Acts 2:42-47
They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.
Mark 12: 42-44 An Example of Generosity: Making Love Real
After this, Jesus sat down near the temple offering box and watched as people made their financial contributions. Many rich people clearly put in large sums of money. One poor elderly woman came up and put in a couple of small coins, less than a dollar in total. Jesus called his disciples over and pointed this out to them, saying: “The fact of the matter is that this woman was the most generous giver of them all. The rest of them just gave a percentage of their surplus, money that they will never miss. She, on the other hand, despite never having enough to make ends meet, has given all that she had.”
We don’t like reading this Acts 2 passage because we don’t like the idea of being a part of a community of believers where others would believe we should sell our homes, our cars, our furniture, and other possessions and bring the money and give it to the church to distribute to those who have need. Hey, we, cry out, if I do that then I’ll be the one in need and you’ll have to start providing for me cause I won’t have a home, a car, furniture, or clothing any longer.
Having come through the Cold War between Communism and Democracy we also don’t like the fact that living out the vision within Acts 2 appears to most of us to be some kind of communism, where you don’t get to own your own stuff any longer. We, in America, are especially proud of our possessions, especially our homes and our cars, and from what I can see from my sales position at JC Penney, we certainly want to wear the best clothing we can afford.
There is no doubt about the fact that the Acts 2 passage is an idealized telling of what happened after Pentecost when the Spirit of God came upon that brand new community of believers in the resurrected Jesus Christ and they practically turned Jerusalem upside down with their eagerness to tell others about the profound spiritual experience they had had. The record indicates that there were some amazing changes in those persons and that they did in fact impact the city of Jerusalem in miraculous and awesome ways.
Relax, I’m not going to ask you to sell your home, or to even move into a smaller place or apartment, unless that is what you personally need to do to assure yourself that you can make it financially on your income. We know for a fact from other New Testament passages that the apostles and others continued to own their own homes and continued to own their own personal possessions. What is assumed, then, from these scripture passages is that the infant church members gave property and items that they had in surplus, sold them and gave the money to the church to be distributed among those who had specific needs, especially to those who were living on the edge of life: the widows, the orphans, the homeless, the blind, the ill, those with defects caused by birth or injury. Just like Jesus the infant church seems to have had a miraculous ability to continue the same ministry of Jesus Christ by taking care of others, whoever they were, whatever their need.
There is no doubt that the miraculous kind of community that takes shape following Pentecost when 3,000 persons become believers in the Risen Christ on one day is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is God who calls persons into a saving relationship with God through the work of the Spirit in their lives and it is God who then creates a miraculous, awe-inspiring kind of community described like that described in Acts 2 and later in chapter 4.
The very idea of such a community tends to both attract us and repel us. We want the positive benefits for ourselves and others that belonging to such a community could mean for us, but we find it extremely difficult to accept the level of commitment it would demand of us if we truly became a part of such a community. Some have come to the conclusion that creating such a community in 21st Century America is impossible and have given up on the hope of ever achieving a congregational life where persons are truly cared for by each other. Why? Because we believe we have as much, if not more, to lose than gain by becoming this kind of community.
As we move through the rest of the book of Acts and into the Letters from Paul and others in the New Testament we realize that this idealized community of Acts Chapter 2 did not continue to exist as fully as described In chapter 2 and 4, but the unique spiritual and caring factors of this community did reappear as characteristics of the new communities of believers that were formed as the story of Jesus was carried to new cities and villages throughout the ancient world. Eventually the Good News went to Europe and then down through the ages until we arrive today at this church in this city where you are gathered together celebrating God in Christ and trying to become to each other as much of that ideal as we can achieve.
We do not always live up to that ideal as individual Christians, nor as the body of Christ the church. We often fall short of achieving the same kind of celebration of praise, the same kind of caring concern toward each other, the same kind of actions in worship, prayer, and deed that result in miracles happening among us.
Congregational Discussion:
• Why is that do you think?
• How could we overcome such difficulties?
• What is it exactly that we want to become as a community of believers? What would your ideal church look like, or act like?
• What would happen if we did achieve that kind of community? What affect could we have on our city and region?
• What could we do in 2010 and beyond that would help us make the same kind of awe inspiring effect upon Seattle that the church in Acts 2 had upon Jerusalem?
Remember that church began with 120 persons gathered together in an upper room in Jerusalem on Pentecost Day and soon grew into thousands of people in community with each other. In fact the Christian church began with one man who gathered a small group of disciples, women, friends, and family around himself.
Big things often start small. We may be a very small church but with God’s spirit within us helping us, encouraging us, we too can become a proud, worshipping, caring, generous community where your needs and mine are met and where we joyously reach out to others in the name of God in Christ Jesus.
The fact of the matter is that it is up to you. What will you do in terms of committing your time, your talents, and your treasure in the year to come?
But, you say, I don’t have much, pastor. Neither did the widow that Jesus saw who gave all that she had to God while she was worshipping in the Temple. She made a sacrificial gift that demonstrated how much she loved God. I don’t care if you can’t give hundreds or thousands, you can give out of what God has blessed you with. You can give sacrificially, giving up something to give back to God out of your love for God. And you still have your time and your talents to consider giving to God.
Some of you may not be able to give financially very much, but you may have an abundance of time and talent to offer to the church in amazing ways that will result in miracles of growth for this congregation and miracles of ministry as we care for those living on the edges in our city and region. You can make a difference.
Some of you have already made commitments, but as I reflected on my own commitment to MCC Seattle this coming year, I made a realization that what I was giving wasn’t what I would call sacrificial. I had decided to keep my commitment level at the same place as I have been attempting to give this past year. That first commitment didn’t make me readjust my priorities in life nor did it keep me from doing what I wanted to do for myself. So I went back and I prayerfully reconsidered my commitment and I increased it to the point where I have to think carefully every week, every month how I will spend my money in order to keep my commitment to God.
I am praying that several of you will do the same thing? I am encouraging you to give sacrificially and in such a way that you will think about it every day, every week, every month, all year long. Our commitments to God whether of time, talent, or money should not be things we make lightly or without thought, they should be commitments that literally change the way we think and live and worship.
You each have a commitment form. Some of you have already turned in your forms. Some of you have only turned in the financial portion of your pledge. All of us need to complete both portions of the pledge and turn it both parts so we, your pastors and leaders, can reflect on them and come up with a budget and a plan of action to make sure that we move ourselves toward the ideal community of Christ that we would like to become in the new year that will soon be upon us. Believe it or not, as we sang earlier in the service this too is part of your worship of God: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.
Do you love God? What will you commit today to God’s church in terms of your time, talent, and treasure that says that you do in fact love God with all that your are, and all that you have?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Generosity: Making Love Real Ruth 3 and 4
Ruth chapters 3 and 4
We were introduced to Ruth and Naomi last week. This is a very strange book that falls between the time of the Judges and the time of the Kings. As we pointed out last week it is a story that begins with a famine of food and spirit and ends with an abundance of both.
It isn’t a story about a man, though Boaz, who would have been the main character in most Biblical stories does play a very important role, but a story about two poor, desperate widows, who leave the land they have been living in and journey back to Naomi’s home in Bethlehem of Judah. Since this is a story about famine and feast, it is significant to note that the name Bethlehem literally means “the House of Bread” implying a place of hope and abundance. For Naomi and Ruth that is exactly what Bethlehem becomes: a place of hope and abundance.
It is my hope that MCC Seattle will become a modern Bethlehem, a true place offering hope and abundance to all who come here seeking help in their lives. I want us to be known as a generous congregation that shares abundantly from our own time, talents, and treasure with those around us through the ministries that we can offer to our community, through the lives that we can touch by demonstrating to others that God truly does love them, care for them, and accepts them exactly as God has created them. You and I have to begin to transform the world around us into becoming a real expression of what some have called “Heaven on Earth.”
Imagine with me a ministry to the homeless LGBT community where people can find a warm place to stay, with food and clothing, with job counseling and job training, skilled counselors offering psychological healing and recovery. What about a home for gay and lesbian and transgender youth who have become homeless when their parents kick them out of their homes because they have just come out as gay? Did you know that our gay youth are more apt to commit or attempt suicide than straight youth, and that they are more apt to become homeless because of their sexuality, ending up on the streets where they become prey for those who would exploit and abuse them? Why can’t we be a part of the solution to that problem? MCC in New York City offers such a shelter of help and hope to homeless teens and young adults. Why can’t we?
Ruth and Naomi had nowhere to go, no one to help them. Naomi tried to send Ruth back to her own family, but being the widow of a foreigner and childless, she was not what that society would see as an attractive prospect for marriage. Widows could own no property, and as we shall see in today’s story, were still considered the property of their deceased husbands, who could be given away to the next male relative that would claim them. Ruth and Naomi represent to us the homeless and the rejected that fill our homeless shelters in Seattle to overflowing every night with thousands left out on the streets even in the coldest weather. We should be doing something about that. We should become the Bethlehem, the house of bread and hope, for as many of those persons as possible.
Ruth makes her famous commitment to Naomi and they leave for Judah, for Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem. She and her husband had left Bethlehem and gone to Moab because of a famine of grain. Now, Naomi, having buried her husband and her two sons, in a foreign land where she comes to live a famine of spirit, she returns to the only place that might offer her hope.
Did you know that every week people walk through the doors of our church coming with hope in their hearts that we just might be the community that can offer them relationship and care that they aren’t getting from anyone else? Most people come to church because they are seeking community and an escape from loneliness. Are we the kind of community where they can find the relationships they need, where they can experience real community with us and with God?
Naomi and Ruth make a journey toward hope. Naomi has changed her name to Mara which means bitterness. She is sad and depressed and grieving, but Naomi still shows us that she has hope by going back to the one place where she has experienced true acceptance and real community and she has great expectations that these people, these friends and relatives, will offer to her and to Ruth, the chance to start their lives over again.
As your pastor I am privy to the true story of many of your lives. I know for a fact that some of you came to this family, to this community that we call MCC Seattle, because you wanted to find a place of hope and acceptance, a place where you could build real community, find true and honest friends, and start your lives over again. Some of you have found us to be that kind of family of choice for you. I hope many more will experience the same kind of abundance as they begin their lives over again with God and with God’s people.
You cannot take the social situation of the Old Testament and translate the story over literally into the 21st century. We don’t understand the social and tribal history or taboos that Ruth and Naomi lived under. And we certainly can’t apply the social rules and expectations that society had for women or men to ourselves today. Listen, nobody really takes the Bible literally. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, for everyone interprets the Bible in their own special way based upon their own history and social setting. You and I are no different. We do not apply the Biblical rules for the marriage of widows today and force them to marry their brother in laws or another close kin.
