out of the scribal school of Hillel gave the man complete impunity.  He could divorce, or dispose of, his wife for any reason at any time.  While the Shammai school limited divorce to cases of adultery.   In a world where women had no legal protection and were totally dependent on their husbands’ support, the prospect of divorce put women at great risk.  Given this reality, Jesus’ prohibition against divorce puts him on the side of the weak and the vulnerable providing some degree of protection for the women of his time from men who might use divorce for their own benefit. 

Fast forward roughly two thousand years and, at least in most industrialized countries, things have changed greatly.  Marriage has become less about gaining security and more about people seeking mutual fulfillment.  Taking Jesus words out of their cultural context and uncritically using them as an unbreakable command against divorce denies the spirit of care and concern that pervades this text.  Not to mention we miss the real point that Jesus is trying to make.  As is often the case, Jesus is not so concerned about the state of the law, but the state of the heart.

 

Divorce isn’t really the issue here.  It’s a symptom of a much more serious problem - that problem being hardness of heart.  And it’s not just married or divorced people who suffer from such hardness.  All of us, to some degree or another, do.  Regardless of our marital status, if we have known division and separation in a relationship we have experienced divorce in our lives.  Yes, hardness of heart splits up marriages, but it also divides parents from children, brothers from sisters, Republicans from Democrats, Christians from Muslims, whites from blacks, rich from poor.  This type of separation goes beyond having differences with one another it’s about coming to the point where one has no need for the other. 

But before it comes to this, before any type of a relationship ends in that final kind of division or divorce, separation begins first in the heart - either in our own or in another’s.  We start by isolating ourselves.  We put up emotional walls and hunker down.  Often we become fearful or defensive or judgmental.  We do things and think things that close ourselves off.  Now given the wide range of relationships that we have in our lives sometimes this type of hardness is absolutely necessary for safety and survival.  There are certain situations where we have to harden ourselves for the sake of protection in order to find freedom from toxic or dangerous relationships.  But God knows that living with a hard heart for an extended period of time is not a long term solution that brings life.   

You know what the first thing that is ever said to be not good in the Bible?  Being alone.  We hear that in our first reading today from the book of Genesis.  After all of creation is declared good, God goes onto say, “It is not good for man to be alone.”  Now that doesn’t mean that alone time is bad or that God intends everyone to be married.  But it does reveal that God’s intent is for human beings to be in relationship with one another - to experience relationships that are deeply connected and meaningful.   Hardness of heart works against all this.  It takes a soft heart, a heart that is open and vulnerable to be able to live into the abundance of God’s creation.

And one of the means that God uses to soften our hearts is worship.  Do you feel it sometimes?  You come into church after a long, difficult, maybe even painful week.  But you’ve held it together.  You’ve been strong.  You’ve kept it going.  But then you’re here and your defenses are down, which gives God’s Spirit an opportunity to minister to you.  To speak to your heart.  To whisper into your soul that you are loved.  This is the holy work of softening.  And for many of us it results in tears.  Which sometimes, people have told me, is the very reason they avoid church - because they are afraid they will cry.  But I say come.  Church is a place where we are surrounded by the love of God and God’s people.  Let the softening of your heart happen here.     

Still, there’s no getting around that we live in a broken world full of imperfect people.  We break promises, we let each other down, we hurt one another, often without even meaning to.  And Jesus is in the midst of such chaos offering us his life and peace.  It is a soft heart that is able to receive that gift and to be joined with God in the deepest places of our being.  When we do we become “one flesh” with God.  And what God has joined together no divorce will ever separate.   

Stumbling blocks. September 30, 2018 The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

Mark 9:38-50

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark probably doesn’t rank as anyone’s favorite Bible passage.  Hearing about tearing out one’s eye or cutting off one’s limb is disturbing to say the least.  However, there is an upside.  As Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, points out, this passage in all its horror serves to expose the limits of reading the Bible literally.  Walk into the most conservative, Bible-believing church, she reflects, where women are not allowed to wear pants or speak up in church and men refuse to swear oaths or do chores on Sunday, and you won’t find many folks sporting eye patches or stumped limbs.  That’s because Christians across the spectrum recognize that Jesus is not advocating self-violence – something else is going on here.  Something that needs to be taken seriously, yes, but not literally. 

