“Living on the Way with Jesus”

This is the final sermon manuscript in my Lenten sermon series on what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ according to the Gospel of Mark.  The Gospel text is Mark 10:46-52.

“Immediately Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.”  Of all of the earth shattering sentences in Mark’s Gospel, this is the one that challenges me the most.  On the surface it seems very simple.  Upon regaining his sight Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way.  There is no struggle from Bartimaeus.  There is no frustrating attempt by Jesus to get Bartimaeus to understand his teachings.  Bartimaeus simply follows Jesus.  It doesn’t seem all that complicated.      

But when you place this sentence in the context of the previous chapters in Mark’s Gospel, this sentence becomes heavy.  When placed against the human struggle for power and status demonstrated by the disciples over and over again, a struggle that I know to be true, I wonder if it can be as easy as Bartimaeus makes it look.  Because Bartimaeus simply follows Jesus.  And that’s what challenges me the most.  How do I follow like Bartimaeus?

            We have been talking over the last few weeks about what it means to follow Jesus “on the way,” which is a metaphor for talking about what it means to be disciple.  And for Mark this story is a clear picture of what it means to be a disciple.  This story is grounded firmly in Mark’s metaphor of “on the way.”  The story begins with Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, sitting beside the way and ends with Bartimaeus, a disciple, following Jesus “on the way.”  At some point in the story Bartimaeus shifts from someone who sits on the sidelines and remains a bystander, to someone who actively engages life as a disciple; someone who follows Jesus “on the way.” 

            And for Mark this shift happens when the sight of Bartimaeus is restored.  Now our culture has trained us to understand this statement as a miracle of physical healing.  We live in the age of science.  When we read that Bartimaeus is blind we read that he cannot see the physical world around him.  But if we only take the story at this meaning we miss the point entirely.  For Mark I do not think this story was ever about physical sight.  Though we are told that Bartimaeus is blind at the beginning of the story, his “blindness” is connected to his proximity to “the way;” Bartimaeus is blind because he sits beside the way.  The blindness of Bartimaeus is a metaphor for how he engages the world and since Bartimaeus does not engage the world as a disciple, he is blind to the way of Jesus.

But Bartimaeus is not content with his life beside “the way.”  He has heard of Jesus and knows that Jesus has more to offer than the life of a bystander.  When he hears that Jesus is coming through, Bartimaeus makes every effort to make sure that he meets Jesus.  He shouts out over and over again, fighting through the protest of the crowd.  He wants to be heard by Jesus.  And his efforts do not go unnoticed.  Jesus hears the cry of Bartimaeus and tells the crowd to call him over. 

Jesus greets Bartimaeus with a question, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Ironically, just a few verses earlier, Jesus had asked James and John this same question and they responded with a request to sit with Jesus in glory, at his right and left hand.  They asked for status and power, they still have learned nothing from Jesus; they still want to be first.  So it wouldn’t be surprising if Bartimaeus responded in the same way, with a request for status.  But no!  Bartimaeus simply asks to see again.  And here my cultured mind jumps to a request for a physical healing but Mark is trying to tell us something.  Listen again to the request of Bartimaeus; “My teacher, let me see…again.” 

He is not asking to be able to see for the first time, he is asking to be able to see again.  If he was blind since birth, Mark would have mentioned it, it is too important of a detail to forget.  No, Bartimaeus wants to see again, which gives hope to all of us who lose sight along the way.  Remember, if the blindness of Bartimaeus is a metaphor for how he engages the world, then Bartimaeus is asking for a way to engage the world differently; he is asking to engage the world as a disciple.  And this is the true request of a disciple.  Not for power or status, but how to live differently, and that’s the point for Mark.  To be a disciple is to engage the world differently.    

Jesus responds to this request very simply.  There is no magic, there is no medicine, there is no “how to” manual.  Jesus tells Bartimaeus, “Go, your faith has made you well.”  And, “Immediately Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.”  It is faith that helps Bartimaeus to engage the world differently; it is faith that draws Bartimaeus to the “way of Jesus.”  Not enough faith, not the right faith, just faith.  Faith opens our lives to “the way.”