A widow had no standing in Naomi and Ruth’s day. They were the poorest of the poor. They were the rejected ones lying on the doorsteps and huddling in a doorway to stay out of the cold wind. They were the homeless and the hungry of their day. A woman like Ruth, a widow and a foreign widow at that, would have been subject to harassment, sexual embarrassment, and even rape. It was expected in that society that such a woman would make her living as a prostitute. Not a wonderful way to begin your introduction to a new community where you hoped to build a live full of hope and abundance. Ruth began her new life about as low down the ladder as anyone could ever be.
Biblical Law said that you shouldn’t take all of the grain out of your fields, but that you should leave the grain that falls to the ground and that might be left on un-harvested stalks for the widows and orphans who could come after the harvesters and scrape together whatever they could for their own livelihood. That is what Ruth is doing in order to support herself and Naomi. She is doing whatever it takes to make sure that they survive.
As luck, or God would have it, Ruth goes to glean in the fields of Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s husband. We don’t know much about Boaz, other than the fact that he is rich and that his name literally means Strength or Strong. Most people assume that he is older, perhaps a widower, but his marriage state isn’t that important, because at this time, a man could have more than one wife at a time, and might have due to a law called the Levirate Law, which we’ll explain in a moment. And so, when Boaz comes to see how the work is progressing in his fields he sees Ruth gleaning. She would have been noticed. She was an exotic beauty, someone not from their community, perhaps dressed in fabrics made by herself with different colors than the local women used, or with a slightly different cut of her dress or the style of her hair. In any event, she caught the eye of Boaz.
He asks about her. Perhaps one could say, it was love at first sight. The story of Naomi’s situation has made the rounds in the community. Gossip always gets around. He is told about how Ruth has committed herself to Naomi and made the journey back to Bethlehem with her. It is an impressive story and one that wasn’t that common. In fact it was an extraordinary story about an extraordinary young lady. Family was important. Boaz had a commitment to extend his care to Naomi and therefore to Ruth out of his abundance. It’s just the way things were done.
So he goes to Ruth and he tells her to stay in his fields when she is gleaning and to stay with his own young women when she is working and to stay away from the young men. Boaz understands his society. He knows that a young foreign widow will be abused and he does what he can to protect her out of respect for her relationship with Naomi, and out of respect for his own relationship with Naomi and for her deceased husband, his own kinsman. Obviously, Boaz, is a man who has great moral strength. Strength, as his name implies, can mean strength in many aspects of his life, but obviously strength in character and concern for others.
He forbids the men to bother her or touch her. He tells her to make herself at home when she is working in his fields: To drink from the water jugs the men have filled; to take her rest in the house with the young women. He provides for Ruth.
Ruth asks why she has found favor in his eyes, and he tells her: "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
Ruth thanks Boaz with graciousness. Boaz calls her over and gives her bread and lets her dip the bread in his drink. He gives her some of the roasted grain that has been prepared for the men to eat. This is very significant event in that society. Boaz has a family meal with Ruth. Boaz is including her in his family.
Boaz extends his care for Naomi and Ruth beyond what was considered to be normal. Boaz gives to Ruth and Naomi out of his abundance, out of the blessings that God has poured out upon him by giving them extra grain. He even tells the men to allow Ruth to glean not just from the fields they have emptied, but from the stalks that they have already gathered for the harvest. He wants to be sure that she and Naomi have enough to live on. This is incredible. This is amazing. This is not what was expected of Boaz. It goes far beyond what one could have hoped for.
Naomi celebrates this happy circumstance with Ruth. And she tells Ruth to avoid the young men and stay with the young women. The only hope for survival Ruth has is to not become what everyone expects her to become, what society would have forced her to become: a prostitute.
Boaz has provided them a gift that goes far beyond mere food, but goes toward creating a life that offers hope and opportunity for the future. When we help others in God’s name we offer them hope and opportunity with a future! It doesn’t matter who they are, where they have come from, or even how horrible their own life story up to now, we can offer through our abundant giving of our time, talents, and treasure, hope and opportunity for everyone in our community.
Naomi begins to plan. She is a very smart woman. She has learned all she can about Boaz from her relatives and believe me, people loved to gossip then just as now and she probably knew everything about the man the very next day. She was quite resourceful. The grain harvest is coming to an end. The question of food will again become paramount when that which Ruth has gathered for them becomes exhausted. What will they do then? Naomi begins to lay the groundwork for a future for both of them.
The men will be trashing the grain, separating the grain from the heads, and this is a big event with lots of food and drink at night. The men sleep in the trashing house out in the fields. Drunkenness abounds and a lady slipping into the situation under darkness of night would not be uncommon or unexpected…if you understand my meaning. Naomi tells Ruth to dress up to the nines and to go to the trashing house and wait, but not to be seen by Boaz until he has eaten his fill of harvest foods, and drank enough wine to become sleepy.
She is then to go to Boaz where he lies and to uncover his feet and lie with him.
The Bible uses a lot of euphemisms about sex and uncovering the feet means to uncover the genitals of another person. This is quite a forward kind of act for anyone, in any culture, but this is part of the expectations of the Levirate Law which provides that when a man has died that his brother or other next of kin goes to the widow and takes her as his wife and if she has a child the first born male child is to be known as the child of the deceased man and to receive that man’s inheritance and property. The man is then known as the kinsman-redeemer: The one who redeems them from their situation. It’s so absolutely different from our way of thinking as to be totally foreign and outlandish, but that’s the society that Ruth and Naomi and Boaz lived in and they are acting in accordance with that society’s laws and expectations. Shocked though we might be, it was how things were back then.
Boaz awakes and asks who it is that has come to him in the dark. Ruth identifies herself: "I am your servant Ruth," she said. "Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer."
Interestingly enough, she uses the exact same word which is interpreted here as garment and which Boaz used earlier when he talked about her being under the wings of God’s protection. She is asking Boaz to put her under the wings of his protection when he places his garment over her. Boaz replies:
"God bless you, my daughter," he replied. "This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. 11 And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character.
But there is a problem. Boaz continues: “Although it is true that I am near of kin, there is a kinsman-redeemer nearer than I. Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to redeem, good; let him redeem. But if he is not willing, as surely as the LORD lives I will do it. Lie here until morning."
He sends Ruth back to Naomi with a great deal of grain, what some have seen as a wedding gift, a betrothal gift to Naomi for Ruth’s hand in marriage. However, Naomi, too is aware of the complication of another closer kinsman-redeemer and she knows full well that Boaz will take care of the problem quickly.
The story continues with Boaz going to a man who in the Hebrew is identified only as “so and so” or “What’s his name” and he tells the man about Naomi and how her deceased husband Elimelech has some property that the man could redeem by claiming himself to be Naomi’s kinsman-redeemer. The man declares that he will do so, and the property, the land, will become his own, and he will give Naomi a home. Naomi is old and the man doesn’t have to worry about what his wife and children might say. She will have no children. All of the property he gets from Elimelech will go to his own children.
Then Boaz declares that Naomi also has a widowed daughter-in-law and that the man would become the kinsman-redeemer of a young woman to whom he would also be wed and to whom a child might be born who would inherit the land of his grandfather. Now this changes the situation.
I would like to think that this man has a wife who wouldn’t be too welcoming to Ruth and might make the man’s life a living hell if he took upon himself this responsibility. Perhaps Boaz knew this already. In any event, the man says, no way can I do that.
Boaz is then left with the opportunity to become the kinsman-redeemer of Ruth and Naomi. Later when their first child is born, there is great celebration. It is interesting to note that what the women say: “Praise be to God, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, "Naomi has a son."
The child, Obed, was the grandfather of King David, the greatest king of Judah, who brought a time of success and honor upon the nation. Thus our story goes from one of famine to abundance because of the generosity of Ruth to Naomi, and of Boaz to both women.
We’ve been through much as a church. We’ve been through several years that many might term as famine, when all a small group of people could hope for was just to hold on, just to be here again another Sunday. That was important for you to do. You have been those who trusted in God and kept on keeping on even when others told you that you should just give up. But you persevered! You trusted God and your trust and your patience, and your persistence, and your commitment have paid off. We are on a new journey together toward an abundant future full of hope and grace not just for ourselves but anyone and everyone that comes to be a part of this new community of God.
It won’t happen without you. It won’t happen without your commitment of your time, talents, and, yes, your treasure, your financial resources. Will you take the journey with us toward the future that God has waiting for you and for me and for MCC Seattle. Will you make the commitments that are necessary to help us become that new community of hope that I believe, and I hope you believe, we can become together. Will you offer your own generosity to God, to our church, to our community, by making your love real?
We were introduced to Ruth and Naomi last week. This is a very strange book that falls between the time of the Judges and the time of the Kings. As we pointed out last week it is a story that begins with a famine of food and spirit and ends with an abundance of both.
It isn’t a story about a man, though Boaz, who would have been the main character in most Biblical stories does play a very important role, but a story about two poor, desperate widows, who leave the land they have been living in and journey back to Naomi’s home in Bethlehem of Judah. Since this is a story about famine and feast, it is significant to note that the name Bethlehem literally means “the House of Bread” implying a place of hope and abundance. For Naomi and Ruth that is exactly what Bethlehem becomes: a place of hope and abundance.
It is my hope that MCC Seattle will become a modern Bethlehem, a true place offering hope and abundance to all who come here seeking help in their lives. I want us to be known as a generous congregation that shares abundantly from our own time, talents, and treasure with those around us through the ministries that we can offer to our community, through the lives that we can touch by demonstrating to others that God truly does love them, care for them, and accepts them exactly as God has created them. You and I have to begin to transform the world around us into becoming a real expression of what some have called “Heaven on Earth.”
Imagine with me a ministry to the homeless LGBT community where people can find a warm place to stay, with food and clothing, with job counseling and job training, skilled counselors offering psychological healing and recovery. What about a home for gay and lesbian and transgender youth who have become homeless when their parents kick them out of their homes because they have just come out as gay? Did you know that our gay youth are more apt to commit or attempt suicide than straight youth, and that they are more apt to become homeless because of their sexuality, ending up on the streets where they become prey for those who would exploit and abuse them? Why can’t we be a part of the solution to that problem? MCC in New York City offers such a shelter of help and hope to homeless teens and young adults. Why can’t we?
