Take heart

Mark 10:46-52

The internet is full of articles and blog posts about what to say – and especially what NOT to say – when someone is sick.  You can find these stories in print, too – in newspapers and books, and occasionally helpful brochures.

They offer good advice on the difference between “Let me know if I can help,” and “Can I bring you dinner and a funny movie tonight?” or “I’m free on Monday if you need a ride anywhere.”

There’s good advice on how to tell the difference between support and slogans before you say something, and the vital importance of real listening and real love.

I’ve read lots of these, as friends send them around or post them on Facebook, but I’m not sure any of the folks in today’s gospel story had heard that advice.

To start with, the crowd of neighbors is hushing Bartimeus when he’s calling out for help.  Of course life is easier when we don’t have to pay attention to illness and injury – but to give credit where it’s due, the crowd switches gears quickly when Jesus starts to pay attention.

And here’s the thing that made me think of all those articles about how to help someone who is sick – when Jesus hears Bartimeus calling out for help he turns around to talk to the crowd. To the neighbors and family and friends.

Jesus stops and says to the crowd, “Call him here.”  Invite him to come to me.

And the crowd does.  Those friends and family and neighbors turn to Bartimeus and say:

“Take heart!  Get up! Jesus is calling you!”

Now, there are lots of ways to discourage someone by telling them that they should be cheerful. But this, I think, is a little different.  I believe this is the crowd suddenly discovering and proclaiming an important gospel truth:

God is calling you.

God is calling you, looking for you, inviting you to come,

even while you’re sick, or broken in places, imperfect or in pain.

God is calling you, looking for you, inviting you to come,

right now, as you are, not later, when you’re better.

So take heart.  Respond.  God is calling you.

That’s what we’re here for today: we’re here to say that to one another. I think that’s what we do when we have a chance to pray with one another about healing and hope. It’s the job of the faithful community to help one another respond to God’s call, to have the courage to meet God in all our brokenness, to remind one another that we are called by God, invited to meet God, just as we are.

It can be hard to pray for healing when a condition is chronic, when we’ve gotten used to feeling awful, when we think it’s minor, or when we think it’s our own fault.

Bartimeus knew about that. Like any blind person in first-century Palestine, he would have known the doctors couldn’t heal him, had gotten used to his blindness, and used to the idea that blindness and disease are God’s way of paying back sin – yours, or your parents, or grandparents….

We don’t think that way in 21^st century Lombard, but we do get used to the things that are broken in our lives, we get used to our pain and our limits. From time to time, we do blame ourselves – and sometimes we’re right.

So we too sometimes need the community to give us the courage to respond to God’s call.

And then the story can go on.

When Bartimeus stands facing Jesus, encouraged and surrounded by his community,

Jesus speaks directly to him:
“What do you want me to do for you?”

It sounds like that question the articles say you’re not supposed to ask – that open ended, vague  “how can I help?”  But instead it’s a question we don’t always hear, but we always need to answer:
What do you truly want?  What would make you whole?

Sometimes the answer is as direct as the medical diagnosis: I want the bone healed, the cancer gone.

Sometimes it’s different from the diagnosis.  Sometimes we need to ask God for a different kind of healing: for grace and strength in the face of something that has no cure, for release, for the return of hope, or the renewing of lost relationships; for forgiveness.

Jesus looks at Bartimeus, as he looks at so many lepers and blind men and crippled women in the gospels, as he looks at us, today, and offers all of that.

But he never heals until he’s asked.

And the asking takes courage.

That’s why, a couple of times a year, at Calvary, we stop the ordinary rhythm of our Sunday worship, and stand in front of this altar – together – as God invites us to name our healing.

That’s why we pray here, together, why we stand up with one another and put our hands on each other’s shoulders,

because healing takes courage,

and that takes community.

We stop today, and pray, and interrupt the usual, because Jesus tells us to call one another: to give each other courage. To proclaim this gospel truth to the brokenness or need inside our neighbor:

“Take heart! Get up! God is calling you!”

So that the story can go on.

