It is true that many figures in the Scriptures give fine examples for how we should behave – but that is not true of this story.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the twenty-first chapter of Genesis (Genesis 21:8-21). It is a troubling story.
It begins well enough. The family of Abraham celebrated the weaning of Isaac, who had been born to Sarah long after anyone thought that that was possible. Then Sarah saw Isaac playing with his older half-brother Ishmael. Now Ishmael existed because Sarah had insisted that Hagar, his mother, conceive a child with Sarah’s husband Abraham. Hagar, as a slave, had no choice in the matter. And so Ishmael was born.
Seeing them playing together, Sarah decided that it was not proper for the son of the slave to be playing with the son of the wife. She insisted that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. And Abraham, reassured by God that God would take care of them, did precisely that.
The second half of the story is familiar to us. Hagar left her son under a bush and went away so that she would not have to watch him die. God spoke to her and guided her to a spring, and so the two survived. It is a rescue from a situation that should not have happened.
The story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael and Isaac is one of those that I hope we look at and say, “We will not emulate the people into this story. We will not take advantage of the neediness or the social place of people in order to provide children or just relief to powerful men. And we will not send helpless people out into the desert with minimal resources and a vague hope that they survive.”
This is one of the places where I read the story and I say: We have to be better than this. We have to be better than our ancestors have shown us.
May it be true for us, for our children and our children’s children.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Jesus’ travels through Galilee disturbed him. D. Mark Davis, writing at LeftBehindAndLovingIt, translates verse 36 as, “Yet having seen the crowd he was wrenched with compassion about them that they were having been harassed and tossed aside like sheep not having a shepherd.” Then he writes: “This verse is chock full of strong language. Jesus’ reaction is not just a sweet feeling of kindness, as if he just saw a flock of cute baby lambs. It is a visceral reaction, as the definition of σπλαγχνίζομαι suggests. I think it reads best as a gut reaction, something like ‘furious compassion.’”
“Furious compassion.” You’ve had that feeling, haven’t you? That’s the feeling when you see that somebody has been misled or abused and you’re not only concerned for them you’re angry on their behalf.
People feeling furious compassion tend to tell others about the feeling. They tend to gather people to witness and understand what’s happening. They tend to organize them to do something about it.
That’s what Jesus did. From a larger group of followers, he selected twelve to take on roles not just as learners, but as leaders. He selected twelve to take on the same work that he had been doing. It was no small commission. “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.”
Every bit of that charge is laden with challenge. The easiest part seems to be first part: proclaim good news. Good news. Who could object to people proclaiming good news?
Well, the first people who object to good news are usually the people who are benefiting from the bad news. They’re the ones setting the rules that protect their wealth and power from the ones without wealth and power. They’re the ones who accused Jesus of healing people’s demons with the power of demons. They’re the ones who eventually got him executed as a rebel – since when you tell people the good news that God is in charge, not the people who say they’re in charge, it is a rebellious act.
Jesus wasn’t done. “Cure the sick” – I’m afraid that’s not one of my skills. “Raise the dead” – I can’t do that. “Cleanse those with a skin disease” – I can put a bandage on it. “Cast out demons” – maybe I can; I’ve never tried. “You received without payment; give without payment” – how ironic is it that tomorrow is payday?
Matthew only gave us Jesus’ side of the assignment here, but my goodness. The disciples must have been saying something along the lines of, “Who me? No way.”
If they said it aloud (Matthew didn’t tell us), I’m pretty sure Jesus said something like, “Yeah, way.”
Christian discipleship – the Way of Jesus – is Assignment: Mercy.
As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Go and proclaim the good news of the kingdom. Go and cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. Go and touch. Go and heal. Go and resurrect. Go and make peace. Go and render believable the compassion of God.”
Assignment: Mercy.
As our myna hopefully learned this morning, mercy doesn’t have to be grand and glowing. Mercy begins with basic consideration. Mercy welcomes others to join in the feast. Mercy steps in to decrease the temperature of a dispute. Mercy. Is attentive to everyone’s safety.