Ruth and Naomi had nowhere to go, no one to help them. Naomi tried to send Ruth back to her own family, but being the widow of a foreigner and childless, she was not what that society would see as an attractive prospect for marriage. Widows could own no property, and as we shall see in today’s story, were still considered the property of their deceased husbands, who could be given away to the next male relative that would claim them. Ruth and Naomi represent to us the homeless and the rejected that fill our homeless shelters in Seattle to overflowing every night with thousands left out on the streets even in the coldest weather. We should be doing something about that. We should become the Bethlehem, the house of bread and hope, for as many of those persons as possible.
Ruth makes her famous commitment to Naomi and they leave for Judah, for Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem. She and her husband had left Bethlehem and gone to Moab because of a famine of grain. Now, Naomi, having buried her husband and her two sons, in a foreign land where she comes to live a famine of spirit, she returns to the only place that might offer her hope.
Did you know that every week people walk through the doors of our church coming with hope in their hearts that we just might be the community that can offer them relationship and care that they aren’t getting from anyone else? Most people come to church because they are seeking community and an escape from loneliness. Are we the kind of community where they can find the relationships they need, where they can experience real community with us and with God?
Naomi and Ruth make a journey toward hope. Naomi has changed her name to Mara which means bitterness. She is sad and depressed and grieving, but Naomi still shows us that she has hope by going back to the one place where she has experienced true acceptance and real community and she has great expectations that these people, these friends and relatives, will offer to her and to Ruth, the chance to start their lives over again.
As your pastor I am privy to the true story of many of your lives. I know for a fact that some of you came to this family, to this community that we call MCC Seattle, because you wanted to find a place of hope and acceptance, a place where you could build real community, find true and honest friends, and start your lives over again. Some of you have found us to be that kind of family of choice for you. I hope many more will experience the same kind of abundance as they begin their lives over again with God and with God’s people.
You cannot take the social situation of the Old Testament and translate the story over literally into the 21st century. We don’t understand the social and tribal history or taboos that Ruth and Naomi lived under. And we certainly can’t apply the social rules and expectations that society had for women or men to ourselves today. Listen, nobody really takes the Bible literally. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, for everyone interprets the Bible in their own special way based upon their own history and social setting. You and I are no different. We do not apply the Biblical rules for the marriage of widows today and force them to marry their brother in laws or another close kin.
A widow had no standing in Naomi and Ruth’s day. They were the poorest of the poor. They were the rejected ones lying on the doorsteps and huddling in a doorway to stay out of the cold wind. They were the homeless and the hungry of their day. A woman like Ruth, a widow and a foreign widow at that, would have been subject to harassment, sexual embarrassment, and even rape. It was expected in that society that such a woman would make her living as a prostitute. Not a wonderful way to begin your introduction to a new community where you hoped to build a live full of hope and abundance. Ruth began her new life about as low down the ladder as anyone could ever be.
Biblical Law said that you shouldn’t take all of the grain out of your fields, but that you should leave the grain that falls to the ground and that might be left on un-harvested stalks for the widows and orphans who could come after the harvesters and scrape together whatever they could for their own livelihood. That is what Ruth is doing in order to support herself and Naomi. She is doing whatever it takes to make sure that they survive.
As luck, or God would have it, Ruth goes to glean in the fields of Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s husband. We don’t know much about Boaz, other than the fact that he is rich and that his name literally means Strength or Strong. Most people assume that he is older, perhaps a widower, but his marriage state isn’t that important, because at this time, a man could have more than one wife at a time, and might have due to a law called the Levirate Law, which we’ll explain in a moment. And so, when Boaz comes to see how the work is progressing in his fields he sees Ruth gleaning. She would have been noticed. She was an exotic beauty, someone not from their community, perhaps dressed in fabrics made by herself with different colors than the local women used, or with a slightly different cut of her dress or the style of her hair. In any event, she caught the eye of Boaz.
He asks about her. Perhaps one could say, it was love at first sight. The story of Naomi’s situation has made the rounds in the community. Gossip always gets around. He is told about how Ruth has committed herself to Naomi and made the journey back to Bethlehem with her. It is an impressive story and one that wasn’t that common. In fact it was an extraordinary story about an extraordinary young lady. Family was important. Boaz had a commitment to extend his care to Naomi and therefore to Ruth out of his abundance. It’s just the way things were done.
So he goes to Ruth and he tells her to stay in his fields when she is gleaning and to stay with his own young women when she is working and to stay away from the young men. Boaz understands his society. He knows that a young foreign widow will be abused and he does what he can to protect her out of respect for her relationship with Naomi, and out of respect for his own relationship with Naomi and for her deceased husband, his own kinsman. Obviously, Boaz, is a man who has great moral strength. Strength, as his name implies, can mean strength in many aspects of his life, but obviously strength in character and concern for others.
He forbids the men to bother her or touch her. He tells her to make herself at home when she is working in his fields: To drink from the water jugs the men have filled; to take her rest in the house with the young women. He provides for Ruth.
Ruth asks why she has found favor in his eyes, and he tells her: "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."
Ruth thanks Boaz with graciousness. Boaz calls her over and gives her bread and lets her dip the bread in his drink. He gives her some of the roasted grain that has been prepared for the men to eat. This is very significant event in that society. Boaz has a family meal with Ruth. Boaz is including her in his family.
Boaz extends his care for Naomi and Ruth beyond what was considered to be normal. Boaz gives to Ruth and Naomi out of his abundance, out of the blessings that God has poured out upon him by giving them extra grain. He even tells the men to allow Ruth to glean not just from the fields they have emptied, but from the stalks that they have already gathered for the harvest. He wants to be sure that she and Naomi have enough to live on. This is incredible. This is amazing. This is not what was expected of Boaz. It goes far beyond what one could have hoped for.
Naomi celebrates this happy circumstance with Ruth. And she tells Ruth to avoid the young men and stay with the young women. The only hope for survival Ruth has is to not become what everyone expects her to become, what society would have forced her to become: a prostitute.
Boaz has provided them a gift that goes far beyond mere food, but goes toward creating a life that offers hope and opportunity for the future. When we help others in God’s name we offer them hope and opportunity with a future! It doesn’t matter who they are, where they have come from, or even how horrible their own life story up to now, we can offer through our abundant giving of our time, talents, and treasure, hope and opportunity for everyone in our community.
Naomi begins to plan. She is a very smart woman. She has learned all she can about Boaz from her relatives and believe me, people loved to gossip then just as now and she probably knew everything about the man the very next day. She was quite resourceful. The grain harvest is coming to an end. The question of food will again become paramount when that which Ruth has gathered for them becomes exhausted. What will they do then? Naomi begins to lay the groundwork for a future for both of them.
The men will be trashing the grain, separating the grain from the heads, and this is a big event with lots of food and drink at night. The men sleep in the trashing house out in the fields. Drunkenness abounds and a lady slipping into the situation under darkness of night would not be uncommon or unexpected…if you understand my meaning. Naomi tells Ruth to dress up to the nines and to go to the trashing house and wait, but not to be seen by Boaz until he has eaten his fill of harvest foods, and drank enough wine to become sleepy.
She is then to go to Boaz where he lies and to uncover his feet and lie with him.
The Bible uses a lot of euphemisms about sex and uncovering the feet means to uncover the genitals of another person. This is quite a forward kind of act for anyone, in any culture, but this is part of the expectations of the Levirate Law which provides that when a man has died that his brother or other next of kin goes to the widow and takes her as his wife and if she has a child the first born male child is to be known as the child of the deceased man and to receive that man’s inheritance and property. The man is then known as the kinsman-redeemer: The one who redeems them from their situation. It’s so absolutely different from our way of thinking as to be totally foreign and outlandish, but that’s the society that Ruth and Naomi and Boaz lived in and they are acting in accordance with that society’s laws and expectations. Shocked though we might be, it was how things were back then.
Boaz awakes and asks who it is that has come to him in the dark. Ruth identifies herself: "I am your servant Ruth," she said. "Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer."
Interestingly enough, she uses the exact same word which is interpreted here as garment and which Boaz used earlier when he talked about her being under the wings of God’s protection. She is asking Boaz to put her under the wings of his protection when he places his garment over her. Boaz replies:
"God bless you, my daughter," he replied. "This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. 11 And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character.
But there is a problem. Boaz continues: “Although it is true that I am near of kin, there is a kinsman-redeemer nearer than I. Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to redeem, good; let him redeem. But if he is not willing, as surely as the LORD lives I will do it. Lie here until morning."
He sends Ruth back to Naomi with a great deal of grain, what some have seen as a wedding gift, a betrothal gift to Naomi for Ruth’s hand in marriage. However, Naomi, too is aware of the complication of another closer kinsman-redeemer and she knows full well that Boaz will take care of the problem quickly.
The story continues with Boaz going to a man who in the Hebrew is identified only as “so and so” or “What’s his name” and he tells the man about Naomi and how her deceased husband Elimelech has some property that the man could redeem by claiming himself to be Naomi’s kinsman-redeemer. The man declares that he will do so, and the property, the land, will become his own, and he will give Naomi a home. Naomi is old and the man doesn’t have to worry about what his wife and children might say. She will have no children. All of the property he gets from Elimelech will go to his own children.
Then Boaz declares that Naomi also has a widowed daughter-in-law and that the man would become the kinsman-redeemer of a young woman to whom he would also be wed and to whom a child might be born who would inherit the land of his grandfather. Now this changes the situation.
I would like to think that this man has a wife who wouldn’t be too welcoming to Ruth and might make the man’s life a living hell if he took upon himself this responsibility. Perhaps Boaz knew this already. In any event, the man says, no way can I do that.
Boaz is then left with the opportunity to become the kinsman-redeemer of Ruth and Naomi. Later when their first child is born, there is great celebration. It is interesting to note that what the women say: “Praise be to God, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, "Naomi has a son."
The child, Obed, was the grandfather of King David, the greatest king of Judah, who brought a time of success and honor upon the nation. Thus our story goes from one of famine to abundance because of the generosity of Ruth to Naomi, and of Boaz to both women.
We’ve been through much as a church. We’ve been through several years that many might term as famine, when all a small group of people could hope for was just to hold on, just to be here again another Sunday. That was important for you to do. You have been those who trusted in God and kept on keeping on even when others told you that you should just give up. But you persevered! You trusted God and your trust and your patience, and your persistence, and your commitment have paid off. We are on a new journey together toward an abundant future full of hope and grace not just for ourselves but anyone and everyone that comes to be a part of this new community of God.
