Bishop Laurie gave a powerful video sermon for World Hunger Sunday that was filled with truth and connection. The Gospel was on Jesus healing Bartimaeus, the blind man who cried out too loudly "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
Her sermon started by reporting this is a time of "good news" and "bad news". She described the bad news by saying that we are in a time of deep transition where we are living between "certainties" - what some call a liminal space. We are swimming in rapid change where millions of our siblings have died due to the pandemic. She touched on climate change and a reckoning with racism in America that we have not seen in decades. We are polarized as a result as well.
The good news is that God uses times of transition to make transformation. Bishop Laurie's great grandfather was a blacksmith who, she said, knew that iron and other metals are only forged into something new is when they are hot after being in the middle of a furnace. The only way thick metal can be transformed is through heat and that seems to be how God works. Throughout Mark, the disciples do not understand the road tot the cross anymore than we really can. The temptation is to make the best of life's circumstances and situations. The disciples squabble and attempt to be the best they can be in Jesus eyes. The intensity of what they are going through is the heat, It blinds them just as we are blinded as we try to cope with what we perceive as the hardships in our lives.
It also leads to trying to divide people between "them and us". This is how Bartimaeus is portrayed in the gospel by the disciples, A man proclaiming Jesus a little too much and a little too loudly. He is ordered to be quiet because he is not behaving the way they do. Yet Jesus does not make that distinction. Jesus, instead, rewards him by calling to personally see Bartimaeus. Jesus is teaching the disciples on this journey to Jerusalem this lesson precisely because this is a time of transition that is moving them away from what was expected in life.
Bishop Laurie then moves to others in the Bible who are described in painful transitions in their life. She gives Biblical examples. For instance Saul's blindness as his former ego identity breaks down. He accepts Jesus and becoming Paul. And there is the example of Leah, as she becomes fully humble in following and loving God through her marriage to Jacob. She gives him four sons, which was of utmost importance in their world and, despite that she was not noticed. Both Saul and Leah dared to be vulnerable and connected in a true way with God and others. They were forged and transformed by their experiences.
This is where the details in the gospel about Bartimaeus comes in. He acts like a fool in the eyes of others in the hope of being transformed. With this in mind, Bishop Laurie turned to confession about her models of leadership which emphasized the power of vulnerability over the person who can do it all or lead people by the strength of individual vision. She had been encouraged to read the Gospel through the eyes of the most vulnerable.
As she read today's Gospel she saw she wanted to be healed from blindness to her white privilege. She prays for the courage to be like Bartimaeus in what she is willing to do for transformation. She said as we invite a transition that some may think we are silly or crazy but the momentary judgement of our contemporaries do not matter as much as the possibility of a potential transformation like Bartimaeus experienced.
What does Bartimaeus do when Jesus calls him to come? He throws off his cloak, his protection, and what shields him from harsh truths of the world that he lives and operates in. He springs up and comes to Jesus. Not yet healed but now ready to ask fervently of Jesus "My teacher, let me see again." After Jesus pronounces him healed, his sight is restored. Afterwards he is able to, and does, follow Jesus on the way.
So may it be for us in this time of transition to take advantage of the God-given opportunity we have to forge new relationships. Amen.
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