During this weekend’s ‘Aha Pae’aina, called together with the theme of building bridges, there were more than a few exhibits of basic mercy. We greeted one another warmly, with hugs and smiles and aloha spoken and unspoken. We feasted together – my, how we feasted. I’m not sure when I’ll have room to eat anything else again. There were items of disagreement on the agenda, and we addressed them with respect and consideration for the people on either side of the question. And if I can summon up a personal example, while delivering my workshop I froze my feet in their places for a minute or two, because a nine-month old baby was crawling around next to me and I was not going to step on her fingers.
Mercy is also bigger than that. I kept my feet still to avoid hurting a baby. Why can’t the nations of the earth keep our militaries still lest they harm the infants of another nation? Why are we told that it is a virtue to use force ruthlessly and mercilessly? Why are we told that we don’t have the courage to take territory from another nation, instead of being told that our sense of morality prevents us from taking territory from another nation?
Jesus had the opportunity to start a war. When he was arrested, somebody swung a sword. Jesus could have screamed, “Attack!” Instead, Jesus said, “Enough of this,” and healed the injured man.
Assignment: Mercy.
During this ‘Aha, Conference Minister the Rev. Dr. David Popham told me something I hadn’t known – he knows plenty of things that I don’t, of course. He mentioned that Hawai’i has been closely followed by the disaster response people in the UCC and the Disciples of Christ. We’ve been through a lot, for sure: the 2018 Puna eruption here, the fires on Maui in 2023, this year’s series of Kona low storms. He joked, in fact, that sometimes they would call him and tell him things that he didn’t know, which was probably because the local people who would call the Conference were still busy dealing with the situation in front them, while those whose professions it is to assess disasters were communicating with our national church staff.
The point is that we have friends. We have neighbors who meet the definition Jesus provided to “Who is my neighbor?” Do you remember? “Who is my neighbor” was the question that launched the story of the Good Samaritan – and the neighbor was the one who showed mercy.
Assignment: Mercy.
All right. Have I made that point enough? How are you going to fulfill your assignment?
You do it with everything you’ve got. Yes, that’s a big ask. Yes, it’s a lot to give. And in some instances, yes, it’s not going to be enough.
Assignment: Mercy is a call to stay attentive to the small mercies, to the politenesses, the sharings, the protections. None of us can possibly be aware of everything going on around us, but if we can we can look right and left before crossing the street, we can look right and left to see what’s going on with our neighbors. It’s a call to ask about needs and not assume them. A person in a wheelchair may appreciate some assistance from you on a streetcorner, but they also may not. Be vigilant, and let your vigilance include the simple politeness of asking, “How are you doing?” followed, perhaps, by, “What do you need?”
Assignment: Mercy is a call to stay attentive to the big mercies, to the relief from systemic oppression and suffering, from the prejudices of social pressure and the discrimination of unjust law. Assignment: Mercy is a call to remind the world that war simply isn’t the Way of Jesus, no matter what awful things the Church has said to the contrary in the past. Assignment: Mercy insists that people be held accountable for the harms they bring to others, that they be held accountable through an open and transparent process of law, and that those in power shall have no special influence in the adjudication of the crimes of which they’re accused. Assignment: Mercy further calls us to bring people into society as well as we can, to make sure that neither habit nor desperation are major forces to drive people to criminal behavior.
Assignment: Mercy is a call to show that a loving God has had a powerful and positive influence on our lives. It is a call to testify to the grace that God has demonstrated in the world: in Creation, in guidance, in wisdom, in the poetry of the Psalms, in the restoration of distressed people, in the birth, life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus, in the activity of the Holy Spirit from the first century to the twenty-first.
At this point, I am sorely tempted to parody the opening of an episode of Mission: Impossible. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to show God’s mercy to a hurting world. If you are caught or captured in this mission, God will not disavow, but will celebrate your actions.
Actually, you want to be caught at this. Let everybody see. Let everybody know. You have accepted: Assignment: Mercy.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes as he preaches, so the sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.