It won’t happen without you. It won’t happen without your commitment of your time, talents, and, yes, your treasure, your financial resources. Will you take the journey with us toward the future that God has waiting for you and for me and for MCC Seattle. Will you make the commitments that are necessary to help us become that new community of hope that I believe, and I hope you believe, we can become together. Will you offer your own generosity to God, to our church, to our community, by making your love real?
Monday, November 9, 2009
Stepping Out in Faith: On Being A Good Steward Ruth 1:1-18
You may think that kicking off a stewardship campaign with two sermons based on the story of Ruth from the Old Testament is a strange way to begin a discussion about what a good steward is in the Biblical sense. But hopefully after today and next week’s sermon you will have a better understanding of just what God requires of us in terms of our faithful stewardship of our time, talent and treasure.
I do wonder how many of us believe that being a good steward has only to do with what we do for others and nothing to do with how being a good steward affects our own sense of ourselves and, therefore, how we view our own lives? That’s what we’re really going to talk about today: How being a good steward affects all of your life, and not just your decision about giving to the church or charity. Have you ever considered the idea that being a good steward means living the abundant and joy filled life that Jesus promised us we would experience if we would follow him in the way? How many of you feel you are living that abundant, joy filled life right now? How many hope to find that life in your future?
The verb “to steward” means to guide or to direct. How are you directing your life? Each of us is called to establish a pattern in our lives which enables us to direct our living into the fruitful and joyful ways that God wants for us to live. This calling is not a call to a life of drudgery and sacrifice, but rather it is a call to live a life that frees us to enjoy to the fullest extent the abundance of God's good gifts to us. Such a life is not only inclined toward meeting the needs of others but rewards us lavishly as well. Our driving question in today is: What does good stewardship look like in the life of an individual? The story of Ruth will aid us in this quest.
The three women in today’s scripture passage were widows. We know that widows in that society could not own property and did not have jobs that could support them financially. Such women, within a male-dominated society, were destitute once their husbands died unless family or others had mercy on them. And because they were widowed, because Naomi was older, and because Orpah and Ruth had no children, they were not likely to find themselves with any prospective husbands knocking at their doors. After the death of their husbands these women essentially had nothing but the clothing on their backs. Not the usual characters we think of when we try to come up with examples of good stewardship.
The book of Ruth begins with a time of famine, not only of grain but also of spirit. But the book ends with an abundance of both grain and spirit. As we look at our own individual situations and at our church’s situation, we may want to take this into consideration. Are you living in a famine of resources as well as spirit in your own life? Are you facing what seem to be insurmountable circumstances? Have you turned your situation over to God and faithfully began to steward your life and seek God’s will and way like Ruth did? You might find abundance along the way that you could not have expected or anticipated.
So, too should we be looking at our situation as a church! Perhaps we should give up the, “Oh, woe, are we,” responses we are prone to utter when we look at the financial challenges before us and put our time and effort into being and doing what God has called us as a church to be and do. Let’s face it, being a church isn’t only about income and expenses anymore than your own life is only about income and expenses. It’s time that you and I began to move beyond the negatives and toward more positive attitudes for ourselves and our church.
Significantly, Ruth is a transitional book between the time of the Judges and the Kings. The book of Ruth ends with these words, “They named the child she bore Obed; he was the father of Jesse who became the father of David.” Lest you don’t remember, that means Obed was King David’s grandfather. And it was with King David that Israel began one of its most prosperous times of existence.
However, the time of the Judges was not a good time for Israel. In the book of Judges this refrain keeps repeating: There was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”
Having no king, meant there was no order, no good law to remind them of their responsibilities outside of their own selfish desires. The book of Ruth shows us what happens when people act in a different way by stewarding their lives not according to the desires of their hearts, but in response to God’s graciousness toward them.
Ruth is our example of a good steward today. What do we know about Ruth? What would her life have been like?
We know she was from the land of Moab. Throughout the Bible, when she is referenced she is most often called “Ruth, the Moabite,” just so we won’t forget that fact. Why is that so significant?
Moab was a country just west of Judah. The Israelites marched through Moab on their way to the Promised Land even though the Moabite King refused them access, even hired others to harass and do violence against them. Thus Moabites became some of the most despised of foreign nations summarized in this way from Deut: 23:3-4, 6: “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of God…because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey out of Egypt. You shall never promote the welfare of their prosperity as long as you live.”
The Israelites were also forbidden from intermarrying with foreign peoples. The Samaritans were despised because that is how the Samaritans came about, the Israelite men intermarried with foreign wives against the commands of God in the Old Testament. So Ruth became the wife of Mahlon, the eldest of Naomi’s sons, by marrying into his foreign family which meant she would have lost social standing among her own Moabite people. She was twice excluded from proper society. There is a lesson for you and me to hear in her story. Society may exclude us for even so-called Biblical reasons, but God in God’s love and mercy always includes us, no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done.
Knowing the traditions of the time, it is possible she could have been as young as 12 or 14 when she married Mahlon. Many believe Mary the mother of Jesus was only 13 or 14 when she became pregnant with the Christ child. Apparently Ruth and Mahlon had no children, or the children, too, had died. Ruth would have been about 22 or 24 by the time of today’s story.
From Naomi’s comments we understand that the only real choice Ruth and Orpah had was to return to their own families and beg to live as servants in the home of their parents or brothers. Hoping to be remarried eventually to someone else was probably out of the question because they would have been doubly tainted as eligible brides having married foreigners, and given the fact that neither one had borne a child. Not having children would have been viewed as their just punishment for going against their Moabite God by marrying Naomi’s alien sons.
It is interesting to note that Naomi tells her daughter in laws to return to their mother’s homes. Perhaps their own fathers have died. That would mean they had even less opportunity to regain any social standing or to hope for a future marriage if they returned home. The author of the story is painting a pretty depressing picture for these women.
What can we learn from this foreign widow about stewarding our own lives? If you haven’t noticed, Ruth has no treasure to steward. So this sermon today isn’t about money, just so you understand that preaching about stewardship doesn’t necessarily only mean I going to talk about your giving your money. Stewardship is so much more than just how you use your money.
First of all I notice Ruth’s willingness, perhaps we should call it determination. She is willing and determined to leave her homeland and to follow her mother-in-law. Even after Naomi releases Ruth from all of her obligations toward the older woman, tells her to return to her own mother’s home, Ruth persists. We are told that Orpah, kissed Naomi, but that Ruth clung to Naomi.
It’s the same word used in Genesis 3 where we are told that a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his wife. Ruth is demonstrating a commitment toward Naomi that is not unlike the vows we make to our spouse when we commit ourselves to live our lives with our beloved. I am so glad that we will soon be able to celebrate all committed domestic partnerships in the state of Washington with the approval of Ref. 71, which at last count, looks like it will be a winning effort for all of us who have worked so hard to make it a reality. The Domestic Partnership Law will become the law of our state and we can enjoy the same benefits and responsibilities as do married couples, even without the name of marriage.
Ruth not only commits herself to Naomi, but Ruth makes an oath. When we make our annual pledge of support to the church we are making an oath to God and to each other, just like Ruth made. Ruth’s oath is the most famous oath in the Bible, and the longest:
“Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May God do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you.” Ruth 1:16-17.
And what a response God makes, completely out of expectations, for God takes and makes this foreign woman, whom other Biblical traditions say should not be tolerated or even allowed to live in the community of Israel because according to the law she was unclean, and makes her the grandmother of Kind David, the one whom God loved and blessed.
Ruth’s oath is the longest loyalty oath in the Old Testament. It is a very powerful speech all by itself even if you don’t know the full story about Ruth and Naomi. Isn’t it funny that so many use this as a marriage vow for heterosexual couples. And with a wicked gleem in his eye the pastor asks, Do you think we should we remind them that it was originally a vow made by a woman to a woman?
Think of what Ruth takes on—lodging, family, burial place and God. Her commitment to the God of Israel is a commitment to a new family and a new community much like the refugee families I worked with in the 1980’s following the end of the Vietnam War. They came to our church community and became a part of our church family, professing faith in God, being baptized, joining the church, becoming a part of the greater community of Madison, Wisconsin. They came with hope that their future would be better than it had been in the failing society of Vietnam. The risks were enormous for them. Some didn’t make it. I buried some who took the exit that suicide provided from the anxieties they felt.
From Ruth we learn today that leading a life of stewardship can mean breaking society’s norms and following God in new and unexplored paths. It can mean committing to an untraditional, non-heterosexual relationship, in this case between a mother and her daughter in law. That’s exactly what you and I will do with our commitment to each other through our faithful ministry through this church. We can break the norms of what it means to be a church and we can follow God into new and unexplored paths of being the church in our community and to each other. We need to stop looking at the churches we have come from and stop looking at the churches that society believes to be successful and ask ourselves exactly what is God calling us to become as a church, and that answer might be a whole lot different than anything we have ever imagined or experienced previously. Are you okay? Am I disturbing you a little bit? Yes? Then I’m doing my job as your pastor. Getting you to think beyond the box, beyond what you have known and experienced, and begin a new journey with God into the future.
Ruth stepped out in faith and followed Naomi and God to a new life of abundance, full of hope and expectancy. Like Abraham of old who was told to leave his homeland and go to a new promised land of plenty without any guidance on where that would take him or where he would end up. Basically God told Abraham to get up and go and that God would tell Abraham when he arrived at the place he was being sent. And without knowing much of anything, Abraham got up and left home and began a faith-filled journey with God.
That’s a lot different from what you and I want today. When God tells us to go, we stop to ask lots of questions. Is this in my best interest, God? As if God would ask us to do anything that God hasn’t considered what would be best for us. Too often we think that if it will be different or force us to change that it can’t be good for us. Change may be exactly what we need to undergo. Different ways of living and being may be exactly what we need to do in order to find the abundant and joyful life God wants to give us. Remember the old saying: Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and thinking that this time it will result in a different outcome. It’s time for our church to begin to journey with God, to begin to do things differently.
But we are human, and when God calls us to change and go, we want to know the destination before we leave home. We want the exact directions we are to follow to get there. We want to know everything we can about what might happen before we make the decision to leave where we are and go where God wants us to be. And, for sure, we don’t want any unexpected storms along the way to threaten us. That’s what makes it so difficult to follow God. Because seldom does God answer all of our questions before God tells us to get on the road and go.
