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A sermon preached on October 25, 2009 based upon Mark 10:46 – 52.

A week ago Friday I took my son Bobby out of school in order to attend the funeral of a thirteen year old boy named Derek.   Bobby hadn’t really known the boy — not really.   Derek played on another youth soccer team that plays in New Jersey on the same elite level as my son’s team.   A couple of times over the past two years Derek’s team had met Bobby’s team on a soccer field to compete for a victory.

Derek had taken his own life for reasons only God knows for sure.  There were reports that he was taking a prescription medication for acne that has been known to depress a young person’s mood.  There was also some suggestion that disappointment in how he’d performed in recent big soccer games played a factor. 

He died on Monday; Bobby’s coach announced the boy’s death at practice on Tuesday.   Shocked and disturbed by the news, the team decided that whoever could make it would attend the funeral on Friday together to show their respect to a fellow soccer player who had fallen into a pit of despair.   Bobby and four of his teammates, along with their coaches and a couple of us parents found our way to this big Roman Catholic Church in Secaucus.  It was packed – standing room only.   As you might expect, there were hundreds and hundreds of very sad-looking young people in attendance, presumably calling to mind every little interaction they could remember of time spent with Derek, even if those shared memories were as seemingly insignificant as competing together a couple of times on a soccer field.  

It was all very heart-wrenching of course, and yet in the horror there was also this strange confirmation of the sacredness of human life.  Something terribly awe-inspiring was expressed by so much collective grief.  

On a bleak Monday morning a teenage boy comes to the conclusion that his life is meaningless – that he himself is worthless.  He decides to go ahead and extinguish the life that seems to him so terribly inconsequential.   In doing so, he rocks the world of thousands of people to whom he was connected in ways both large and small, revealing, ironically, that the decision he had reached that gray Monday was dead wrong, and that his life absolutely did matter after all. 

As the saying goes, our paths cross in this life, often “like ships in the night.”   You are preoccupied with your stuff, and I am preoccupied with my stuff, and in our preoccupations we become almost invisible to one another.  But we’re not, really.  Soul calls to soul.   We touch one another in ways we can barely imagine. 

Once upon a time, the Gospel writer Mark tells us, the paths of two human beings crossed, apparently for the first time, in a small town called Jericho.   A whole crowd of people was present,  but in our story, two lives come to the forefront. 

One of these human beings was a seeming “nobody”, a blind beggar who sat every day by the roadside, largely ignored, a sight so familiar to those who lived in the town that he had become in a certain sense invisible.

This nobody, however, had a name, and Mark gives it to us – most often in the healing stories of Jesus, the one healed goes unnamed.   His name was Bartimaeus, meaning literally, “son of Timaeus”, identifying him as “somebody” to at least his parents.   The naming of Bartimaeus in the story also reminds us once again of the importance of names:  knowing a person’s name – calling them by name – is a simple thing, but when we do it, we take a stand against  the cloak of invisibility that is so much a part of our world.    

The boy who died had a name:  He wasn’t just some boy who died — a statistic.   He was Derek.   He had parents who loved him — who wept for him at the funeral.

The other person in Mark’s story was, of course, Jesus of Nazareth.    For the past two years he has been wandering about the country side, teaching and healing, with the numbers of people drawn to him steadily growing. 

Recently, however, his seemingly aimless wanderings have given way to a very clear destination:  he is now on his way to Jerusalem to confront the powers-that-be in the capital city.  The people sense something earth-shaking will happen there; the liberation, perhaps, of the Jewish people from the oppression of the Romans.  Jesus himself knows that he is going there to suffer and die, and in that knowledge he assuredly felt very much alone — almost invisible — despite the great, enthusiastic crowd that followed beside him.   

Apparently Bartimaeus has heard of Jesus and the healings he has accomplished.   He has heard rumors that he might be in fact the messiah, the “son of David.”  Although he cannot actually see Jesus, he seems to sense more deeply the meaning of Jesus’ life than the others present. 

And so as Jesus draws near, Bartimaeus begins to call out:  “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowd seems irritated at first by his refusal to remain invisible.   They yell, “Be quiet!”  But he cries out all the more loudly:  “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!!”  Eventually he shouts loud enough for Jesus to hear him, and although Jesus is heading to Jerusalem, he pauses now to acknowledge Bartimaeus.  “Call him to come here.”

Immediately Bartimaeus throws off his cloak – his single possession, which every day he had spread out before himself as he begged to collect what people gave him.   Leaving his one possession behind, he comes quickly towards the voice of Jesus.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.  You may remember that Jesus asked exactly the same question 0f James and John in the passage that immediately precedes this one.  They had come to Jesus to ask for special privilege in Jesus’ kingdom.  Bartimaeus’ request is much more fundamental.  “Teacher, I want to be able to see again.”

“Go,” says Jesus, “your faith has made you well.”  His eyesight is restored!

This is the last event that Mark records before Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  It is clear that Mark is using eyesight as a metaphor for what it means to come to faith in Jesus.   It involves going from blindness to sight.  

There is a spiritual blindness that afflicts us human beings.   We can not truly see the blessing that is our lives in the present moment.  We can not perceive the depths of each eternal soul that we encounter in the lives of the people we bump into along life’s way. 