Jesus set his closest associates on the challenging assignment of bringing compassion to those who needed it so. We have the same assignment.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth chapters of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 9:35-10:8).
This section begins with Jesus’ observation that the people of the villages that he had met were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. There was more work to be done than he could do himself. He summoned twelve from amongst his followers, and he gave them power and authority.
He appointed them to be ambassadors of the movement, to go out and visit these other villages. There, he directed them, proclaim the good news that the realm of God is drawing near. Cast out the demons, heal the sick, and by the way, make no preparation as you go. Don’t save any money, don’t bring even any extra clothing.
It was, and it is, a tough assignment. I would argue that we as disciples today: we are the heirs of those twelve. We are still asked to do something about bringing the reign of God closer to being in the world. To do what we can for the sick, to comfort those who are pressed by evil spirits, and to assist those who are pressed by evil people. We continue in this long tradition of seeing what is wrong in the world, and bringing good news and good action to those who suffer to those in need.
Proclaim the good news that the realm of God is near. Bring healing and comfort and assurance, and you will be doing the work of Jesus.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
Do you remember the Pushmi-Pullyu from Doctor Dolittle? The fictional animal (I repeat, fictional) had a body like an antelope or a llama, with a head at both ends and with two pairs of legs and feet that pointed in the same direction as the head and neck above them. According to author Hugh Lofting, the two heads allowed one to eat and the other to carry on a conversation without being rude.
Nevertheless, I can imagine that the two heads didn’t always agree, and I can imagine that that would have been remarkably awkward.
Religion and spirituality have a pushme-pullyou dimension – all religions, as far as I can tell. On the one side, we’ve got the impulse toward a direct relationship with God. People do a lot of things to build that and maintain it. We pray by ourselves. We worship with others. We place art with religious themes around us. We perform certain rituals that we believe God has asked us to do, which includes our practice of Holy Communion, by the way. We dedicate ourselves to furthering that primary relationship.
The other dimension is to do things that we believe God has asked us to do in relation to other human beings. It’s been widely claimed, with pretty good justification, that the “golden rule” of treating people as you’d like to be treated is part of every religious tradition. That’s hard to prove, but check out the Wikipedia article on the Golden Rule sometime. Researchers have found it in a lot of faiths and cultures.
When asked about the Greatest Commandment, Jesus first quoted Deuteronomy 6, which says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might.” Jesus then followed up with a reference to Leviticus 19: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
There’s the pushme-pullyou again – Jesus didn’t say doing both at once was easy. But he did seem to think there were priorities.
Jesus appeared to have an odd reputation among his fellow rabbis. They paid attention to him. They respected him enough to invite him as a special guest when he visited their villages. He also puzzled them, sometimes quite a lot. Why would a respectable religious leader and teacher summon a tax collector to follow him? I suppose it’s nice that the man abandoned the disgraceful, collaborationist work, but make him an associate? I mean, eat with him?
Quite aside from ritual uncleanness, that’s gross.
How many people have never been invited to your table because something they’ve done or said or represented is, to you, gross?
For myself, I don’t know. I’ve lost count.
It made a huge difference for Matthew. As Amy Frykolm writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “He is sitting, literally, at the table of his unhealthy and degraded identity as tax collector. Toward him walks the ‘source of life’s fullness.’ The English writer, Jeannette Winterson, says that many great stories begin this way. Once upon a time, there was a person in circumstances that weren’t all that they hoped for. And then there was an encounter. In a moment, the bare facts of what is changed to what if, the expansion of possibility.”
It made all the difference in the world.
Jesus’ rabbinic colleagues were right to be leery. Let’s get that straight. They were following guidance from Law and Prophets that emphasized personal piety and practice to maintain faithfulness to God. They were praying, fasting, worshiping, and resting on the Sabbath. They were doing, frankly, things that we should be doing.
But that’s just one side of the pushme-pullyou.
Remember the other side? Love your neighbor as yourself.