Mark and I could share with you a lot about what we went through to make the decision to take the journey to come all the way across the continent to be with you here in Seattle. All we had was a vision of what God wanted us to do and what this church could eventually become. We put everything we had on the line for God and for you. Extraordinarily, though I had gone to new churches previously, Mark, my beloved partner, gave up all he had in terms of family, friends, and jobs, to make this journey with me. And there was an unexpected storm along the way in which I could have lost my beloved in an accident in the middle of a storm. But God worked a miracle and Mark was protected. I like to think of Mark as my Ruth in that he made an amazing commitment to come with me. I just hope he doesn’t meet a good looking local Boaz now that we are here.
Ruth, like the poor widow at the temple that Jesus saw giving her last two cents to God, “has put in all she had to live on.” Ruth gave all of herself to Naomi. Ruth held back nothing. Looked at from this perspective, Ruth’s stewardship of giving was enormous. She gave her life and her future to Naomi and to God.
What will you give to God? Will you give God all that you have, all that you are and let God bless you with an abundant and joyful life? What kind of steward will you be? What kind of stewardship commitment will you make to God through Metropolitan Community Church Seattle? Whether we journey together to that Promised Land of abundance God has waiting for you and me depends upon the decisions each one of us makes. I know where I am going. I know I am going to get there. I’d like to know, by your stewardship commitment to MCC Seattle this year, that you are going to make the journey with me, and that you and I will arrive in the Promised Land that God wants to give us together. Will you make the journey with me?
I do wonder how many of us believe that being a good steward has only to do with what we do for others and nothing to do with how being a good steward affects our own sense of ourselves and, therefore, how we view our own lives? That’s what we’re really going to talk about today: How being a good steward affects all of your life, and not just your decision about giving to the church or charity. Have you ever considered the idea that being a good steward means living the abundant and joy filled life that Jesus promised us we would experience if we would follow him in the way? How many of you feel you are living that abundant, joy filled life right now? How many hope to find that life in your future?
The verb “to steward” means to guide or to direct. How are you directing your life? Each of us is called to establish a pattern in our lives which enables us to direct our living into the fruitful and joyful ways that God wants for us to live. This calling is not a call to a life of drudgery and sacrifice, but rather it is a call to live a life that frees us to enjoy to the fullest extent the abundance of God's good gifts to us. Such a life is not only inclined toward meeting the needs of others but rewards us lavishly as well. Our driving question in today is: What does good stewardship look like in the life of an individual? The story of Ruth will aid us in this quest.
The three women in today’s scripture passage were widows. We know that widows in that society could not own property and did not have jobs that could support them financially. Such women, within a male-dominated society, were destitute once their husbands died unless family or others had mercy on them. And because they were widowed, because Naomi was older, and because Orpah and Ruth had no children, they were not likely to find themselves with any prospective husbands knocking at their doors. After the death of their husbands these women essentially had nothing but the clothing on their backs. Not the usual characters we think of when we try to come up with examples of good stewardship.
The book of Ruth begins with a time of famine, not only of grain but also of spirit. But the book ends with an abundance of both grain and spirit. As we look at our own individual situations and at our church’s situation, we may want to take this into consideration. Are you living in a famine of resources as well as spirit in your own life? Are you facing what seem to be insurmountable circumstances? Have you turned your situation over to God and faithfully began to steward your life and seek God’s will and way like Ruth did? You might find abundance along the way that you could not have expected or anticipated.
So, too should we be looking at our situation as a church! Perhaps we should give up the, “Oh, woe, are we,” responses we are prone to utter when we look at the financial challenges before us and put our time and effort into being and doing what God has called us as a church to be and do. Let’s face it, being a church isn’t only about income and expenses anymore than your own life is only about income and expenses. It’s time that you and I began to move beyond the negatives and toward more positive attitudes for ourselves and our church.
Significantly, Ruth is a transitional book between the time of the Judges and the Kings. The book of Ruth ends with these words, “They named the child she bore Obed; he was the father of Jesse who became the father of David.” Lest you don’t remember, that means Obed was King David’s grandfather. And it was with King David that Israel began one of its most prosperous times of existence.
However, the time of the Judges was not a good time for Israel. In the book of Judges this refrain keeps repeating: There was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”
Having no king, meant there was no order, no good law to remind them of their responsibilities outside of their own selfish desires. The book of Ruth shows us what happens when people act in a different way by stewarding their lives not according to the desires of their hearts, but in response to God’s graciousness toward them.
Ruth is our example of a good steward today. What do we know about Ruth? What would her life have been like?
We know she was from the land of Moab. Throughout the Bible, when she is referenced she is most often called “Ruth, the Moabite,” just so we won’t forget that fact. Why is that so significant?
Moab was a country just west of Judah. The Israelites marched through Moab on their way to the Promised Land even though the Moabite King refused them access, even hired others to harass and do violence against them. Thus Moabites became some of the most despised of foreign nations summarized in this way from Deut: 23:3-4, 6: “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of God…because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey out of Egypt. You shall never promote the welfare of their prosperity as long as you live.”
The Israelites were also forbidden from intermarrying with foreign peoples. The Samaritans were despised because that is how the Samaritans came about, the Israelite men intermarried with foreign wives against the commands of God in the Old Testament. So Ruth became the wife of Mahlon, the eldest of Naomi’s sons, by marrying into his foreign family which meant she would have lost social standing among her own Moabite people. She was twice excluded from proper society. There is a lesson for you and me to hear in her story. Society may exclude us for even so-called Biblical reasons, but God in God’s love and mercy always includes us, no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done.
Knowing the traditions of the time, it is possible she could have been as young as 12 or 14 when she married Mahlon. Many believe Mary the mother of Jesus was only 13 or 14 when she became pregnant with the Christ child. Apparently Ruth and Mahlon had no children, or the children, too, had died. Ruth would have been about 22 or 24 by the time of today’s story.
From Naomi’s comments we understand that the only real choice Ruth and Orpah had was to return to their own families and beg to live as servants in the home of their parents or brothers. Hoping to be remarried eventually to someone else was probably out of the question because they would have been doubly tainted as eligible brides having married foreigners, and given the fact that neither one had borne a child. Not having children would have been viewed as their just punishment for going against their Moabite God by marrying Naomi’s alien sons.
It is interesting to note that Naomi tells her daughter in laws to return to their mother’s homes. Perhaps their own fathers have died. That would mean they had even less opportunity to regain any social standing or to hope for a future marriage if they returned home. The author of the story is painting a pretty depressing picture for these women.
What can we learn from this foreign widow about stewarding our own lives? If you haven’t noticed, Ruth has no treasure to steward. So this sermon today isn’t about money, just so you understand that preaching about stewardship doesn’t necessarily only mean I going to talk about your giving your money. Stewardship is so much more than just how you use your money.
First of all I notice Ruth’s willingness, perhaps we should call it determination. She is willing and determined to leave her homeland and to follow her mother-in-law. Even after Naomi releases Ruth from all of her obligations toward the older woman, tells her to return to her own mother’s home, Ruth persists. We are told that Orpah, kissed Naomi, but that Ruth clung to Naomi.
It’s the same word used in Genesis 3 where we are told that a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his wife. Ruth is demonstrating a commitment toward Naomi that is not unlike the vows we make to our spouse when we commit ourselves to live our lives with our beloved. I am so glad that we will soon be able to celebrate all committed domestic partnerships in the state of Washington with the approval of Ref. 71, which at last count, looks like it will be a winning effort for all of us who have worked so hard to make it a reality. The Domestic Partnership Law will become the law of our state and we can enjoy the same benefits and responsibilities as do married couples, even without the name of marriage.
Ruth not only commits herself to Naomi, but Ruth makes an oath. When we make our annual pledge of support to the church we are making an oath to God and to each other, just like Ruth made. Ruth’s oath is the most famous oath in the Bible, and the longest:
“Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May God do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you.” Ruth 1:16-17.
And what a response God makes, completely out of expectations, for God takes and makes this foreign woman, whom other Biblical traditions say should not be tolerated or even allowed to live in the community of Israel because according to the law she was unclean, and makes her the grandmother of Kind David, the one whom God loved and blessed.
Ruth’s oath is the longest loyalty oath in the Old Testament. It is a very powerful speech all by itself even if you don’t know the full story about Ruth and Naomi. Isn’t it funny that so many use this as a marriage vow for heterosexual couples. And with a wicked gleem in his eye the pastor asks, Do you think we should we remind them that it was originally a vow made by a woman to a woman?
Think of what Ruth takes on—lodging, family, burial place and God. Her commitment to the God of Israel is a commitment to a new family and a new community much like the refugee families I worked with in the 1980’s following the end of the Vietnam War. They came to our church community and became a part of our church family, professing faith in God, being baptized, joining the church, becoming a part of the greater community of Madison, Wisconsin. They came with hope that their future would be better than it had been in the failing society of Vietnam. The risks were enormous for them. Some didn’t make it. I buried some who took the exit that suicide provided from the anxieties they felt.
From Ruth we learn today that leading a life of stewardship can mean breaking society’s norms and following God in new and unexplored paths. It can mean committing to an untraditional, non-heterosexual relationship, in this case between a mother and her daughter in law. That’s exactly what you and I will do with our commitment to each other through our faithful ministry through this church. We can break the norms of what it means to be a church and we can follow God into new and unexplored paths of being the church in our community and to each other. We need to stop looking at the churches we have come from and stop looking at the churches that society believes to be successful and ask ourselves exactly what is God calling us to become as a church, and that answer might be a whole lot different than anything we have ever imagined or experienced previously. Are you okay? Am I disturbing you a little bit? Yes? Then I’m doing my job as your pastor. Getting you to think beyond the box, beyond what you have known and experienced, and begin a new journey with God into the future.
Ruth stepped out in faith and followed Naomi and God to a new life of abundance, full of hope and expectancy. Like Abraham of old who was told to leave his homeland and go to a new promised land of plenty without any guidance on where that would take him or where he would end up. Basically God told Abraham to get up and go and that God would tell Abraham when he arrived at the place he was being sent. And without knowing much of anything, Abraham got up and left home and began a faith-filled journey with God.
That’s a lot different from what you and I want today. When God tells us to go, we stop to ask lots of questions. Is this in my best interest, God? As if God would ask us to do anything that God hasn’t considered what would be best for us. Too often we think that if it will be different or force us to change that it can’t be good for us. Change may be exactly what we need to undergo. Different ways of living and being may be exactly what we need to do in order to find the abundant and joyful life God wants to give us. Remember the old saying: Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and thinking that this time it will result in a different outcome. It’s time for our church to begin to journey with God, to begin to do things differently.