So in order to do just that, we need to back up a bit and see how we got here.  Our reading begins with the disciple John coming to Jesus with the most distressing of news.  “Teacher,” he says, “we saw someone casting out demons in your name.”  He goes on to explain that upon seeing this, the disciples tried to stop him.  Why, one might ask, did the disciples try to stop this man from setting someone free from evil forces?  Because the stranger was somehow doing it incorrectly?  Or because he was hurting someone?  Or maybe because he was defaming Jesus’ name in the process?  No.  “We tried to stop him,” John explains, “because he was not following us."  Now perhaps this unlicensed exorcist didn’t speak, think, act, or look like the rest of them - that we do not know.  But we do know this:  The disciples did not consider him to be a part of their group.  He was an outsider getting in their way.  And when they are unable to stop him themselves they reported him.

No doubt Jesus’ response comes as a big disappointment.  John and the rest of the disciples told on this man because they thought that Jesus would be on their side.  That Jesus would see it their way and shut him down.  But shockingly Jesus comes to the stranger’s defense.  “Do not stop him for…whoever is not against us is for us.”  Whoever is not against us is for us.  And with this declaration all ideas about who’s an insider and who’s an outsider, who’s part of the group and who’s not, who’s one of us and who’s one of them crumbles.  And the conversation takes an unexpected and even uncomfortable turn.   

Taking the judgment the disciples had for the outsider, Jesus turns it back on them.  He challenges them and us to examine our own lives by considering how we might get in the way of God’s spirit at work in the world, how might we be stumbling blocks not only to others but also to ourselves. 

Now a stumbling block in the physical world are easy to identify - a shoe left in the middle of the room, a bed post that jumps out and jams your toe or the uneven pavement on a walkway can all make us trip and fall.  These things are all outside of us and things we can see.  But the stumbling blocks that Jesus is referring to are much harder to identify for they exist on the inside and can seem as much a part of us as our own eyes and hands and feet.  These stumbling blocks are habits of life like fear, guilt, anger, bitterness, envy or gossip - all things that distort the way we see, think, and act towards God, others, and ourselves.  Addiction, racism, pride, or the tendency to judge are also examples of blocks that can trip us and others up in life.  And every time we stumble or cause someone else to do so we have denied life.  We have diminished the Kingdom of God and the love that reigns. 

This is serious stuff and it’s why Jesus engages in such serious, even shocking, language.  But I realize that it’s not just the part about self-mutilation that makes us cringe.  All the talk about being thrown into hell makes me want to stick my fingers in my ears and simply block it out.  But in taking this passage seriously it needs to be addressed, so let me offer this.  The concept of hell is a strong symbol for separation from God - separation which does indeed result in torment.  However, a literal hell with punishing flames of fire is in direct contradiction with the essential message of the gospel - the message that God loves the whole world and desires that all be saved.  Although we do have the ability to resist God’s love in Christ - and that resistance bears its own consequences - separation from God is never God’s will for any of us.   

Jesus does not use the language of hell in order to seal anyone’s eternal destiny.  He uses it to get our attention.  To sound the alarm so that we might hear the news that whatever is in our lives that make us or others stumble needs to be removed - not as a punishment but as a means of becoming genuinely whole.  For as stumbling blocks are removed, the boundaries of God’s Kingdom of life and love, mercy and grace expands to the point where no one is a stranger, no one is an outsider - and everyone who is not against us is for us. 

The way we live really does matter.  Even the simple act, Jesus says, of giving a cup of water to someone in need makes an impact in the Kingdom of God.  Everyone who works and walks on the side of love is on God’s side no matter how different they are to us or we to them.  So let us use these eyes of ours to see the world as God sees it.  Which will no doubt prompt our feet to walk into places of need where we can reach out our still-attached hands in care and service.  So that none of us stumble, but together are steadied in the love of God that never ever fails.