Centuries before, the people of Israel, the northern of the two nations which had split after the death of David’s son Solomon, heard an earnest and, let’s face it, rather troubled prophet named Hosea try to remind them that their national practice of worship and ritual was not enough to maintain the covenant with God. Whatever they did during the week to treat others badly, they firmly believed that their piety won them forgiveness. “Let us press on to know the LORD;” Hosea quotes them as saying, “his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
But what about the other side of the pushme-pullyou?
“I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,” Hosea wrote, quoting God this time, “the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Centuries later, Jesus quoted Hosea quoting God to those who asked about hanging out with all these sinners. “Go and learn what this means,” he said: “’I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”
If you’ve been listening really carefully, you may have noticed that those quotes don’t match. “I desire steadfast love,” it says in Hosea; “I desire mercy,” it says in Matthew. The reason is that the Hebrew word Hosea used, “hesed,” doesn’t have a one-to-one translation in English or in first century Greek. It means steadfast love, and it means mercy, and it means loyalty, and it means grace.
Commit to steadfast love, mercy, loyalty, and grace to those around you, said Jesus. That’s more important than prayer and fasting and worship and resting at the right time.
God desires mercy from us for them.
It’s also true that God desires mercy from them to us. Personally, I don’t have as much control over the way other people treat me as I’d like. Like you, I’m relying on that foundational teaching of the Golden Rule in Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, Yoruba, and a host of faiths whose names I’ve never heard to guide their adherents into care, compassion, and mercy for their fellow travelers on the road of life.
Look hard enough at any religion, look hard enough at Christianity, and you’ll find justification to treat other people badly. In Christianity it isn’t that hard, to tell you the truth (I suspect that’s true in plenty of other faiths as well).
Before you pull out that excuse, however, remember Hosea and Jesus and a lot of other Biblical writers, all of whom insisted that God desires mercy from us and for us.
Mercy. It’s more powerful than all the pious actions we might do.
Mercy.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes from his prepared text as he preaches – sometimes he means to do it, and sometimes he doesn’t.
The prophets said it. Jesus said it. God desires mercy.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the ninth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 9:9-13, 8-26). This follows the conclusion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. I read it as Jesus providing examples, demonstration, embodying, if you will, the very teachings that the Sermon on the Mount is filled with.
There are a lot of healings here, and Jesus healed some people that you might not expect. This section begins with Jesus calling somebody that people would not have expected. He summoned Matthew, a tax collector, to join him amongst his followers. Some of the other religious leaders had questions, and they went to Jesus’ disciples and asked why it was that the Teacher welcomed tax collectors and sinners and even ate with them.
Religious leaders didn’t do that. It was important in those days that religious leaders maintained themselves as clean in order to perform their functions.
Jesus responded by reminding them of something that the prophets had said over and over again. Quoting them, quoting God, Jesus said, “Go and learn what it means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
The cleanliness was all about being prepared to properly offer the devotional sacrifices of the Temple or of the Tabernacle. The prophets had rightly pointed out, and Jesus rightly reinforced it, that God’s preoccupation with human behavior is not exclusively or even primarily with the sacrificial practices. God’s concern with human behavior is the way we treat one another.
And how are we to treat one another? With mercy and not with some kind of self-righteous piety.
People in the ancient world: they got that wrong over and over again, which is why the prophets had to keep saying it. People in Jesus’ day got that wrong over and over again, and that is why Jesus had to say it. In our day, people get it wrong over and over again, and that’s why I have to repeat it.
God desires mercy, not some kind of pietistic religious practice, that may or may not do something about our own relationship with God, but does nothing for the other people for whom God cares.
God desires mercy for everybody around us, and God desires mercy for us as well.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
I’m thinking about the Beatitudes this week, and what they tell us about who the saints in our lives have been.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the sixth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:20-31), the opening to what Luke called the Sermon on the Plain. That is not the regular Gospel reading found in the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday. You see, at Church of the Holy Cross we observe All Saints Day on the last Sunday in October. This reading is from the All Saints portion of the lectionary.
