Today is Reformation Sunday, the Sunday before October 31, the anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing 95 topics for debate on a cathedral door in Germany in 1517. In 2006 we don't celebrate Reformation Sunday the way it may have been celebrated many years ago. In times past Protestant Churches sometimes used Reformation Sunday as an opportunity to point out the faults of the Roman Catholic Church, while conveniently forgetting the faults of Protestantism. This morning I want to recognize Reformation Sunday as important to our history as Presbyterians within the larger Protestant family.
In the sixteenth century a German man of peasant stock was on his way to becoming a lawyer. His career path took a sudden turn when, after a near-death experience in a thunderstorm, he made a vow to Saint Anne to become a monk if she delivered him from dying in the storm. He survived the storm and kept his promise, much to the displeasure of his father. As a monk, he read and studied the Bible, and he lectured in theology. In his reading of Paul's letters to the Romans and to the Galatians, Martin Luther became convinced that the Christian Church as it existed in Europe at that time, had corrupted the message of the Gospel, and had, in fact, become corrupt itself as an institution. He set about to reform the church by returning it to its original understanding of the gospel and by reducing the power of the Bishop of Rome, otherwise know as the Pope.
The Church's original understanding of the gospel was rooted in its experience of Jesus as crucified and risen. Because Jesus was alive to them in an inexplicable way, the earliest Christians lived in the confidence that God's loving presence was available to them in life and in death. And so they lived with hope and joy—not na�vely, but realistically. They told stories about people for whom God's presence had opened the way to what they called salvation, which for them meant wholeness, spiritual centeredness, and even bodily health.
Our Gospel lesson tells about a man named Bartemaeus, a man who apparently had been able to see at some point in his life but had become blind, necessitating a life of begging by the side of the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. In Mark's version of the story, which is in three of the four Gospels, Bartemaeus asks for help from Jesus when he learns he is passing by. Jesus restores sight to the eyes of Bartemaeus and sends him on his way, commending him for the faith exhibited in his request for help.
Barbara Brown Taylor, one of the great preachers of our day, says somewhere that "The problem with miracles is that it is hard to witness them without wanting one of your own." She's right. I've been there. I wanted one of my own. I didn't get the kind of miracle I wanted, the kind the man in Mark's story got.
Elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus made it clear that his mission was about far more than wonder-working. He came to reveal the heart of God, to make known the nature of the power at the center of the universe. Jesus didn't heal all the people who were sick, blind, depressed, or otherwise disabled in his region during the years of his ministry. As Jesus' life unfolded, it became obvious that not even people of faith got all their requests granted.
What they got was the assurance that the power of love, God's love and human love at its best, is stronger than anything life can hold. There is no circumstance, no situation, no loss that is beyond the scope of God's care. Life may take us through experiences we cannot explain. Life may take away from us people whom we love deeply, or pets who have become like family. Life may lead us through sickness and pain, our own or that of other people, and we are always loved by God, who is with us in every moment. Life will end in death for all of us, and God will be with us then—and thereafter.
A couple of the details in Mark's narrative are worth a closer look. Did you notice the reaction of the crowd when Bartemaeus began calling out to Jesus for help? They must have been good Presbyterians. They told the man to stop causing a commotion and to act properly: "Be quiet. Sit down. Where is your dignity?"
Have you ever known you needed help but were too proud, too reserved, too shy, too embarrassed to ask for it? What voices in your head were you listening to? Those that said, "Be quiet. We don't talk about our problems outside the family. You should be able to handle your problem yourself. Don't be a weakling. Chin up"? And so you withdrew into isolation, or cried in a darkened room. But you couldn't find a way to risk being vulnerable, a way to ask for help.
A colleague of mine in ministry tells of accepting a call to a congregation in a small town. He had the feeling his ministry wasn't making a difference because the people in his church were very resistant to change. He began having coffee or lunch with various people who showed up at the local diner. They were not members of his congregation, but they seemed to enjoy sharing some food and their work experiences. Among them were the chief of police, the town librarian, the manager of a car dealership, and the principal of the elementary school.
A year or two into his pastorate, he got a call from the car dealership manager, asking if they could talk privately. When they met, the manager told the pastor that his life was falling apart and he could no longer act as though everything was fine. He said something like, "I know I need help, but I don't know how to ask for it." The two men started meeting regularly, taking steps toward openness and honesty. The manager eventually started seeing a therapist and working on the issues he had repressed for decades. The pastor realized his ministry was not limited to his congregation and gained satisfaction from being helpful to someone who took the risk of being vulnerable like Bartemaeus, the blind beggar.
What did Bartemaeus do when the crowd told him to be quiet? His cries grew louder, and when Jesus invited him to come closer, he threw off his cumbersome cloak, sprang up, and ran to Jesus. I wonder about that cloak. I'm sure it provided warmth, and it probably provided the comfort of familiarity. It was a long-time friend, like Colline's overcoat in the fourth act of La Boheme.
Bartemaeus threw off his cloak so that he could leap to his feet and run to Jesus unencumbered. What is there in your life, in my life, that weighs us down and restricts our freedom to run toward wholeness and spiritual health? Is it a kind of false pride; or an addiction to control, to money, or to sex, food or alcohol; or bondage to propriety? Bartemaeus's courage gives me strength to look at myself and to take a searching and fearless inventory of the cumbersome cloaks I wear and need to throw away. Are there any cloaks in your closet, or around your shoulders that you need to give to the Salvation Army, where they will serve a need you have outgrown or need to outgrow?
At the heart of the story is Jesus, of course, calm, heading toward Jerusalem for his rendez-vous with destiny. He is centered, focused, and loving, radiating a gentle authority that was and is magnetic.
The authority people saw (and see) in Jesus is the authority of one who knows the meaning of life, who knows the One who is the author of history, the source of existence—and who is not afraid, because he trusts the God of love.
Some time ago I had lunch with a man who took interim ministry training when I took it—in 1998. Jack is an ordained minister, and he's about half my age. We became friends during the training. A year later, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It almost killed him. He underwent long and difficult chemotherapy. Then he learned he would need further surgery to remove a questionable lymph node in his abdomen.
We had stayed in touch by way of email, and Jack asked for a face-to-face meeting. At lunch he asked me to tell him what I believe about God and the reality of suffering. He comes form a conservative church background, and his struggle with cancer had caused him to question the theological formulations he had affirmed for many years. He asked me what I believed after losing my daughter to the disease of alcoholism a few years prior to our conversation.
What I told him is basically this: There are mysteries in life I can't explain. I don't believe that sickness, blindness, or addiction to alcohol are God's punishment for sin, nor do I believe that praying right, believing right, and living right will spare anyone from the curve balls life can sometimes throw at us.
My faith rests on my trust in God, whose love is the deepest reality I know. God has not answered all my prayers the way I would have liked. But God has been present with me, present for me, even in the times of my deepest grief. I trust my life and those I love to such a God, who is my higher power.
As Jack and I left the restaurant, we shared a hug, which was long and strong. He was in no hurry to let go, and neither was I. It was an immersion in love—God's love and human love, the dynamic that heals, that enabled Bartemaeus to regain his sight so long ago. And it was the promise of hope, because nothing can separate us from the love of God, in life or in death.