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Crowding Out The Witnesses

Bulletin here

On the 21st, instead of a full sermon, I did a small homily on the meaning of baptism for us, as we had new members and, yes, baptisms that Sunday, which is why you won't see anything on that date.

These texts have seemed to be texts that people have heard enough that they might have a sermon already in their minds.  Bartimaeus isn't unfamiliar folks who have grown up in the church.  So a bit of my time was thinking about where there might be a new angle.  I try to lectio in those moments and rotate around the text.  And what I found at the end was that the crown was largely underrepresented, but carry a significant role in both the Mark and Job texts.  

This sermon was close to 25 minutes, which is a bit long for me: I've rested pretty close to 20 minutes on Sunday, inclusive of the gospel text.  There might have been a section I could have dropped, but I felt like it was a pretty complete and organized sermon.  Feedback always welcome!

Notes:

3:30 - It was one of those Sundays where a good portion of regulars were out of town, so it was a little lighter.

3:56 - I apologize ahead of time about some of the recording.  I preached out of the pulpit today, but left my phone on the stand where I had my notes.  As a result, there's moments where you can't hear me as well.

3:30-4:50 -  I think this could have been a section I could have dropped.  It's interesting to me, but I don't think it was necessary to the main thesis.

5:20 - 2014

5:26 - 2009

6:17 - Might have been another section worth dropping. 

7:56 - Our worship leader that Sunday really nailed all three names.  I was impressed!

8:33 - I wondered later if it's worth bringing up something else that needs unfolded.

9:04 - Hard not to mention.

10:30 - I didn't want to fall into the "everything happens for a reason" trope, but I think it's also another way to think about this.  We, as a crowd sometimes want to explain things away and don't know what to say, but instead of bringing the person into the center of the crowd, we come up with these pithy one-liners that aren't really all that helpful, but serve to keep people at a distance.  

10:58 - Maybe another section I could have cut.  Do we need to know about 40ff?  Maybe not.

11:30 - I totally agree with the Working Preacher folks that it seems really strange that the middle section is taken out.  I wonder if it's because if one was trying to get through Job and the main points, that subsection is a complicating aspect of a large book one only has a few weeks to unfurl.  However, in this context, especially trying to place it within conversation of Mark (which isn't not necessarily suppose to, I know - this was the semi-continuous selection, not the complimentary text) about crowds and their issues, you need to put it back.  I also wonder, though, how easily it is to be given to a prosperity-type gospel if you only preach that part of the text.  There's this whole moment that I want to come back to someday about how it's only after the communal sacrifice and prayers that Job is restored.  I wonder what that means for grief, or holiness, or theodicy.  It seems an interesting claim that in order to be restored - even if they're right - they must pray for the restoration of others.

12:00 - The Message is my second favorite translation after the NRSV.

13:06 - "help me" probably wasn't the best phrase.  God is already in our midst.  I think I might have talked more about the crowd here, talking about not crowding away from God, but around God.  Or maybe recognizing God is here already.  Something like that. Remember that in 2021, Adam.

13:55 - Struggling to find the phrase "other contemporary literature."

14:40 - This is important, and maybe underplayed in commentaries.  The fact that we know this person's name and that the scribe took the extra effort is telling.  There are others that are unnamed.  And certainly, there's good feminist critique here that there are plenty of women that go unnamed and here a man does.  But beyond that critique, there's something humanizing here that is rich - and he's also named before he's healed.  He's of worth before anything else happens in the story.

15:10 - I closed my eyes here.  I hoped other people did.

15:27 - I thought it important to remind folks that this crowd had expectations of Jesus.  They were us.  They loved Jesus or were at least curious about him.  Mark has really helped me to think about not minimizing the secondary characters into one-sided narrative wallflowers, and I think that can include the disciples whether named or not.  They have complicated ideas, too.  I think it helps us be more sympathetic when they're foolish (and perhaps with ourselves too when we're foolish), but also to bring characters to greater life.  No one has to be a secondary figure in the gospels.  If they're written in and they've stood the test of time, we should respect each person in the gospel and be willing to consider them complicated humans.

15:47 - Where did that accent come from!?  "Son 'a David, have mercy on me, y'all!"

16:00 - Let's call it what it is.

16:35 - I liked "noisy dark"

16:55 - That's another interesting thing.  Parallel to Job and restoration.

17:32 - In light of our current political rhetoric, I think this is worth considering: that the crowd isn't right.  In fact, it's completely wrong because it's discounting grace.  But it still needs a chance for redemption.

17:41 - ...but it almost seemed too easy.  Maybe it's more about Jesus' persuasion to the crowd.

18:07 - Here's the connection back to Job, too.  Maybe the question for us should not be fixing someone, but to ask what they need for healing.