It seemed suitable because we will be remembering those who have blessed us with their lives. And so it seemed right to go to the Beatitudes: blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who weep, blessed are those who are hated for Jesus’ sake.
More than that, though, there was Jesus’ advice (once he had gone through the blessings and, in Luke, gone through the woes). He said, “I say to you that listen: love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.”
Isn’t that the difference between the ones who made our lives better and the ones who made our lives worse?
There are plenty of people in the world — and plenty of people who will tell you that this is a virtue — who require evil for evil. They demand to be paid back for what has happened to them. Or they are out in front of it. “Do unto them before they do unto you,” is one way I’ve heard it expressed.
That’s not Jesus. For Jesus, it’s bless those who hate you, do good to those who seek to harm you.
And this is the advice, the direction, the demand that Jesus made of us who claim to follow Christ. Do good. Don’t hate. Don’t harm.
Isn’t that why we honor those we call saints? Isn’t that what we saw in them that makes us miss them? That made us love them? That makes us love them still? They did good for us and for others around them. They followed the directions of Jesus. They were and they are the Saints of God.
So we will remember them and honor them coming Sunday and, yes, with every moment of memory in our lives.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
The four Gospel writers had a common task – to help their readers understand the nature and significance of Jesus the Christ – but each had different notions of how to go about it. All four chose a different way to describe Jesus’ entry into ministry after his baptism and the gathering of his first disciples.
Last week we heard John’s version. He told the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the first of his signs. What did it signify? Jesus’ power, yes, but also his compassion and his abundant grace.
Mark, probably the first of the Gospel writers, had a similar idea. He focused on Jesus’ healing ministry to begin his account. Matthew took some time, lingering over the stories of John the Baptist and the forty days in the wilderness, before giving us the words of Jesus in what we call the Sermon on the Mount.
For Luke, the best way to introduce Jesus was to hear him read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And then to hear him say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
The quote came from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah. Five hundred years before Jesus, the grandchildren of those taken into exile in Babylon read those words and took heart that they might be able to return to Jerusalem. They were the captives; they were the ones oppressed. They hoped and prayed for a year in which God favored them.
Their prayers were answered. The Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians, who felt no need to retain custody of their former enemies’ former enemies. The reading we heard from Nehemiah this morning is the account of a celebration held in the rebuilt Jerusalem. It was the people’s rededication to their faith, a day which brought such a range of emotion. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “It’s an astonishing image of a communal Bible reading experience that takes a diverse group of people on a journey from attentiveness to comprehension to affirmation to wonder to grief to worship to joy to celebration. I read it over and over again with an aching sense of need, desire, and envy. When was the last time I read the Bible with such sustained attentiveness and expectation? When was the last time I savored the sweetness and the sorrow it contains?”
In the reading of the Law, the people of Jerusalem affirmed their identity as people of God.
Jesus, likewise, chose to identify himself with this reading from Isaiah, speaking in the synagogue of his childhood. Karoline Lewis asks at Working Preacher, “What would be the words that could sum you up? How much are you willing to reveal about yourself, to the world, to others, even to yourself? I know it’s Jesus, but still, these are bold words. You want to know who I am and why I am here? Well, here you go, and no euphemistic, metaphorical, or figurative hermeneutical gymnastics allowed. What if Jesus really means what he says because it says who he is?”
Bold indeed. Jesus declared that his ministry would be one to bring good news to the poor. He would proclaim release to the captives. He would bring vision to the blind. He would set free the oppressed. He would proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
That message went over well. For a bit. The next sentence in Luke reads, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Not to give anything away, especially because I believe Rev. Weible may preach on the next part of this story next Sunday, but it went downhill from there. I admit that Jesus said some rather pointed things, but by the end of the story, the people with whom he’d grown up wanted to push him off a cliff.
I guess that’s what happens when you ask people for mercy.