What I find most challenging about this story from Mark, what I find most challenging about learning how to follow like Bartimaeus, is learning what keeps me beside the way.  It is learning what keeps me from engaging the “way of Jesus.”  I know that I do not see the way of Jesus perfectly.  There are certain barriers that are already in place for any disciple; barriers that have to be acknowledged and engaged on a daily basis.  I am a white male and this is something that I cannot change.  And based on our culture and the social construct that has been created, I am a person of privilege based on the color of my skin and my gender.  I can only encounter the world as a privileged person. 

Just coming to terms with the idea of white privilege took some time and is for me one of the first steps to following along “the way” of Jesus.  As I gain more experience, the way I look at the world is challenged and my world view continues to evolve.  For me to follow like Bartimaeus, for me to engage life along “the way,” means that I need to ask Jesus to help me to see again and learn to engage the world as he does.  It is my hope that because I recognize my  privilege that I can confront and lay down that privilege, that I can give up my struggle for status and power, and join Jesus on the way of justice.  This is a challenge, and will be every day “on the way” with Jesus. 

 So what keeps you beside the way?  What keeps you from fully engaging life as a disciple?  These are the hard questions, but they are the important questions.  Dear friends we are called to be disciples.  We are called to challenge the social constructs and the barriers that separate our lives and neighborhoods from the kingdom of God.  And while we may not always understand what keeps us beside the way, life as a disciple means that we will encounter those things that hinder us from engaging the world on “the way” of Jesus.  Through prayer, the study of scripture and the sacraments, we are provided with the means to learn how to engage the world like Jesus, as a servant of all.  And through the power of the Holy Spirit we have the strength to ask Jesus, “help me to follow.”  May God bless us with open hearts and minds as we journey as disciples of Jesus Christ. 

“The journey of faith”

This is the fourth sermon in my Lenten Sermon series exploring what it means to be a disciple according to Mark’s Gospel. The accompanying text is Mark 10:17-22

Last week Katie and I went out on a bike ride and we passed one of those “self-storage” places. Have you seen one of these businesses? They’re a group of buildings where you can take all of your extra stuff that won’t fit in your house. Maybe you’ve seen a commercial on TV. There are businesses out there, and lots of them, who will store your stuff. It’s a hassle free way to store all of the extra stuff that gets in our way, mostly so we go out and buy more stuff, stuff to better capture who we are at the moment. I think for the most part we define ourselves by our stuff. In our minds our stuff makes us who we are.

And this is not a new issue. Even in the time of Jesus people had an issue with stuff. As he sets out on the way, we are told that Jesus is approached by a man who seems to have it all together, but as it turns out he has a problem with stuff. This man wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life and he is told by Jesus that he needs to part ways with his stuff, to sell it all, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. He leaves the scene grieving because he is a man with a great deal of stuff.

We’ve been talking about how the struggle for the life of a disciple is found in where we put out emphasis; on human things or divine things. The man from today’s story has clearly put his emphasis on human things and we see the struggle play out when Jesus calls him to sell what he owns and follow. Jesus is calling this man to deny his human things; in essence Jesus is calling this man to deny himself.

A few weeks ago we heard these words come out of Jesus’ mouth; “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Here we see these words “deny yourself” come to life for this man who has a lot of stuff. Now this man has a great deal of confidence. He approaches Jesus quite openly, he says he has kept the commandments since his youth; he grew up in the church and was raised in the faith. We are even told that Jesus looks upon this man with love. He has everything going for him, he has attained status and power in his world; he thinks he has it made.

And that’s where it all unravels for the man. The crux of the problem is that he has put his faith in his stuff and in his own abilities. This man’s identity is intimately connected to his stuff because his stuff is what he can control. In the uncertainty of life he can control his stuff. Because he has control of his stuff he thinks he has control of his life. So all he needs now is something to get him into the ever after and all will be well. He is asking Jesus for more stuff so he will have everything tied up with a neat little bow. But Jesus does not offer him more stuff. Jesus asks him to deny it all and follow. Jesus is asking him to deny his faith in himself and put his faith in Jesus. But this man cannot deny his stuff, he cannot deny himself. He walks away from Jesus broken because he cannot put his faith in someone else.

I know I have thrown the word stuff around a great deal this evening, but to name everything that goes into the category of stuff would take all night. Stuff is far more than just money. Cloths, furniture, pictures, everything that is in your living room right now; that’s the stuff I am talking about. And it holds a great deal of power over us. We identify ourselves with our stuff. To deny ourselves would be to deny our stuff. And this is where the struggle lies for us who are called to be disciples.