18:22 - Critical Theory!  I think here's a moment when a lot of the discourse around Habermas and everything that comes out of Critical Theory can make some sense: the marginalized brought to the center and asks what is needed for their healing.  The marginalized expressing what is needed.  However, what's interesting is that Bartimaeus is part of the crowd.  What happens now with this crowd?  Are they different?  Is the inclusion of Bartimaeus making the crowd more loving?  Are they less apt to shout away people at the margins?  We don't get those answers.

19:10 - Related.  And this was an important realization for me.  The healing might not have happened had the crowd been more persuasive.  Or they could have been resentful had Jesus just healed.  I think there's so much complexity to consider here.  How much do we deny the miracles of the oppressed because we as the crowd won't center them with Jesus?

19:33 - Also related.  The crowd isn't pure evil, but also broken people in need of restoration from Jesus.

20:15 - So I'm going to nuance this next week.  We aren't called to the end, but we are aware of the end, and we look towards the end.  Eschatology is important, and All Saints is a good Sunday to remember our Christian hope in the midst of remembering all of the saints (no matter how obscure).  There is present, unknown miracle and future promise.  They're related but not entirely.

20:55 - I don't know how to feel about that, honestly.  A destitute Job, still blind Bartimaeus.  People shot dead in houses of worship.  The cries of the people on the margins seemingly unheard by the elite.  This is why we have Christian hope, because otherwise the world is too bleak, and perhaps all the alternatives come true.  But we have to believe that this Jesus is a resurrecting Jesus over death into life, and keeps trying to get the crowd to invite people to the center.

21:22 - Old Stone was, too, as in the late 80s the sanctuary was burnt to the ground by an arsonist.  It's in our history.

21:47 - This is a good example of what I felt like was an accusation lobbed without enough supporting evidence, and something I don't like to do.  I think we can be complacent or scared of the marginalized.  Related to Job, we can murmur our "thoughts and prayers - everything happens for a reason" garbage in order to feel like we're doing something when we're not... we're just alienating others in a more subversive (even to us!) way.  I don't think I curve that back around enough.  Part of that, honestly, was that I saw the time and realized service was getting late, so I wasn't as focused on the sermon.

22:15 - This might be my favorite line a sermon.  Because I think it's at the core of a lot of what ails us, and I think we're really beating out heads against the wall on this.  We do not need to look at the blind/marginalized in our society and pat ourselves on the back as if we've done somebody a service because we've managed some baseline observation.

22:44 - These next ten seconds are important to the thesis of the sermon.  Stop naming the need for healing and point towards the healer instead.  

23:05 - File this line of reasoning under things that will always get under my skin.  But grieving together (sitting shiva in the Pittsburgh context) would require us to have to be intimate with one another.  Have to crowd in together.  

23:33 - Something that I think we should think about no matter what side of the political aisle we're on.  I don't view this as a mollified center that sweeps pain and difference under the rug, but it's a move towards grace.  

23:55 - I think we have to remember that we are crowd and we are blind... but it's the reaching out that matters.  If there isn't reaching out, then I don't think it's what we're called to as Christians.

Outline:

46 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50 So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” 52 Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.  The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version(Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mk 10:46–52.