When Bartimeus stands in front of Jesus and receives his sight, he goes on to follow Jesus on the way – the way that leads to Jerusalem and beyond.

So today we’re called to en-courage one another, to proclaim to our neighbors right here, and beyond these walls:

God is calling you:

 flawed and needy as you are, bruised and ordinary as you feel, 

inviting you to name your healing

so that the story can go on.

So take heart, today. Take heart with all your soul.  Call and encourage one another. Listen and respond. For God is calling you.

Some Days...

Job 1:1, 2:1-10

Do any of you know this book?

Some of you know this story better than others, so you'll remember how it starts:

I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on my skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

At breakfast Anthony found a Corvette Sting Ray car kit in his breakfast cereal box and Nick found a Junior Undercover Agent code ring in his breakfast cereal box but in my breakfast cereal box all I found was breakfast cereal.

I think I’ll move to Australia.

Alexander gets the worst seat in the car pool, his teacher doesn’t like his drawing or his singing, his best friend says they aren’t best friends anymore, and then Alexander doesn’t get dessert at lunchtime, while all his friends have yummy treats.

Then they go to the dentist, and he’s the only one with a cavity. (He's going to move to Australia before he has to go back to the dentist!) His brother pushes him into a mud puddle, and when their mom comes back Alexander gets in trouble for fighting back and being dirty. He has to get ugly boring shoes because the cool ones don't come in his size. 
And it just keeps going:

There were lima beans for dinner and I hate lima beans.

There was kissing on TV and I hate kissing.
...It was a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.  

Have you ever had a day like that?

Why do those days happen???  Do you have any ideas?

Well, people have wondered about that for years and years and years and years.  There’s a story in the Bible that comes from 2500 years ago that is about the very same question.  We read a part of that story today.

It’s a story about a man named Job, who has not just one, but a whole LOT of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.  He loses his money and his family, and he gets sick with an awful, icky, itchy disease.

In the story, there are lots of ideas about why this might happen.

The story teller thinks that maybe it’s because God is trying to prove that Job is a very good person who will love God no matter what horrible things happen.

That’s one idea, but personally, I don’t think God messes up our lives just to prove something.  The whole Bible tells us God loves us too much for that.

Job’s friends tell him it must be because Job did something really bad.

It’s true that sometimes bad days happen because we do things we know we shouldn’t do.

But Job knows he didn’t do anything bad like that.

So Job decides that he isn’t going to give up until God comes to explain to him just why he’s having a horrible, awful, very bad year.  He calls God, and calls God, and finally God comes.

What do you think God says to Job?

God talks a lot about the wonders of the world - about wind and storm and stars and whales and mammoths and everything else, and finally Job says: "I get it.  It's just too hard to explain or understand." 

The Bible story tells us that maybe it is just too hard to explain why horrible awful no good things happen, and the only thing we can do is to keep on remembering that God loves us, and God will be with us, even when we can’t understand what’s happening.

And that sometimes, "Why?" isn't the right question, but love and trust are always a good answer.

I think that Alexander might have the same answer at the end of his bad day.

When I went to bed Nick took back the pillow he said I could keep and the Mickey Mouse nightlight burned out and I bit my tongue.

The cat wants to sleep with Anthony, not with me.

It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

My mom says some days are like that.

Even in Australia.

Quotations from Judith Viorst, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, illustrated by Ray Cruz. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, NY, 1972

Using Your Tongue

James 3:1-12 [Mark 8:27-38; Psalm 19]

Have you ever said something and suddenly found your hand flying up to cover your mouth, as though you could shove the words back in?

I have.

Words of anger.

Truths that didn’t belong where I said them.

Or just plain stupid mistakes.

Words are risky things.

Mitt Romney knows something about that this week – about the way what you say can start a firestorm of trouble, a hurricane of words and statements and arguments and criticism. 

Even if you meant to say that.

He’s not the only one. 

Every candidate and most appointed leaders in the world know this (at least everywhere there’s a free press.) And every free press knows this. Many of you know this experience as well as I do, and James the apostle clearly knew it, too.