This call from Jesus to deny ourselves is hard. We don’t like to give up our stuff or power or control. But today Jesus is telling us that our faith in our stuff won’t cut it, that faith in ourselves won’t cut it in the kingdom of God. Our stuff can be taken away. Everything that we have gathered in this world can be taken by fire or flood or moth or rust. And at the end of the day we cannot take it with us. Jesus knows this. Jesus is telling us to let go of our struggle for human things. “Deny yourselves,” he says, “and follow me.” Jesus offers us the life of a disciple. A life lived in faith.

Because to tell you the truth dear friends, it’s not about our stuff; this story this evening is not about stuff at all. It’s about faith. Jesus is calling us to place our emphasis in the divine gift of faith. The call to deny ourselves is a call to a life of faith. At the heart of the life of a disciple is faith and faith alone. I don’t know about you, but I got tired of all the stuff this evening. It got heavy, it got in the way of what is important in our lives, and what’s important is faith.

About a month ago, almost every senior student on an ELCA seminary campus was waiting on pins and needles for a very important letter from the mother church. These letters contained a single, life-changing number. This single, life-changing number was the number of the region of the ELCA that the student was assigned to, the first piece of the puzzle of “where I am going to serve my first call.” After the years of schooling, the internship and the paperwork, the great unknown of first call is an exercise in faith. No matter how much a person tries to control the assignment process, though there is a room full of Bishops, hours of prayer, and the moving of the Holy Spirit, at the end of the day it comes down to faith. Faith to follow Jesus into the unknown. Faith to follow Jesus into the next leg of the journey.

That’s what we’re on dear friends, a journey. That’s that best way I can find to describe the life of faith, a journey. We are all at different places in life, taking different routes, encountering struggles and joys and people; all the way trusting that God is with us, shaping our lives as we walk through this world.

Our faith is a journey through the ups and downs of life, a daily struggle to give up our stuff, to relinquish control, and put our faith in Jesus. Our faith is lived out every day when we move beyond ourselves and recognize where God is already at work in our lives and in our world. Through the love of God, we can daily move beyond ourselves and into the lives of those we encounter along the way. Dear friends, through the power of the Holy Spirit we can put our faith in Jesus.

“Last and servant of all”

This is the third sermon of the Lenten Sermon series on what it means to be a disciple according to the Gospel of Mark. This sermon is based on Mark 9:30-37.

I am not sure if you noticed this week, but the brackets for this year’s college basketball tournament came out on Sunday evening. Yes, the event known as “March Madness” is upon us. Once again a field of 64 teams will be whittled down to one champion, the greatest college basketball team in the land. If basketball is not your fancy, then maybe the Super Bowl would be a more honest metaphor for deciding who is greatest. Or perhaps the Grammy’s if you are into music, or the Oscar’s if you’re a big movie fan. It seems there is no shortage of events in this country to decide who is the greatest. I guess this is just part of our human nature. We really want to know who is the greatest.

So it is no wonder then that Jesus catches his disciples in an argument over who is the greatest. While they won’t come out and admit it at first, their whispered conversation along the way had nothing to do with what Jesus was talking about. While Jesus was teaching about his suffering and death and resurrection, the disciples were arguing over who would be the disciple of the month.

We talked last week about how the heart of the conflict for the life of a disciple could be found in the struggle over where we put our emphasis; human things or divine things. Today we see this conflict between human things and divine things play out as Jesus teaches his disciples that, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” In the face of their talk of greatness, Jesus turns to the disciples and tells them that putting themselves first will not cut it in the kingdom of God. Those who want to be first must become servants of all. To be a disciple of Jesus is to put others first.

The word Mark uses for servant is the Greek word διάκονος (diakonos) which means “one who is engaged in the maintenance of others.” This is a word of purpose, not status. It is a word that describes what someone does, not what they are. It is an active word, not a label. It is a way of life that Jesus is calling the disciples to; a way of engaging others in the world.