As you know, this is my last Sunday leading worship before beginning a three-month sabbatical. I can make a case that this is following the example of Jesus. Just before he spoke in that synagogue in Nazareth, he’d spent forty days on a wilderness retreat. A sabbatical is sort of my wilderness retreat, though I hope to avoid lengthy encounters with the Tempter during it. It is a time to prepare for resumed ministry. As for why it will take me eighty-eight days where it only took Jesus forty, well, I’m not Jesus.
I almost cancelled the sabbatical. I strongly considered it after the election results in November. I anticipated then that we were in for some very hard times, and I didn’t and don’t want to abandon you in them. I told the Council this, but I also told them that I’d decided to take the sabbatical. The simple truth is that we’ve gone through a lot these last eight years and my reserves are getting pretty thin. I do think we’ve got rough times ahead and I need to be at my best to get through them with you. I ask for your prayers that I can be the pastor you need me to be.
Just so you know, I will be guided by these words of Jesus. I will speak good news to the poor. I will call for release for the captives. I can’t do much about blindness of the eye, but I will do my level best to increase the vision of the heart. I will shout for liberty for the oppressed.
These are the things that make a year of the Lord’s favor.
May they be fulfilled in your hearing.
I was not going to speak about events this week. There have been a flurry of actions of which I disapprove, things that I think are bad policy, things that I think are potentially catastrophic in their folly, things that I think will cause great harm to people. If I am guided by these words of Jesus, I will have a good deal to say about such things over the next few years. Oh, yes. But I thought I’d let it wait. It was enough, I thought, to reflect on the implications of Jesus’ adoption of Isaiah’s commitment.
I thought I’d let it wait even after hearing the words of the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde. Bishop Budde does not need me to supplement her or explain her. She preached the Gospel. She said, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
She asked someone to have mercy. I don’t need to add anything to that.
“(1) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism; and
(2) the House of Representatives condemns the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s distorted message.”
To be clear, the House has not yet passed any such resolution. It’s been introduced and referred to committee.
She asked for mercy.
They said, “No.” Not only that, they’re claiming that the mere request for mercy, delivered by a pastor from her own pulpit, is political activism and a distorted message. This is literally a branch of government seeking to define what is true religion.
Maya Angelou wrote in Letter to My Daughter, “My dear, when people show you who they are, why don’t you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can’t you get it the first time?”
Jesus told us who he was: one who would bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, vision to those who would not see, liberty for the oppressed. Jesus told us, and Jesus fulfilled it before the people of Nazareth, of Galilee, of Judea, of the world.
This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Bishop Budde did the same. She asked for mercy. This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Please God that when I’m back with you, I will bring good news, calls for release, vistas of vision, and the promise of liberty.
May this scripture be fulfilled in your hearing.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, so the prepared text above may not match what he actually said.
The illustration is “The Rejection of Jesus in Nazareth” (“Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown”); 18th-century tile panel by António de Oliveira Bernardes in the Igreja da Misericórdia, in Évora, Portugal. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97133284.
What is the purpose of Christian gathering? To encourage love and good deeds. It’s that simple and that important.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the tenth chapter of the book of Hebrews (Hebrews 10:11-25).
Hebrews concentrates on theology. Specifically, Hebrews makes the case that in Jesus’ death and resurrection God’s forgiveness is fully accomplished, fully realized, fully obtained. There is no reason to continue older religious practices — ancient religious practices — that invited God’s forgiveness, that requested God’s love. In Jesus, the author of Hebrews says, we have obtained all the forgiveness we could ask for and more.
So Hebrews is not a terribly practical book. It is not oriented towards giving us advice about how to live a faithful life.
At the end of this section, however, much of which is concerned with Jesus granting us forgiveness, the author did invite us to some fairly practical things. The author invited us to consider how we might encourage one another to love and good deeds, and the author also advised that we not neglect to gather together as apparently some were staying apart.
Love and good deeds: these are staples of ancient religion. They go back to Moses and Abraham, and of course it was a central message of Jesus himself.