But we are human, and when God calls us to change and go, we want to know the destination before we leave home. We want the exact directions we are to follow to get there. We want to know everything we can about what might happen before we make the decision to leave where we are and go where God wants us to be. And, for sure, we don’t want any unexpected storms along the way to threaten us. That’s what makes it so difficult to follow God. Because seldom does God answer all of our questions before God tells us to get on the road and go.
Mark and I could share with you a lot about what we went through to make the decision to take the journey to come all the way across the continent to be with you here in Seattle. All we had was a vision of what God wanted us to do and what this church could eventually become. We put everything we had on the line for God and for you. Extraordinarily, though I had gone to new churches previously, Mark, my beloved partner, gave up all he had in terms of family, friends, and jobs, to make this journey with me. And there was an unexpected storm along the way in which I could have lost my beloved in an accident in the middle of a storm. But God worked a miracle and Mark was protected. I like to think of Mark as my Ruth in that he made an amazing commitment to come with me. I just hope he doesn’t meet a good looking local Boaz now that we are here.
Ruth, like the poor widow at the temple that Jesus saw giving her last two cents to God, “has put in all she had to live on.” Ruth gave all of herself to Naomi. Ruth held back nothing. Looked at from this perspective, Ruth’s stewardship of giving was enormous. She gave her life and her future to Naomi and to God.
What will you give to God? Will you give God all that you have, all that you are and let God bless you with an abundant and joyful life? What kind of steward will you be? What kind of stewardship commitment will you make to God through Metropolitan Community Church Seattle? Whether we journey together to that Promised Land of abundance God has waiting for you and me depends upon the decisions each one of us makes. I know where I am going. I know I am going to get there. I’d like to know, by your stewardship commitment to MCC Seattle this year, that you are going to make the journey with me, and that you and I will arrive in the Promised Land that God wants to give us together. Will you make the journey with me?
Monday, November 2, 2009
Seeing Isn't Necessarily Believing Mark 10:46-52
Lectionary Reading from Mark 10:46-52
For many weeks now we have been following the journey of Jesus through Galilee toward Jerusalem as we have read the lectionary selections from the Gospel of Mark. Today’s reading from Mark 10:46-52 comes at the end of our journey when Jesus visits Jericho, the last stop on the way to Jerusalem where he will first be praised and recognized as the hoped for Messiah, then quickly rejected and killed because he doesn’t meet the expectations of the people, and because he is seen as a threat to the stability of the occupying government and more importantly undermining the authority of the local religious leaders. We will pick up the story again at Lent and follow Jesus all the way to the Cross and beyond.
This long section of Mark’s Gospel that we have read through is known as the discipleship section, for in it we are instructed by Jesus and Mark as to exactly what a disciple should be and do. Today we meet Bartimaeus, a blind man, who Mark holds up as an example of a true follower of Jesus, one who gives up all he has and begins to follow Jesus “on the way.” This simple phrase, The Way, became the name that the earliest followers of Jesus used to identify themselves before the word Christian was used.
If you study the stories about Jesus, today’s selection doesn’t really fit the pattern of a miraculous healing story. It is more like the stories of Jesus calling a new disciple. This is a story of a person who has eyes and ears opened so who Jesus is and what Jesus wants is understood and the person then follows Jesus on the way.
Our passage today begins by saying that Jesus arrived in Jericho, then it quickly begins talking about what happened when Jesus was leaving Jericho. Most Bible scholars agree that there seems to be a missing part of the story. What happened when Jesus got to Jericho? We don’t know. But true to form Jesus appears to have been teaching and healing and we expect that the news about him has spread throughout the city because a great crowd of people has surrounded him as he is leaving town for Jerusalem.
Jericho is an ancient city, according to archaeologists it is probably the oldest continually lived in human city in the world. It is also geographically the lowest city in the world sitting 750 feet below sea level. It was a town probably filled with the riff-raff of society, a town full of rebellious individuals violently opposing the occupation of their country by Rome. Given these facts and others, Jericho probably wasn’t the nicest place in the world.
Thousands of pilgrims on their way to the Temple in Jerusalem passed through the city and beggars of all types would have been a frequent sight on the streets of that city, asking those pilgrims for alms, that is for gifts of money or useful things. It is here, on the way out of town, that we find Bartimaeus sitting on his cloak which would have been spread out around him on the ground to catch the coins and other things the people would toss to him as they walked by.
Bartimaeus means the son of Timaeus, but it also literally means the son of the unclean one. Not the kind of name one would choose for oneself. Because he was blind, a condition that was very frequent at that time and caused by a very contagious condition that is still prevalent in some parts of the world, he would have been considered unclean and forbidden to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. And his blind condition would have been blamed Bartimaeus, seen as punishment by God for his own sinfulness and disobedience. We still have that kind of idea lurking around our theological belief system today. You hear it when we say things like: “He must have done something really wrong for that to have happened to him,” or the opposite, “She must have done something really right to have that blessing come into her life.”
Bartimaeus, blind and begging, was living on the edge of society, rejected, overlooked, and ignored. Let me ask you a question: How do you react when you come upon someone begging on the streets? What do you think when you walk by someone wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping on a bench or even on the ground? Do you even acknowledge their presence, or do avoid looking directly at them for fear that if you did you might discover a real person who needed your help. How do you think that person lying there on the street feels about being in that situation? Is it really their own fault that they are homeless? How do you think they feel about you walking past them, ignoring them and their needs?
Thus was life for Bartimaeus…until Jesus walked by that day. The noise of the crowds alerted him to the fact that something different was going on. People were probably crying out, “Jesus of Nazareth is coming!” That wasn’t necessarily a compliment. With probable derision some would have said, “It’s just Jesus of Nazareth, that hill-billy preacher from the sticks.” Coming from Nazareth wasn’t something that one bragged about.
I grew up in Chicago in the 50’s, the child of poor white trash from the southern United States that flooded that city following World War II. We weren’t thought of very kindly by many with our different religion, different traditions, different foods, etc. In fact our catholic and orthodox neighbors called me “That Baptist Boy!” And that wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Though there were many catholic and orthodox churches all over the landscape, when we attempted to begin a new Baptist Church in a suburban community we had just moved into people actually tried to stop us. We were the hill-billies from the south, much like Jesus was the country bumpkin from Nazareth.
The title “Jesus of Nazareth” wasn’t a compliment when it was first uttered, not like we believe it to be now as another title of Jesus the Messiah when we read the scriptures. But that hick from Nazareth was causing quite a disturbance and people were clamoring to hear what he had to say, and to experience the healing that he had demonstrated he could give to those whose lives he touched. No one could ignore Jesus. Not like they could ignore Bartimaeus.
Early in our journey with Jesus, back in Chapter 8 Jesus healed another blind man. Mark makes sort of an editorial statement with that story, a story which none of the other Gospel writers include because they probably feel that it somehow doesn’t show Jesus as all-powerful as they want him to be. Why? Because, in this first healing of a blind man Jesus was unable to achieve a quick healing of the man who required a second touch in order to have his sight restored completely. Mark uses this to show that even though the disciples are told exactly what it will mean to be a disciple of Jesus, have to be retold the same thing over and over again because they continue to experience an inability to really ‘see’ and ‘hear’ what Jesus is telling them.
The disciples keep misunderstanding; keep trying to interpret what Jesus is saying based upon their own life experiences prior to meeting Jesus. Instead of taking their clues from Jesus about what his life and ministry are to mean, they take their clues from the world around them, much like you and I still do. Jesus however keeps turning their world and their understanding of the world upside down by telling them that in the new community of God they must give up claims to power and become servants to each other, and that they must go to the end of the line instead of claiming first place for themselves.
Yet, just like us, we know that they keep on failing to hear and see and they continue to argue among themselves about who will be the most important in Jesus’ kingdom when he is recognized as the new leader of their country. But instead of a political or religious kingdom, Jesus is trying to establish a new kind of spiritual community totally unlike anything they have ever known before.
The crowds follow along after Jesus, but it is Bartimaeus who has to truly identify Jesus for them: “Jesus, son of David. Have mercy on me. Heal me!”
Isn’t it strange though that on this day while walking through Jericho that when the blind Bartimaeus recognizes that this is Jesus, not Jesus the hick preacher from Nazareth, but Jesus the son of David, Jesus the Messiah, the one who will bring wholeness and healing to the world, the one who has come to restore justice and peace to the world, that the crowds tell Bartimaeus to be silent, to shut up. Just a few days later the crowds will indeed hail Jesus as the son of David as he enters Jerusalem. However their acclaim will be short lived for in less than a week they will clamor for his death on the cross.
Part of the reaction of the crowd in telling Bartimaeus to shut up was simply their failure to hear the truth about Jesus that he was yelling. But it is also that he is physically keeping them from paying attention to Jesus, the most current news sensation. Bartimaeus is taking their attention away from Jesus and making them pay attention to Bartimaeus, to a person that they would rather ignore and pretend doesn’t exist. The interesting thing about this situation is that it is Bartimaeus who is truly tuned into who Jesus is and what Jesus is saying, and the crowds who aren’t really listening, aren’t getting it. They are blind and deaf to the truth of Jesus. They can see but they can’t believe! Bartimaeus who can’t see, is the only one who believes!
You’d think that the disciples, fresh from the previous discussions with Jesus about who would be first in the new Community of God, would be running to this man to serve him and to bring him, the least of these, to Jesus. But they don’t. They don’t even try to hush the crowds who are telling Bartimaeus to shut up. They are probably enjoying the sensation Jesus is causing and they could care less about any beggar on the street, especially a beggar that is trying to steal the show away from Jesus.
However, as Mark writes the story, Bartimaeus has an important role to play in this story. He is the ancient blind soothsayer who though he can’t see physically, can spiritually see clearer than anyone else. Bartimaeus will not be shut up. Bartimaeus calls out even louder: “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Heal me.”
He calls out so loudly that Jesus stops and tells the people around him to call Bartimaeus to come to him.
I love what they say to the blind man: “Cheer up. On your feet. Jesus is calling you.” I don’t know about you but there have been times in my life when I’ve been so low, so depressed, that I didn’t even think there could be any way for me to look up, to find anything positive to hold on to, to hope for. I could have used someone telling me to “Cheer up. Get on your feet. Jesus is calling you.” Can you imagine the joy that filled Bartimaeus at this moment. Can you imagine the hope that captured him and drove him forward to meet the Savior?
