“Co-laborers in the Kin-dom of God”
Rev. Rachel Lewis Cooley
Eternal Hope UCC, Fort Walton Beach, FL
October 24, 2021
As we come to our scripture and the message that’s been most in my heart and mind this week, will you take a moment to pray with me?
Oh God who is with us no matter our doubts or our cries or our struggles,
Open our hearts to hear this reflection today, that we might consider changes we can make to leave our past ways behind and actions we can take to notice your kin-dom already here and bring it together, more and more. We know that when we come together as we do today and in other spaces throughout our coming days, your Spirit moves among us toward hospitality and justice and connection among peoples who may seem so different. Remind us of that again today – let it guide us. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing and just in your eyes, oh God, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
Mark 10:46-52 -- The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus
46 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50 So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” 52 Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
Have you ever cried out to God – help me! Help us! Perhaps for personal situations or seemingly meaningless suffering – the illness or death of loved ones, a loss of a relationship or another grief. Or perhaps for the painful global situations we and our neighbors are in – the fact that we seem to all be so biased against each other based on who we love or how we look or where we come from and have all these systems set up to keep some folks on the outs , or the injustice that the wealthy wield such power to get what they want while many are hungry or unable to save for the future or having to work so many hours with so little pay, all to barely get by. There is no doubt there is such injustice in our world. Especially since COVID has changed our ways and caused us to slow down and see some of the exposed suffering. We may have lost loved ones or neighbors and then wonder how this could possibly happen and why more of us aren’t doing all we absolutely can to protect each other. We have learned how neighbors of color – Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latin-a have more often gotten COVID and been hospitalized or died from it than White folks have. The CDC tracks these rates and notes that socioeconomic status, access to health care, and exposure to the virus related to occupation, e.g., frontline, essential, and critical infrastructure workers can be some of the reasons for this gap. In other words, the White Supremacist system which has kept white folks in power and tries over and over in vicious ways to keep People of Color pushed to the sides of what White folks define as society and quality of life is unsurprisingly also causing BIPOC people to suffer more greatly from COVID. As we white folks may see this truth more and more during this season, we may wish to cry out with our siblings of color to say “Help us!”
In our text today, Bartimaus cries out both because he wishes to see and because he is one of those pushed out by greedy and power-hungry others in the Roman empire system. He is a beggar. Because of both his personal and his political situation – if you will – he cries out something that best translated from the Greek is “Help me!” and Jesus hears and responds! The text says Jesus stood still – as if to listen carefully, or as if he is stopped in his tracks by these cries, maybe – and asks those around to call Bartimaus over. “What do you want me to do for you?” is his question. He does not assume that Bartimaus may wish to see – for just because Bartimaus lives differently in the world than many folks do does not mean that blindness is somehow lesser. Neither does Bartimaus’s begging necessarily mean he would wish for riches instead! Jesus does not assume.
We might guess that Bartimaus has heard about Jesus and he wants to follow him. Sight would certainly enable him to better do so. Or we might guess that he is so moved by Jesus’s compassion that he is compelled to follow after witnessing it. We cannot guess as to how Bartimaus was “made well” though – for Jesus is very clear in the text. He says that Bartimaus’s faith has made him well. His faith to cry out without regard for the people around him trying to quiet him, his faith that things could really change for him and perhaps for others too, his faith that if he cries out – Jesus will respond! That his cries may even be needed for Jesus to respond. Jesus does not say “I have made you well” or “Our God has made you well,” but Your faith has made you well! If Jesus did not and even could not know or assume what Bartimaus wanted, maybe we are to read here that Jesus needs to hear our cries in order to know what we are needing and what we are willing to change our lives for. For Bartimaus throws off his cloak, which would have been perhaps his most valued possession as one who lived on the streets and needed to stay warm. He probably also used it as a pillow, or a blanket to sit on or cover up at night. And yet he threw it off as soon as Jesus calls him! It is as if he is willing to leave behind all he has in trust and faith that God will hear his cry and respond. This faith – to cry out and to renounce his former ways and leave behind his immediate comfort, even – is what makes him well!
And when we read “made him well” or “healed” or “saved” in a few other translations, we’re reading a translation from the Greek verb sozo which is a rather ordinary word meaning “rescue.” So, “Your faith has rescued you.” And this rescue is not just “spiritual” – as in Jesus has not just saved him in terms of eternal life or theological salvation. It is clearly also physical, but it is also political – because remember Bartimaus was pushed into begging in a Roman society that did not share with him in the traditional ways of family or occupation. But maybe Bartimaus’s getting by by begging folks to share at least a little with him made him the perfect person to understand that crying out to Jesus is what will bring even more than survival, but life , in a new way, following the way of Jesus and being in the community of folks who were saying no to the Roman empire’s way and yes to a new way. Perhaps getting to the point where we cry out “Help us!” is the moment we say “We can’t do this anymore!” and “We choose a new way!” And then too, our faith will “make us well” not only spiritually, but politically. Our faith will make us well “On earth as it is in heaven.”