And Jesus does not place any parameters on who is on the receiving end of the disciple’s life of service. Jesus says that the disciples are to be a “servant of all.” There is no list of qualities, no particular social requirement, no application to be filled out. Jesus means that everyone, absolutely everyone, is someone who can be served by the disciples. And to drive his point home Jesus uses a visual aid to let the disciples know just what he means by “servant of all.” Jesus brings a little child into the group of disciples. He takes the child into his arms, Mark actually says Jesus hugs the child, and tells his disciples that “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

Now this may not sound all that radical to us, children are not strangers in our community. But in the time of Jesus, children were considered as a little more than property by law. Children were on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Until they were old enough to contribute to the family or to society, they were seen as little more than useless. It was actually a common practice to abandon children if you could not take care of them or provide for their needs. In a society based on status and reciprocal payment for goods and services rendered, children had no ability to repay. Children were indeed the least of society, but Jesus counts them as equals. Jesus counts them as ones who need to be welcomed and loved.

This radical life of service is what Jesus is calling us to today. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be a “servant of all;” to be someone who is engaged in the maintenance of others. We are not called to decide who needs to be served or who gets to be served; we are just called to serve.

And I think this comes into sharp focus when we really take Jesus on his word. When we serve people who are like us, friends and family, yes we are still serving, but it only scratches the surface. After all, even with family and friends there can still be the underlying practice and expectation of repayment. But remember what Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” This is a metaphor for serving the least of these, those who are not like us, especially those who are not like us, those who have no ability to repay us for what we do. The full meaning of the life of service that Jesus calls us to is to serve without expecting anything in return; to give fully and completely without expecting something back.

The great preacher Fred Craddock tells the story of watching a van full of kids pull into the parking lot of a church he was visiting on a Sunday afternoon. There were about ten to twelve high school age kids who had just returned from a mission trip. He said they looked awful, “like something the cat would drag in.” He got to talking with the kids, about where they had gone for the trip, what they had done. Turns out they had built a church for a community. While the kids were waiting for their parents Craddock leaned over to one of the boys and asked, “You tired?” The boy replied, “Whew – am I tired! This is the best tired I have ever felt.”

We have kids in this community who have felt that kind of tired; the best tired you have ever felt. Last summer they went on a mission trip to Orlando where they helped those from whom they expected nothing in return, where they became servants of all. I hope that you have heard their stories, if not you should ask them sometime. And maybe you too have even felt that kind of tired, the best tired you’ve ever felt; the kind of tired that comes from serving someone else. These moments don’t have to happen on mission trips, they can happen in everyday life, they happen along the way. They happen when we recognize the child of God in someone and when reach out to others through the love of Jesus Christ.

The life we are called to as disciples of Jesus Christ is a life that is lived as a “servant of all.” Out there in the world, in the ordinary moments of everyday life, are the opportunities to welcome and serve folks in the name of Jesus Christ. In our world, where the status quo is constantly trying to decide “who is the greatest,” we are called to live differently. We are called to cast aside the human thing of status and arguing over who is the greatest. In the kingdom of God, those who are first, are the ones who put themselves last, the ones who become “servants of all.” Dear friends, through Jesus Christ we have been set free to be “servants of all.”

"What if God shuffled by?!"

This is the sermon manuscript from the sermon preached on the weekend of the third Sunday of Lent. The Gospel text is John 2:13-22.

His ministry was just beginning. Jesus was just getting started. This is strange to consider when we are drawing so close to the end of his earthly ministry here in Lent. When we are drawing ever closer to his death and resurrection. In the other Gospels this temple event takes place after Palm Sunday, right before Jesus is arrested. But not in John. Today’s story takes place right at the beginning. Jesus has managed to call a few disciples; he has changed water into wine at a wedding in Cana. Jesus was just getting started.

Now when the Passover was near, John tells us, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and upon entering the temple he finds the whole scene to be well, a barnyard. The temple of God, the dwelling place of God on earth, the religious center for those of the Jewish faith, for Jesus himself, has become a barnyard; this will simply not do.

So Jesus goes on a bit of a tirade, turning tables, chasing cattle, sheep, and presumably people, with a whip made of chords. He turns to those who were selling the doves and yells, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my father’s house a market place!” Because that’s exactly what the temple had become; a market place.

And it had to be. In the system of sacrifices of the Jewish faith you needed certain animals, and folks traveling a long distance were not about to drag a pristine first born calf half way across Judea. So whatever the people needed to offer as a sacrifice, rams, doves, or grain, they bought at the temple. This was a pretty typical scene and it was not going to change. It was too engrained in the life of the people. The original purpose of the temple had shifted; the relationship with God that was centered in the temple was no longer the focus. And for Jesus, this simply won’t do. Something has to change.