Just a few days before this Jesus met a rich young man who asked him what he could do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him he must keep the commandments of God. The rich young man states that he has kept all the commandments. Mark records that Jesus had compassion for this young man, which means that he believed the young man was being truthful, and he tells him to “sell what you have and give it all to the poor. And come and follow me.” Mark tells us that the young man becomes immediately depressed and goes away in sorrow because he has great wealth. He could not follow Jesus because he was not willing to let go of what he had. How many of us are failing to follow Jesus because we cannot let go of what we have, of who we are, of what life is like for us right now. We are afraid to give ourselves to God because we aren’t sure we’ll like what God will give to us, so we hang on to what we have, what we are, and we fail to follow Jesus.
But Bartimaeus gives up everything to follow Jesus. He jumps up and leaves his cloak behind. The cloak symbolizes the very life he is currently leading for the cloak is the way he collects the alms that people throw to him. It is his means of life. But he gives it up as a sign of his faith and trust and he goes to Jesus. He knows that he won't need it again; he's confident that he won't be returning to his spot by the side of the road, begging in order to live. Resner describes this beautifully: "Faith sits, leaning forward, ready to leap at the opportunity to answer God's call whenever it might come, and it shows itself willing to shed whatever holds it back from the journey
Jesus asks Bartimaeus the exact same question he had asked John and James when they wanted to ask him a favor: “What is it that you want me to do for you?” Again, I think Mark is using the question to point out the extreme differences between the disciples James and John and the true disciple Bartimaeus.
John and James wanted to claim first place in the New Kingdom that they thought Jesus would establish when he arrived in Jerusalem. They wanted power and fame, glory and honor, prestige and wealth. But Jesus said he couldn’t give that to them. Bartimaeus answers by asking Jesus to heal him. And Jesus gives him what he asks for.
Healing in the Old and New Testaments wasn’t just about healing a person from a physical problem, but healing them emotionally and spiritually as well as economically and socially also. Look at the story of Job which was also part of today’s lectionary readings but which we don’t have time to cover. Job’s healing and restoration was complete in all the ways I’ve just listed. Biblical healing was not seen as only affecting you physically, but healing was of your whole life, everything you are and everything you would be. Healing in the scriptures is complete healing of every aspect of your life. That’s what Bartimaeus asks for and that’s what Bartimaeus was given: Total, complete healing.
What does Bartimaeus do now that he has been completely healed? Well, he doesn’t return to his old life. Mark records that Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way. On the Way meant to become a disciple of Jesus. Bartimaeus is seen as the perfect disciple, the one who truly does see who Jesus is, who hears what Jesus is saying and understands, who gives up all he has and follows Jesus. The fact that we were given his name means that Bartimaeus was probably someone that Mark’s community knew about, someone whose story was often told and retold much like we in Metropolitan Community Churches tell the story of Rev. Elder Troy Perry who began the first MCC church and led our denomination during its formative years.
Cynthia Jarvis hits home when she urges us to "[t]hink of those for whom faith is a matter of life and death rather than social convention." Bartimaeus didn't care what people thought, and didn't let anything deter him from reaching Jesus. For him, following Jesus wasn't just a good idea or a nice self-improvement program or the thing to do or a good habit to form. For Bartimaeus, as for so many others, trusting that Jesus cares about them and wills good for them is indeed a matter of life and death. If this is a story about values, as all stories of discipleship might be described (David Watson), then finding our place in the story means asking ourselves what we truly value, what we would be willing to leave everything behind for. What's the cloak we need to abandon? Who, or better, what is keeping us from reaching, and following, Jesus?
As members of the Queer Community we should like Job, and Bartimaeus refuses to comply and internalize our marginalization. Bartimaeus refuses to let others tell him that he is not worthy to speak to Jesus. On this election week when we are hopeful that Referendum 71 will be approved and we will be able to enjoy the same rights and responsibilities with our domestic partners as those who are legally married, we should remember Bartimaeus' example. Bartimaeus is not the only person in the story who needs healing. He is physically challenged, but those who try to prevent him from reaching Jesus are also in need of spiritual healing. Despite all that is going on to silence and marginalize the LGBT community, we must resist buying into those false beliefs about who and whose we are. Many of us shake our heads in disbelief as we observe the hysteria of those who would rather we just went away. Efforts for constitutional amendments, religious trials, threats of denominational schisms seem like a lot of energy to expend trying to exclude us. Given the entire hullabaloo, it is easy to understand why we characterize it as "homophobia."
In the midst of all that, we bear witness to the Spirit of Christ alive in us and should not be overwhelmed or defeated with denominational pronouncements or constitutional amendments. While the final outcome of these efforts does matter to our daily lives, we must also remember that those who oppose us are the very ones Christ has called us to love and serve. Moreover, we are not the only ones brutalized by religious hostility and indifference. There are many non-LGBT people who are also cast aside because of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, class or ability. We must not become so focused on our own struggles that we forget to take time to advocate for others who are marginalized.
We begin a journey as a church this week. This is stewardship month when we ask our members and friends to make a commitment of how much you will give to support the work and ministry of MCC Seattle in 2010. We usually do this by talking about money, by talking about how much we need to pay our bills, to pay my housing allowance as your part time pastor, to pay the rent on this chapel. But we’re not going to talk about those things this year. Because that kind of talk keeps us looking down, keeps us from looking up, keeps us from asking ourselves what is it that Jesus is calling us to do. Instead of thinking about stewardship as only money we need to think of stewardship as committing our time, our talents, and our treasure to God for God’s use in whatever way God desires. We need to stop worrying about paying the bills and start worrying about what it would really mean if we would give up all those things we are holding onto and really got up, and followed Jesus on the way.
It’s time we stopped basing our decisions about our budget on what we have done last year and start basing our budget and our actions on what God wants us to do. God isn’t limited by budgets and buildings and neither should we allow ourselves to be limited by such things. God may have so much more waiting for us if we would step out in faith and trust God like Bartimaeus did. I don’t know what that would mean for me or you, any more than Bartimaeus did that day in Jericho. I have hope, just like he had that Jesus will heal us physically, spiritually, economically and socially. We’ve got to give up our limited thinking and start seeking God’s will no matter where that will lead us, and no matter how much that might cost us.
I hope you will join me and Bartimaeus this year and step out in faith and trust, leaving behind whatever hampers us from achieving God’s will in our lives, and get up and follow Jesus on the Way. Get Up. Get on your feet. Jesus is calling you!
For many weeks now we have been following the journey of Jesus through Galilee toward Jerusalem as we have read the lectionary selections from the Gospel of Mark. Today’s reading from Mark 10:46-52 comes at the end of our journey when Jesus visits Jericho, the last stop on the way to Jerusalem where he will first be praised and recognized as the hoped for Messiah, then quickly rejected and killed because he doesn’t meet the expectations of the people, and because he is seen as a threat to the stability of the occupying government and more importantly undermining the authority of the local religious leaders. We will pick up the story again at Lent and follow Jesus all the way to the Cross and beyond.
This long section of Mark’s Gospel that we have read through is known as the discipleship section, for in it we are instructed by Jesus and Mark as to exactly what a disciple should be and do. Today we meet Bartimaeus, a blind man, who Mark holds up as an example of a true follower of Jesus, one who gives up all he has and begins to follow Jesus “on the way.” This simple phrase, The Way, became the name that the earliest followers of Jesus used to identify themselves before the word Christian was used.
If you study the stories about Jesus, today’s selection doesn’t really fit the pattern of a miraculous healing story. It is more like the stories of Jesus calling a new disciple. This is a story of a person who has eyes and ears opened so who Jesus is and what Jesus wants is understood and the person then follows Jesus on the way.
Our passage today begins by saying that Jesus arrived in Jericho, then it quickly begins talking about what happened when Jesus was leaving Jericho. Most Bible scholars agree that there seems to be a missing part of the story. What happened when Jesus got to Jericho? We don’t know. But true to form Jesus appears to have been teaching and healing and we expect that the news about him has spread throughout the city because a great crowd of people has surrounded him as he is leaving town for Jerusalem.
Jericho is an ancient city, according to archaeologists it is probably the oldest continually lived in human city in the world. It is also geographically the lowest city in the world sitting 750 feet below sea level. It was a town probably filled with the riff-raff of society, a town full of rebellious individuals violently opposing the occupation of their country by Rome. Given these facts and others, Jericho probably wasn’t the nicest place in the world.
Thousands of pilgrims on their way to the Temple in Jerusalem passed through the city and beggars of all types would have been a frequent sight on the streets of that city, asking those pilgrims for alms, that is for gifts of money or useful things. It is here, on the way out of town, that we find Bartimaeus sitting on his cloak which would have been spread out around him on the ground to catch the coins and other things the people would toss to him as they walked by.
Bartimaeus means the son of Timaeus, but it also literally means the son of the unclean one. Not the kind of name one would choose for oneself. Because he was blind, a condition that was very frequent at that time and caused by a very contagious condition that is still prevalent in some parts of the world, he would have been considered unclean and forbidden to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. And his blind condition would have been blamed Bartimaeus, seen as punishment by God for his own sinfulness and disobedience. We still have that kind of idea lurking around our theological belief system today. You hear it when we say things like: “He must have done something really wrong for that to have happened to him,” or the opposite, “She must have done something really right to have that blessing come into her life.”
Bartimaeus, blind and begging, was living on the edge of society, rejected, overlooked, and ignored. Let me ask you a question: How do you react when you come upon someone begging on the streets? What do you think when you walk by someone wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping on a bench or even on the ground? Do you even acknowledge their presence, or do avoid looking directly at them for fear that if you did you might discover a real person who needed your help. How do you think that person lying there on the street feels about being in that situation? Is it really their own fault that they are homeless? How do you think they feel about you walking past them, ignoring them and their needs?
Thus was life for Bartimaeus…until Jesus walked by that day. The noise of the crowds alerted him to the fact that something different was going on. People were probably crying out, “Jesus of Nazareth is coming!” That wasn’t necessarily a compliment. With probable derision some would have said, “It’s just Jesus of Nazareth, that hill-billy preacher from the sticks.” Coming from Nazareth wasn’t something that one bragged about.
I grew up in Chicago in the 50’s, the child of poor white trash from the southern United States that flooded that city following World War II. We weren’t thought of very kindly by many with our different religion, different traditions, different foods, etc. In fact our catholic and orthodox neighbors called me “That Baptist Boy!” And that wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Though there were many catholic and orthodox churches all over the landscape, when we attempted to begin a new Baptist Church in a suburban community we had just moved into people actually tried to stop us. We were the hill-billies from the south, much like Jesus was the country bumpkin from Nazareth.