  • The (unbelievable) goal
    • I want to be a triathlete
      • I remember the first time I saw the final at Kona.
        • I was sick at home, and watched these athletes swim and run and bike for hours and hour on end.
        • I was impressed at their skill and just that they could make it through such a daunting task.
      • Back then, I knew I’d like to try it.
      • But, y’know how that goes.
        • Not the body type for a triathlon
        • My schedule is far more demanding now than it used to be.
      • So there’s this part of me that thinks if I’m going to follow through, I should tell you all - have an accountability team!
        • Except, we’re not always the best at helping one another in the area of goals.
        • Most research says if we want to succeed in something, we ought to keep it to ourselves.
  • Crowding Out Witness
    • When we hear these texts, I think the first characters we examine are the main protagonists
      • In Job - we focus on Job himself, his trails, and then his restoration.
      • When we listen to Mark, we focus on Bartamaues (the fact that he’s even named is a big deal!) and of course Jesus.
      • But, in each text, there’s another player that affects the whole narrative - the crowd.
    • Job
      • Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.
        • Their first move in Job was to sit with him in his pain.  
        • Job got angry.  Job didn’t understand.  When something of gravity and magnitude happens for what seems to be no good reason, you can appreciate how he feels.
        • And at first, they do well… and then they try to fix things.
        • And you can spend a good portion of a few days a little at a time sitting with their discourses.
        • And they sound really familiar to us.  Friends in the crowd who remind us why we're suffering.
          • If you were more faithful.
          • If you had done x, y, or z - or hadn’t done x, y, z.
      • In the chapters leading up to this moment, we are reminded that God is a big deal.  God is powerful, God will do what God will do.  
        • Job gets that.  
        • And then God turns to Job’s friends.
          • The mismatch in the translation.
          • Hear The Message: After God had finished addressing Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, “I’ve had it with you and your two friends. I’m fed up! You haven’t been honest either with me or about me—not the way my friend Job has. So here’s what you must do. Take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my friend Job. Sacrifice a burnt offering on your own behalf. My friend Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer. He will ask me not to treat you as you deserve for talking nonsense about me, and for not being honest with me, as he has.” Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language(Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Job 42:7–8.
          • It seems as though the friends had missed the point of it all.  They were so busy trying to fix what was wrong with Job that they forgot about God.  
    • Mark
      • I imagine what a blind beggar in Roman times must have been like.Economic distress imposed another duty toward the blind. A few were well off, but the majority lived in dire poverty. Many blind men are beggars ἀλήμονες (wanderers), Anth. Graec., 9, 13b, cf. ἀλητεύων, 9, 12. To be sure, some are also singers and musicians, Hom. Od., 8, 62–64, poets, e.g., Homer, Suid., 251 (Adler, III, 526, 8 ff.), seers, e.g., Tiresins (→ n. 15) and philosophers, e.g., Democr. (→ 273, 8 ff.), even jurists, Cic. Tusc., V, 38, 112, statesmen, Valerius Maximus Dictorum factorumque memorabilia, VIII, 7, 4 f. and kings, Hdt., II, 137, 1; Dio C., 51, 23, 4,13but such vocations were closed to the mass of less talented blind people.  Wolfgang Schrage, “Τυφλός, Τυφλόω,”ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 272.
      • This is an easily forgettable, easily toss aside person.  
        • But this was a person.
        • Mark makes an effort to tell us that.  He’s named.  He’s someone’s son.
      • He heard Jesus, and cried out.
        • The crowd wanted him to stop.
        • We don’t know what was happening in the crowd - Jesus may have been teaching - but I imagine that it’s a crowd like any other
        • Then this isn’t some kind of frustration at an outburst in a lecture.  It’s derision.  It’s frustration.  Because what blind man gets to get near Jesus?
        • This wouldn’t stop him though, he cried out more loudly in the dark.
        • Jesus stops.
          • And what’s interesting is that he doesn’t call him, but he asks the crowd to invite him.
          • Parallel to Job - the crowd has missed the point and needs restoration.  
        • When the crowd called, Bartimaeus let go of everything - I imagine perhaps one of his only earthly possessions - and he goes to Jesus.  
          • Jesus asks what he wants.  Jesus doesn’t tell him what he needs to do, doesn’t judge his station in life.  He asks what he wants.
          • Bartimaeus, just not so long ago the tossed to the side by the crowd, is now at the center.  He only asks for sight.
          • Jesus restores it - and Bartimaeus follows him!
      • I wonder what the crowd thought then.
        • They witnessed a miracle they were willing not to occur 
        • They had passed judgement on someone who Jesus did not
        • But once they heard the call of Jesus, they were assistants in the healing.
  • As one of the crowd...
    • As individuals - The worst cheerleaders
      • Our call is not to discern the end goal, but to be faithful to the process.
        • Because we don’t know when the end result might actually happen!
          • Job was restored double what he was!
          • Bartimaeus got to see again!
          • I might get to Kona!
        • …but we also don’t know when the end result won’t.
          • Job could have ended up penniless
          • Bartimaeus could have stayed blind.
          • My leg could break training.
          • Someone’s sickness might not go away.
    • When the church crowds out its witnesses
      • We all too often as the church have crowded out the witness who wanted to seek Jesus
        • We want to quiet the ones who are on the fringes - how could they be what the savior is asking for?
        • When we hear them, we want to quiet them too often as well.
        • Or, we need to continue to point out the blind person, trying to fix their blindness on our own.
          • My best guess is that someone who is blind is perfectly aware of their blindness and don’t need to have someone point out.
          • My best guess is what they need is someone to encourage them on their journey.  To shout with them, to lead them to a place where they can get healed, and not only after we hear the reminder from Jesus, the shame of Adonai.
    • I wonder in the end where we could put our energy individually and corporately.
      • I’d rather spend my time leading people to get healed than determining their blindness.
      • I’d rather trust that God will do what God will do and just be faithful.
      • Each one of us today is sitting with some blindness, waiting to hear Jesus say again “What do you want me to do for you,” and each of us is yelling out of the crowd to hush.  Faithfulness is reaching out and being with each other.
        • So let’s share.  Let’s walk.  Let’s call on God.  Let’s believe that Jesus is asking what we need.  Let’s head towards Jesus.  Let’s bring along everyone we can.


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