And for John, this is the point, something is about to change. This story is at the beginning because it demonstrates that Jesus has comes to change the relationship between God and God’s people. This story is often called the “cleansing of the temple,” but for John this is not an accurate title at all. Remember what Jesus says when the Jews ask him for a sign to explain his little tirade, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” John tells us that “he was speaking about the temple of his body.” His body? It is only after his resurrection that the disciples realize what it is that Jesus is telling them. Jesus has not come to cleanse the temple. He has not come to set the temple back on track. Jesus is telling us that the temple system will no longer work, the time of the temple is gone, God is no longer in the temple. God is doing something new through Jesus Christ.

Remember how John begins his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and lived among us.” God is present in Jesus and Jesus has come to reveal God to the world. Jesus is the new relationship God has with the people of the world, all people of the world, and Jesus has come to show us what this new relationship looks like. Just a few chapters later Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” And why will the place of worship change? Because through death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, God is present to all believers of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. God is no longer confined to the temple. God is present to all believers no matter where they are gathered, be it in a temple, a church, or a sports arena. God is present wherever the people are, especially where the people are, right where you and I are in the ebb and flow of our daily lives.

What I am trying to tell you friends is that you don’t have to come to church to experience God. This building, the brick and concrete and carpet and stained glass and pews and hymnals, do not contain God any more than the temple in Jerusalem contains God. God does not live in a physical space, God lives in the people.

Now I realize that I may have just lost some of you. Some of you may be thinking that you could have just as well have stayed in bed this morning, or gone out for a round of golf, or beat the Baptists to the buffet line, but that’s not what I am saying at all. What I saying is that where we understand God to be affects the way we live our lives. If we understand that God is present only in the church building, or in the temple, then we encounter God only in those places. We miss everywhere else that God can be, and is, present in our world.

In college I was involved with a group called Aggie Lutherans and my junior year we took a trip to Germany. I can remember standing in an alley way in Wittenberg Germany outside the church where Martin Luther preached for 20 plus years of his life. It was Luther’s church, the Martin Luther, the spark of the Reformation. Of all places in the Lutheran world, it must have been a holy one; God had to have been present there! But the funny thing was we were locked out. We had arrived before our guide and having planned to have a brief time of worship before departing Wittenberg, we decided to begin before time slipped away. So we gathered in a circle. We held hands, we prayed and we sang songs, we read scripture and we celebrated the Lord’s Supper. There in the midst of an alley way, outside of the locked church, God was present among us; in the joined hands of college kids who were having their lives changed. God is where the people are. God is where we are on the paths of our lives.

God is here with us now, not because we are in this building, but because God promises to be present when we gather in God’s name. We have to be careful not glaze over what we know about Jesus. Because we live after the resurrection Jesus has already ascended into heaven. But he left us with the promise that the Holy Spirit would continue to be present with us, persistently reminding us of what Jesus taught and drawing us into a relationship with God. Our community gathered at worship is one of those places where the Holy Spirit is moving. Through the scripture read and the Word proclaimed and preached we hear the presence of God and our lives are opened to where God is at work beyond these doors. Through the water and Word of Baptism, through the bread and wine of the table, we taste and touch the presence of God in our midst and are strengthened to go out into the world and experience God in all of life. So we can join in where God is already at work in our world.

So where do you experience God? As a disciple of Jesus Christ, where do you encounter God in the ebb and flow of life? Do you look for God beyond these walls? Remember, where we understand God to be greatly affects the way we live our lives. If we understand God to be in our homes, in our relationships, in one another, then we treat the world a differently. As a Vicar, one of the tasks I typically do on a weekly basis is to make hospital visits; it’s part of the life of ministry. For me, sometimes the only way I can find the strength to walk into the hospital room, whether for good or bad news, is because I know that God is already there. As a husband I know that through the joys and the stresses of life God is in my relationship with Katie. I understand that God is a part of who we are and I treat our relationship like God is there with Katie and me as we walk through this world. Where we understand God to be affects the way we live our lives. Through Jesus Christ, God is present everywhere believers are in this world. God is out there dear people, just waiting to be discovered. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, may you discover God in the ebb and flow of your lives.