For if Jesus is the “Son of David,” as Bartimaus refers to him though Mark’s gospel up to this point has referred to him only as the “Son of Man” not the Son of David – this means we can expect Jesus and following Jesus to impact the ways we live on earth, as a people. “Politically” if you will. For the root word in “politics” really refers to “the concern or care of the people” – though we now today think of it as Republicans vs democrats and federal vs local and most times as a system that seems to be looking out for the rich and powerful rather than the true concern or care of alllllll the people. Jesus did not come to be rich and powerful – he rejects the praise and greatness folks elsewhere in Mark’s gospel try to give to him when referring to the heir of the David. But he accepts the title Son of David without reservation when Bartimaus gives it to him saying “Son of David, help me!” It seems then that while the other folks get the job description for “Son of David” wrong, Bartimaus gets it right. The Son of David has come to serve and to respond to our cries – to rescue us both spiritually and politically. The Son of David can do this when we are willing to change, when we’ve gotten to a breaking point to say “enough is enough, help us!”
So is enough, enough in our society right now? Or in your life situation? Whether many of us know this or not because the main news channels are really not covering it much – many folks are banding together to fight for better pay and conditions right now. A strike currently on going at John Deere is the largest in several years, but there are also strikes at Kellogs and attempts to band together in unions made by the workers and for the will of the workers in Dollar Generals and Starbucks. The Starbucks employees in Buffalo NY and others at Dollar General have been met with threats and monitoring by the corporate-level folks – with Starbucks sending a number of corporate folks in to do quote-unquote “listening sessions” with employees which really include anti-union propaganda and stated hurdles that for instance the employees would have to organize employees at all the stores in Buffalo in order to be allowed to form a union. This kind of intimidation and burdens from the corporate folks is illegal btw, because our ancestors in this country decided the right to organize had to be protected at another point when things got so bad for workers around the industrial revolution timeframe. But the intimidation is going on nonetheless until some of the workers might be able to take legal action – which will also cost them money and time of course. But they and many others do seem now to be saying enough is enough – we will band together and cry out for change. A John Deere factory employee organizing with his co-workers said that they’re also fighting for the future of the middle class because even though some of the older, long-term employees have better benefits and pay scales than some, John Deere along with many other companies has created this two-tier system where the newer and likely younger employees do not get those same benefits and pay scales as the folks who signed earlier contracts. XX said that with children aged 5 to 15 he thinks every day about the future they're inheriting and he cannot let the middle class disappear because of corporate policies like this one which help those CEO’s and folks at the top get richer and richer. It’s as if after COVID laborers are saying okay we’ve worked this hard during this pandemic and in fact made corporations and those at the top a ton of profits – for we can look at stats that profits have actually soared for many companies – and the laborers are saying we’ve done all this for you, what will you do for us? They're saying enough is enough, AND they’re banding together across generations and across Republican vs Democrat lines that we have seen ourselves as divided over. In the case of the John Deere strike, it’s older employees standing together with younger ones to say this is unjust, we will cry out together. I also heard a stat that 40% of the folks had voted for Trump, and the rest had not so there are clearly places where folks are banding together despite these differences that we have lately seen as so great, and which in many ways the media paints as so great. Would we allow 24 hour news channels and popular sources to tell us that we have such irreconcilable differences and are supposedly divided enough to cause a civil war when we see such unity and collective action happening? When we can choose to stand with our neighbors regardless of some of those differences but because we have reached a breaking point where we say enough is enough?
In this context in the US right now, I am honestly still wondering where Bartimaus’s cry and Jesus’s response and Bartimaus walking in a new way and leaving behind his cloak and his past leaves me. I think my working at the spa in low-paid (though there are lower paid) customer service role and listening to my co-workers who have been in customer service much longer than I and who have faced threats that they are replaceable and the customer is always always right and who have felt unappreciated for their seeking to do a really good job in their jobs. I see the way it distorts too the way we act toward one another, with a sense of “well you’re not doing enough, while I’m doing so much!” and “let’s just get this difficult customer out of our hair, even though they just – in one case, at least – yelled, loudly and rudely, at our team member trying to help them, but lets just get them out of here and wash our hands of the situation, not even addressing it with the person who was yelled at and had also done nothing wrong.” I think my asking questions and listening to the hurt of my co-workers is like Jesus listening to Bartimaus, or is like the older John Deere folks listening to the younger ones and seeing the injustice. In what ways will I say “enough is enough?” How can I amplify the voices and sometimes cries of Help us!” of those around me?
I would love to talk to you all about how you might consider raising your voice, and how we might do it together. Are there city council members we can call? House reps? Senators? Are there organizations in the area which are trying to seek justice, and organizing folks to stand together and cry out together? I know there are many organizations doing charitable work in the area – including us when we serve folks who are hungry or without homes on Wednesdays here in Town and Pastor Booth on Thursday’s in Pensacola – and many other churches doing this kind of important work too. But where can we also call out for bigger changes, so these folks maybe aren’t so hungry or without homes in the first place?
What I do have faith in is that God sent God’s beloved Jesus to walk with us – with those who were pushed to the sides and pushed to begging and hated and despised by the system in the Roman empire. As some have said, Were Jesus to walk among us in the US today, he might be a black woman – one of the most hated and disempowered groups in the country who yet show incredible strength and resilience and often insistence on communal care and action. Perhaps Jesus is among them. Perhaps Jesus is in each one of them, and within each of us. So when you cry out – listen. When you say “help me!” consider what you might be willing to leave behind, like Bartimaus leaves his cloak. And know that God hears you, and your cries and action are needed to make change.
May it be so. Amen.