Saturday 27 October 2018

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 28 October 2018 Pentecost 23


Readings:  Job 42:1-6    Mark 10:46-52

Let us pray
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts open not just our mind and heart but also our eyes and ears to your way for us Jesus Christ.  Amen.

‘I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear – now my eye sees you.’  So says Job in this moment of spiritual clarity, acknowledging that his experience of God in his life had been limited; that it was primarily formed by that which he had been instructed in, learned from family and community - and now he is in the thick of a huge storm in his life – he’s been to hell and back – and it is the midst of this suffering that he has this new experience of God,  There is this moment or awakening – of realisation that what you might call his theological arrogance has blinkered him to the truth that God transcends Job’s knowledge, his theology, his experiences.  For it is in the midst of his suffering he knows God’s transforming grace –has found a new way of speaking with God.  And it changes his life. 

 ‘I want to see’ says blind Bartimaeus when asked by Jesus ‘what is it that you want me to do for you?’  Despite the attempts of the disciples to shush him up he yelled louder and louder until Jesus heard the commotion and invited him to come and be healed.  It has to be noted that the disciples still had their blinkers on too – not yet convinced that the lowly and the disreputable were just the ones Jesus wanted to see.  Bartimaeus leaps to his feet, the scripture fair pulsates with his determination to encounter this man Jesus – for his eyes have been opened to the truth of Jesus well before his physical blindness has been cured.

I’ve always been fascinated by how we see things, the way in which familiarity can shrink our understanding and preconception can make our eyes slide over things we really need to see.  On my frequent trips home to Balclutha as a student in Dunedin, I used to look at the familiar landscape around me and re-imagine it through the eyes of one who was seeing it for the first time.  It was interesting how many new things I spotted using that perspective, how stunning the views and vibrant the life in it. 

What we think we see is so often just a part of what there is to see – and its worth reminding ourselves that while we don’t always have the luxury of video rewind or observation mode or re-imaging to enable us to see the bigger picture, we also have a tendency to think that what we see is the whole and complete picture.  Job came to that realisation the hard way –he acknowledged before God that his faith was limited by his inability to see, to imagine if you like, the wholeness of God.  His theological stance did not allow for God to be more than Job perceived him to be, hence his anger and bewilderment at suffering for such a righteous man. The understanding that he would never see or know all of God was a moment of brilliant clarity, of deeply meaningful insight for him.
Bartimeus, for all his physical blindness, was also a person who leads us into much needed clarity about the way of faith.  It is worth noting that the Gospel of Mark sandwiches the two stories of the healing of physical blindness around the three accounts of the blindness of the disciples and their inability to see the truth when Jesus predicts his suffering and death.  Their response is blindness personified: rebuke by Peter for saying it, ashamed and fearful silence, and a request to have a position of power when they came into the kingdom.  They didn’t get it – at all.  But Bartimeus did!  The blind man did.
Lets tease out some of the action in this story of the healing of the blind man and then think about how we might sit respond to it. 
First of all the blind man was marginalised, on the side of the road, spoken to as of no worth, told to shut up – but Jesus heard and responded.
Jesus asked Bartimeus a question, interestingly exactly the same question that he had posed to the disciples in the reading last week: ‘What do you want me to do for you?
The disciples, still with their blinkers on, had responded with the request for ‘favourite status’, Bartimeus with a plea to be able to see.
Jesus said: tell him to come to me and Bartimeus got up and ran towards him – there was action, eagerness in his response to Jesus call.
And immediately he regained his sight, Bartimeus followed Jesus on the way – to Jerusalem and the cross.

I wonder what blinkers we wear – often very comfortably. 
There are certainly people within the Christian church who believe their experience of God is the only one.  Immediately they have limited God, distrusted Jesus teachings of the immensity of God’s love.  Not just in the Christian faith too.
I came across a quote the other day that made me bristle.  And it is about spiritual blinkers.  It was from Sinead O’Connor who has recently converted to Islam and she said: ‘"This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. (That didn’t get me going – quite the opposite – but this did.) This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian's journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant
How profoundly arrogant I thought. Not in her conversion but in the barrier of conceit that she stands behind. A conceit that intelligent thinking belongs only to one faith, that in order to celebrate a new relationship you need to stomp on others.  I hope that in time she learns that the love of God permeates this world in ways we cannot even imagine.  I hope she has a Job moment.

How much do we, who think we see the whole picture, get stuck in our own narrow perspective finding it hard to reimagine our God experience.?  That is why we need to embrace God and community with our eyes open to new things – so that we can hear other stories, see other ways, be made wiser through animated conversation with God and the insight of others, building together a picture of the kingdom as God knows it to be.
How do we respond to Jesus’ question “What is it that you want me to do for you?”  Only you can answer that question but it is one worth spending some serious time on and it is one we should answer from the very depths of our souls.  If our answer is to be that of Bartimeus – Lord let me see – then what is it that we each need to see more clearly?
Whatever the answer, it has to do with how we can better serve God, community and ourselves in the way of Christ.  For surely this is the core of the reading we heard today – immediately he regained his sight, he followed him on the way.  

Show us, here in this place, O Christ, your way that we might follow it faithfully, generously and lovingly, opening not just our eyes but the eyes and ears of all whom we meet, in Jesus name.  Amen

Margaret Garland


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