The gathering together, however, that is an interesting one. It reveals the purpose for which we gather together. We gather together so that we can encourage and support one another in the love and in the doing of good things. It’s harder to love people when they are at a distance, not just because of heartache, but also because of lack of knowledge, of lack of encounter, of lack of that special sharing between people who are dedicated to one another’s welfare.
Didn’t we, in the last four years, experience so much loss in not being able to gather together? And yes, gathering was risky, dangerous even, but in less risky times in gathering together we can encourage one another to love and to acts of mercy.
Christians have been struggling to do this for 2000 years. People of faith have been struggling to do it for millennia. So let us make it as easy upon ourselves as we can.
I invite you to our Sunday gatherings in person or, if you must ,on line. I invite you to be there so that we can encourage one another in love and deeds of mercy.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
The healing of Bartimaeus has some distinct differences from other healing stories in the Gospel of Mark. Just to start, Mark knew – and so we know – Bartimaeus’ name. Most of the time in this book we never hear the names of those healed. We don’t know the name of the first person Jesus healed in the synagogue in Capernaum, nor the name of the man whose friends lowered him through a hole in the roof of a house. We don’t know the name of the man whose demons Jesus banished into a herd of pigs.
Until… Bartimaeus.
Bartimaeus took more initiative than most of the others. People tended to bring their family members and neighbors to Jesus for healing. Bartimaeus, however, shouted from his place at the side of the road. Those around him – presumably his friends and neighbors – tried to silence him rather than assist him to Jesus.
This is also the first time that someone has sought healing using a Messianic title. “Son of David” meant someone who was part of the ancient royal line descended from King David. To call someone “Son of David,” declared them to be the legitimate ruler of the nation. It was a cry of rebellion against the Herodian kings and the Roman Empire.
Which is probably why they tried to silence him. “Son of David” was dangerous talk.
As Matt Skinner writes at Working Preacher, “For Bartimaeus, the title obviously indicates that Jesus is God’s designated agent, and it introduces the notion of Jesus as a royal figure, an image that becomes very important when Jesus enters Jerusalem (11:1-10), goes on trial (15:1-15), and dies (15:16-32) as a king. Bartimaeus, despite his blindness and all its connotations of spiritual ignorance (compare 4:12; 8:18), sees the royal dimensions of Jesus’ identity. As the story progresses, we discover that Bartimaeus also discerns that Jesus is specially able to show mercy and heal.”
Not only does this story offer plenty of contrasts with Jesus’ other healings, it offers a lot of contrasts with other events in this chapter, chapter ten of Mark’s Gospel. That question Jesus asked Bartimaeus? “What do you want me to do for you?” It’s the same question Jesus asked James and John in verse thirty-six. James and John, remember, asked for positions of power and privilege. Bartimaeus asked to see again.
Go back a little further in chapter ten and you’ll find that conversation between Jesus and a wealthy man. Jesus asked him to sell what he had and follow him. The man went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Bartimaeus had one possession: a cloak. As Luis Menendez-Antuna writes at Working Preacher, “The cloak here is not only an aesthetic garment. For individuals living below poverty levels, the cloak is a piece that provides warmth in hostile weather conditions, a valuable piece that would allow them to sleep at night or to throw it in front of them to collect money. The garment is also a sign of status and power… the garment represents the little power he owns.”
Did you catch it? When Bartimaeus made his way to Jesus, he cast the cloak aside. As the story ended, Bartimaeus did what the rich man had not done: he left behind his possessions and followed Jesus.
And as D. Mark Davis observes at LeftBehindAndLovingit, “The last time someone shouted outside of Jericho, the walls fell down.”
There was something else Bartimaeus shouted. It wasn’t just the title “Son of David.” He called for mercy. In Greek, it’s only two words: “Eleison me.” “Mercy me.”
If that word “eleison” sounds familiar at all, it’s one of the most ancient Christian prayers. In Greek it goes, “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison” – “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.”
Have mercy.
Mercy.