“All of us make many mistakes.” he says.  And “every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue!”

Think about your tongue for a moment.

Think about its power to shape words – which it does without your conscious direction.  Think about its power to direct your body, your attention, even your whole self.  If someone else got hold of your tongue and pulled – just that tiny bit of you – the rest of you would come along. 

It’s a small but powerful part of the body, and it shapes the world, too.

Year after year, Republicans and Democrats try to shape our experience of today and our plans for the future by the words they choose and the way they use them. 

Our own words about ourselves and our families create “the smart one and the funny one;” our words and their words create the family pariah (or piranha), and the office power-broker.

A few wrong words can break a friendship, and the three little words, “I love you,” spoken honestly, deeply, and often can heal all kinds of injury or create a new future.

When we call God “Father” and “Lord” over and over, we relate to God as a powerful man instead of as, say,  a mother or an artist. There’s a difference between the titles “Messiah” and “prophet,” between death and resurrection as defeat or as salvation – all the questions raised in Jesus’ conversation with the disciples that we heard today.

And James points out that our words about others affect our relationship with God, too.

He marvels at the way our tongues can bless God one minute, and curse a human being – made in God’s image – in the next minute.              How could it not affect our relationship with God to tear down God’s image in another person – even in the most annoying or politically scary person we know?

You and I live in a world where the tongue sets fires every day and hour.  With a cable network for every point of view, an online world where the people we “talk” with are far away and unfamiliar, it grows easier and easier to say inflammatory things. 

Anyone with a Facebook feed or a Twitter account – or for that matter, anyone who reads “Speak Out” in the Lombardian – knows how easy it is to say something destructive about neighbors, the cable company, or any government official or political candidate.

And those words: words we speak, words we hear, words we write and read,

words that spark anger and hate, separation and disgust,

all those words break down our image of God and our ability to bless.

And we need that ability to bless.  Because just as words can destroy, they can also build up.  Words can create a powerful, hopeful future.

Even political words:

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

“It’s morning in America.”
“Yes, we can.”

Those are words of blessing, words that create a world of commitment, and courage, and abundant possibility.  Those words build a new and better world.

So do simple words, like “I love you” or “I’m so happy to see you.”

Calm words in the face of panic, grateful words in the midst of loss; words of thanks and praise for everyday gifts like a helpful clerk, a well-behaved child, a good and easy friendship.

All those are blessings. Blessings that shape our selves and the people around us into the beautiful image of God, words that create a hopeful future and a joyful present.

In the biblical tradition, words of blessing offer praise, and invite God to create growth and abundance; to infuse grace into the world and the ones we bless.

It’s our job, yours and mine, as followers of the Messiah, and as the image of God,

to bless.

To use our tongues to start a fire that gives light to the world, rather than burning it.

To use our tongues to build up, not to tear down, to heal those wounds that other words have left.

So in honor of James,

in honor of a country that shouldn’t be divided by words,

and in honor of God’s word made flesh,

let’s start the blessing, now.

Let’s start by blessing one another, today.

You’ll need a partner for this.  Find someone.

You’ll offer your partner a blessing.

Start by saying something nice.  Not about what they’re wearing, but about what they do or who they are.  If you don’t know your partner well, remember that you know she is made in God’s wonderful image, that you know he is a beloved child of God.

Then ask God to strengthen that beauty, to increase that grace and that love.

If no other words come to you, use the blessing that God taught the people of Israel:

            May God bless you and keep you;

            May God shine light on you and be gracious to you;

            May God look favorably on you and give you peace.

***

Take that blessing with you, and pass it on.

Practice words of blessing this afternoon,

this week, at home and at the office,

online and in your heart.

Offer up the prayer from our psalm today:
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

Because the power of your tongue will change the world.

So let it bless, and build up,

and light up the world.

And may the blessing of God our Creator, who spoke the world into being, and of Christ the Word Incarnate, and of the Spirit who gives breath to our words, be among you this day, and remain with you always. Amen.