The title “Jesus of Nazareth” wasn’t a compliment when it was first uttered, not like we believe it to be now as another title of Jesus the Messiah when we read the scriptures. But that hick from Nazareth was causing quite a disturbance and people were clamoring to hear what he had to say, and to experience the healing that he had demonstrated he could give to those whose lives he touched. No one could ignore Jesus. Not like they could ignore Bartimaeus.
Early in our journey with Jesus, back in Chapter 8 Jesus healed another blind man. Mark makes sort of an editorial statement with that story, a story which none of the other Gospel writers include because they probably feel that it somehow doesn’t show Jesus as all-powerful as they want him to be. Why? Because, in this first healing of a blind man Jesus was unable to achieve a quick healing of the man who required a second touch in order to have his sight restored completely. Mark uses this to show that even though the disciples are told exactly what it will mean to be a disciple of Jesus, have to be retold the same thing over and over again because they continue to experience an inability to really ‘see’ and ‘hear’ what Jesus is telling them.
The disciples keep misunderstanding; keep trying to interpret what Jesus is saying based upon their own life experiences prior to meeting Jesus. Instead of taking their clues from Jesus about what his life and ministry are to mean, they take their clues from the world around them, much like you and I still do. Jesus however keeps turning their world and their understanding of the world upside down by telling them that in the new community of God they must give up claims to power and become servants to each other, and that they must go to the end of the line instead of claiming first place for themselves.
Yet, just like us, we know that they keep on failing to hear and see and they continue to argue among themselves about who will be the most important in Jesus’ kingdom when he is recognized as the new leader of their country. But instead of a political or religious kingdom, Jesus is trying to establish a new kind of spiritual community totally unlike anything they have ever known before.
The crowds follow along after Jesus, but it is Bartimaeus who has to truly identify Jesus for them: “Jesus, son of David. Have mercy on me. Heal me!”
Isn’t it strange though that on this day while walking through Jericho that when the blind Bartimaeus recognizes that this is Jesus, not Jesus the hick preacher from Nazareth, but Jesus the son of David, Jesus the Messiah, the one who will bring wholeness and healing to the world, the one who has come to restore justice and peace to the world, that the crowds tell Bartimaeus to be silent, to shut up. Just a few days later the crowds will indeed hail Jesus as the son of David as he enters Jerusalem. However their acclaim will be short lived for in less than a week they will clamor for his death on the cross.
Part of the reaction of the crowd in telling Bartimaeus to shut up was simply their failure to hear the truth about Jesus that he was yelling. But it is also that he is physically keeping them from paying attention to Jesus, the most current news sensation. Bartimaeus is taking their attention away from Jesus and making them pay attention to Bartimaeus, to a person that they would rather ignore and pretend doesn’t exist. The interesting thing about this situation is that it is Bartimaeus who is truly tuned into who Jesus is and what Jesus is saying, and the crowds who aren’t really listening, aren’t getting it. They are blind and deaf to the truth of Jesus. They can see but they can’t believe! Bartimaeus who can’t see, is the only one who believes!
You’d think that the disciples, fresh from the previous discussions with Jesus about who would be first in the new Community of God, would be running to this man to serve him and to bring him, the least of these, to Jesus. But they don’t. They don’t even try to hush the crowds who are telling Bartimaeus to shut up. They are probably enjoying the sensation Jesus is causing and they could care less about any beggar on the street, especially a beggar that is trying to steal the show away from Jesus.
However, as Mark writes the story, Bartimaeus has an important role to play in this story. He is the ancient blind soothsayer who though he can’t see physically, can spiritually see clearer than anyone else. Bartimaeus will not be shut up. Bartimaeus calls out even louder: “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Heal me.”
He calls out so loudly that Jesus stops and tells the people around him to call Bartimaeus to come to him.
I love what they say to the blind man: “Cheer up. On your feet. Jesus is calling you.” I don’t know about you but there have been times in my life when I’ve been so low, so depressed, that I didn’t even think there could be any way for me to look up, to find anything positive to hold on to, to hope for. I could have used someone telling me to “Cheer up. Get on your feet. Jesus is calling you.” Can you imagine the joy that filled Bartimaeus at this moment. Can you imagine the hope that captured him and drove him forward to meet the Savior?
Just a few days before this Jesus met a rich young man who asked him what he could do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him he must keep the commandments of God. The rich young man states that he has kept all the commandments. Mark records that Jesus had compassion for this young man, which means that he believed the young man was being truthful, and he tells him to “sell what you have and give it all to the poor. And come and follow me.” Mark tells us that the young man becomes immediately depressed and goes away in sorrow because he has great wealth. He could not follow Jesus because he was not willing to let go of what he had. How many of us are failing to follow Jesus because we cannot let go of what we have, of who we are, of what life is like for us right now. We are afraid to give ourselves to God because we aren’t sure we’ll like what God will give to us, so we hang on to what we have, what we are, and we fail to follow Jesus.
But Bartimaeus gives up everything to follow Jesus. He jumps up and leaves his cloak behind. The cloak symbolizes the very life he is currently leading for the cloak is the way he collects the alms that people throw to him. It is his means of life. But he gives it up as a sign of his faith and trust and he goes to Jesus. He knows that he won't need it again; he's confident that he won't be returning to his spot by the side of the road, begging in order to live. Resner describes this beautifully: "Faith sits, leaning forward, ready to leap at the opportunity to answer God's call whenever it might come, and it shows itself willing to shed whatever holds it back from the journey
Jesus asks Bartimaeus the exact same question he had asked John and James when they wanted to ask him a favor: “What is it that you want me to do for you?” Again, I think Mark is using the question to point out the extreme differences between the disciples James and John and the true disciple Bartimaeus.
John and James wanted to claim first place in the New Kingdom that they thought Jesus would establish when he arrived in Jerusalem. They wanted power and fame, glory and honor, prestige and wealth. But Jesus said he couldn’t give that to them. Bartimaeus answers by asking Jesus to heal him. And Jesus gives him what he asks for.
Healing in the Old and New Testaments wasn’t just about healing a person from a physical problem, but healing them emotionally and spiritually as well as economically and socially also. Look at the story of Job which was also part of today’s lectionary readings but which we don’t have time to cover. Job’s healing and restoration was complete in all the ways I’ve just listed. Biblical healing was not seen as only affecting you physically, but healing was of your whole life, everything you are and everything you would be. Healing in the scriptures is complete healing of every aspect of your life. That’s what Bartimaeus asks for and that’s what Bartimaeus was given: Total, complete healing.
What does Bartimaeus do now that he has been completely healed? Well, he doesn’t return to his old life. Mark records that Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way. On the Way meant to become a disciple of Jesus. Bartimaeus is seen as the perfect disciple, the one who truly does see who Jesus is, who hears what Jesus is saying and understands, who gives up all he has and follows Jesus. The fact that we were given his name means that Bartimaeus was probably someone that Mark’s community knew about, someone whose story was often told and retold much like we in Metropolitan Community Churches tell the story of Rev. Elder Troy Perry who began the first MCC church and led our denomination during its formative years.
Cynthia Jarvis hits home when she urges us to "[t]hink of those for whom faith is a matter of life and death rather than social convention." Bartimaeus didn't care what people thought, and didn't let anything deter him from reaching Jesus. For him, following Jesus wasn't just a good idea or a nice self-improvement program or the thing to do or a good habit to form. For Bartimaeus, as for so many others, trusting that Jesus cares about them and wills good for them is indeed a matter of life and death. If this is a story about values, as all stories of discipleship might be described (David Watson), then finding our place in the story means asking ourselves what we truly value, what we would be willing to leave everything behind for. What's the cloak we need to abandon? Who, or better, what is keeping us from reaching, and following, Jesus?
As members of the Queer Community we should like Job, and Bartimaeus refuses to comply and internalize our marginalization. Bartimaeus refuses to let others tell him that he is not worthy to speak to Jesus. On this election week when we are hopeful that Referendum 71 will be approved and we will be able to enjoy the same rights and responsibilities with our domestic partners as those who are legally married, we should remember Bartimaeus' example. Bartimaeus is not the only person in the story who needs healing. He is physically challenged, but those who try to prevent him from reaching Jesus are also in need of spiritual healing. Despite all that is going on to silence and marginalize the LGBT community, we must resist buying into those false beliefs about who and whose we are. Many of us shake our heads in disbelief as we observe the hysteria of those who would rather we just went away. Efforts for constitutional amendments, religious trials, threats of denominational schisms seem like a lot of energy to expend trying to exclude us. Given the entire hullabaloo, it is easy to understand why we characterize it as "homophobia."
In the midst of all that, we bear witness to the Spirit of Christ alive in us and should not be overwhelmed or defeated with denominational pronouncements or constitutional amendments. While the final outcome of these efforts does matter to our daily lives, we must also remember that those who oppose us are the very ones Christ has called us to love and serve. Moreover, we are not the only ones brutalized by religious hostility and indifference. There are many non-LGBT people who are also cast aside because of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, class or ability. We must not become so focused on our own struggles that we forget to take time to advocate for others who are marginalized.
We begin a journey as a church this week. This is stewardship month when we ask our members and friends to make a commitment of how much you will give to support the work and ministry of MCC Seattle in 2010. We usually do this by talking about money, by talking about how much we need to pay our bills, to pay my housing allowance as your part time pastor, to pay the rent on this chapel. But we’re not going to talk about those things this year. Because that kind of talk keeps us looking down, keeps us from looking up, keeps us from asking ourselves what is it that Jesus is calling us to do. Instead of thinking about stewardship as only money we need to think of stewardship as committing our time, our talents, and our treasure to God for God’s use in whatever way God desires. We need to stop worrying about paying the bills and start worrying about what it would really mean if we would give up all those things we are holding onto and really got up, and followed Jesus on the way.
It’s time we stopped basing our decisions about our budget on what we have done last year and start basing our budget and our actions on what God wants us to do. God isn’t limited by budgets and buildings and neither should we allow ourselves to be limited by such things. God may have so much more waiting for us if we would step out in faith and trust God like Bartimaeus did. I don’t know what that would mean for me or you, any more than Bartimaeus did that day in Jericho. I have hope, just like he had that Jesus will heal us physically, spiritually, economically and socially. We’ve got to give up our limited thinking and start seeking God’s will no matter where that will lead us, and no matter how much that might cost us.
I hope you will join me and Bartimaeus this year and step out in faith and trust, leaving behind whatever hampers us from achieving God’s will in our lives, and get up and follow Jesus on the Way. Get Up. Get on your feet. Jesus is calling you!
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