The curious thing that stood out to me in this passage, among all the other curious things, is that this is the last story Mark told about Jesus’ ministry before his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The colt, the cloaks, the leafy branches, and the shouts of Hosanna – they’re the next thing in the book. So Mark used this story to close his account of Jesus’ words and actions prior to the climactic events of Jerusalem. The thing I noticed is that Mark also opened his account of Jesus’ ministry by describing a healing, the casting out of an unclean spirit in chapter one.
In Mark, the first thing and the last thing Jesus did was heal. Acts of power and compassion. Deeds of mercy.
Mercy.
Eleison.
There are a lot of ways to understand God. God is the great Creator, the Power that grants existence not just to the world but to the universe. God is the figure of Wisdom and insight who promises success and prosperity to those who follow. God is the freedom-granter, the Law-giver, and the community organizer who doesn’t just rescue people from slavery but gives them the structures which will permit them to live well. God is also the Judge, frequently the irritated judge, who responds to human rebellion and sin with warning, decision, and consequences.
God is all of those things. Emphasize one too much and you will have a distorted theology, and heaven knows we’ve seen that often enough. Jesus, however, demonstrated a fundamental quality of God in the way that he lived his life and exercised his ministry. Mark picked up on it and made sure we’d see it.
Mercy. God as revealed in Jesus Christ is merciful.
Think for a moment about the saints we honor today, the people whose loss we mourn but whose lives we celebrate. Why? Were they movers and shakers, wealthy and powerful? Did they speak and the world listened? By and large, no.
But I’m pretty sure that along the way, they gave us mercy.
They dried our tears when we wept. They sat by us in the storm. They showed us the way when we were lost. They fed us good things when we were hungry. They pitched in when we needed help. They gave us words of wisdom when we were confused. They visited us when we were sick. They did things for us and for other people because they cared.
Very few of them would have been called “great” by the world. You’ve heard people scorn the merciful as weak and inconsequential. You’ve heard them praise strength and power and ruthlessness.
The world doesn’t know what greatness is.
Think about these people you honor today. They had successes. They had achievements. They had triumphs. We honor them for it. But are those the things that won your heart? Are those the things you miss?
Isn’t it the deeds of love and mercy that made them great to you?
It’s the deeds of love and mercy that made them like Jesus.
As you come forward to light candles in their memory today, let your memories of their compassion be strong and bright. And as you return from lighting that candle, let your commitment to their compassion be stronger and brighter yet. Let their deeds of love and mercy inspire you to your deeds of love and mercy. From the first to the last, let the healing of the earth be your goal and your desire.
Be like Jesus.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, and he certainly made some changes this morning.
From first to last, Jesus grounded his ministry in mercy.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the tenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 10:46-52).
This is the last story that Mark told about Jesus’ ministry before his entry into Jerusalem. Chapter eleven begins with that story of the triumphant entry into the city. So what did Mark use as the very last story he chose to tell before describing the events of Holy Week?
He talked about a healing.
A blind man who begged for his living called Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was near. He called out, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” — a pretty daring thing to say. “Son of David” was a royal title and speaking such words in Jericho, not far from Jerusalem, well. That was dangerous. People around him tried to keep him quiet, probably for their sake as much as for his, but Jesus heard the commotion and said, “Bring him to me.”
“What do you want?” Jesus asked Bartimaeus and Bartimaeus asked to see.
Another healing.
Mark began his account of Jesus’ ministry pretty much with a healing. Jesus went to a synagogue and there healed a man with a withered arm [Author’s note: it’s actually an exorcism; I got mixed up], and so began his account of Jesus’ actions and words in Galilee. From first to last, Jesus’ ministry among us was grounded in mercy.
“Son of David, have mercy on me.”
Jesus brought to the people around him not just power — plenty of people bring power. Jesus brought a willingness, indeed an eagerness, to use the power that he had for others’ benefit, to make their lives better, to bring them healing, to restore to them what they had lost and sought to find again.
Bartimaeus went away rejoicing.
Jesus went away to give his final act of mercy, challenging the authorities in the city, and at their hands going to the cross.
Mercy is what drove Jesus from first to last. Can mercy drive us from first to last?
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