This blindness is poignantly described in the play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder.   A young woman named Emily dies.   In the spirit realm, she pleads to be allowed to go back to experience a single day of her life.   The spirits try to persuade her not to go, but she insists, choosing the day of her thirteenth birthday.   Her mother, her father and everything else from her life strikes her now as just so very beautiful, but in short order she is devastated by the knowledge that they – the living – are blind to this exquisite beauty.   She flees back to the spirit realm.  An old cynic named Simon Stimson speaks these harsh words:

“Yes, now you know.  Now you know!  That’s what it was to be alive.  To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those… about you.  To spend and waste time as though you had a million years.  To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another.  Now you know — that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”

She had asked, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every, every minute?”  The stage manager replies, “No.  The saints and poets, maybe –they do some.”

According to Mark, even after two years of keeping Jesus’ company, the disciples themselves still suffer from this spirtual blindness.  Bartimaeus the beggar stands alone as an example of one who has truly had the eyes of his heart opened by Jesus.   Mark concludes the story with this detail:  Having regained his eyesight, Bartimaeus, “followed him on the way.”  “The way” is a term used in the New Testament as shorthand for the life of following Jesus.  Beholding the true beauty and meaning of life, Bartimaeus follows after Jesus with his heart wide open, ready to endure, if necessary, the suffering that loving so deeply can bring.   

Commentators point out that although this is obviously a “healing” story, it is also a “call story.”   It resembles the call of the fishermen Simon and Andrew, James and John, who, upon being called by Jesus, drop their nets, leaving all behind, to go and follow where he leads. 

Whether healing or calling, either way, there is a miracle of grace involved.   Where does such faith come from that allows a person to perceive the true blessing, and in turn, to offer one’s lives as a channel of grace for others?   It is a gift of divine grace.   “We want to have our sight again,” we pray, asking for this grace.  “Have mercy on us.”

As a young man, Thomas Merton lived in the sophisticated world of a New York writer.   At age twenty-seven he fled from the world to enter a Trappist Monastery in Kentucky, having seen so clearly the blindness and misery of which Simon Stimson spoke to Emily. 

Years later, however, Merton was surprised to experience the amazing grace which gives sight to the blind when he was out on a mundane outing from behind the walls of the monastery.  In his journal, he describes the experience which came to him surrounded by ordinary human beings going about their lives in this world:   

 “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers…”

He concludes with these haunting words:  “There is no way of telling people that they are walking around shining like the sun.”

When we’ve been there, ten thousand years

Bright shining as the sun.

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we first begun. 

A sermon preached on October 11, 2009 based upon Hebrews 4:12 – 15 and Mark 10:17 – 28.

We began our service with these verses from the letter to the Hebrews:  “… the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” (4:12 -15)

The motivations that come into play in every action we take tends to be multi-layered.  We may be sincerely trying to do the right thing, while simultaneously we are also trying to make a good impression, or maybe create some indebtedness in another person.   We easily deceive ourselves about our motivations.  The verse from Hebrews reminds us that there is no deception before God. 

In our Gospel reading, the rich man comes to Jesus, why?  We don’t know for sure.   On some level there is probably a sincere inquiry for guidance in regard to his spiritual life.   But perhaps there is something else as well; a desire to be praised by someone whose praise who seem to count for a lot, particularly in the company of others.  

I am an aspiring writer.  If I were given the opportunity to take a poem I’d written to a Nobel laureate poet for a critique, perhaps what I really would be looking for is to have the Nobel laureate tell me that the poem is good; I don’t really want a critique on how the poem falters in its images and could be improved.

Oftentimes the compliments we make of others reveals much about how we want others to view ourselves; we praise somebody for being honest, or good looking, or for how much they have done towards a common goal, and maybe what we’re really hoping is that they will say, “Oh, but you’re the one who is honest, or good looking, or you’re the one who has done so much.”

Jesus seems to recognize immediately that “being good” is a major preoccupation for the rich man, revealed at least in part by the way the man addresses him: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  

Surprisingly, Jesus rebuffs the word “good” used to address himself,   saying, “Why do you call me good.  No one is good but God alone.”  This surprises us because our reaction is, “Of course Jesus is good.  Of all people, he has the right to be called ‘good.’”   

But Jesus says no.   “No one is good but God alone.” 

Some commentators suggest Jesus is being coy here, as though he were saying, “If God alone is good and you say I’m “good”, than I must be God, right?” 

But no, Jesus is not being coy.    Goodness belongs to God.  If there is goodness expressed in my life, it is the goodness of God moving through me.  It isn’t me as such.  To locate the goodness in me or in any person for that matter is to be about setting up an idol to worship. 

It can be so deeply ingrained in us to think in terms of there being good people and bad people, and in turn, to be anxious about finding ourselves included in the ranks of the good. 

But what if, as Jesus is suggesting here, there are no good people, or for that matter bad people, per se?  What if all there is are human beings who at a given moment are giving expression to goodness or evil, and that in the very act of locating the goodness in ourselves, we are putting up an obstacle that will block the flow of goodness through us.

You may remember the story of the two thieves who Luke describes dying on crosses beside Jesus.  They’ve both done plenty of bad stuff in the course of their life time.  For all we know, they’ve also done some good stuff.  Who knows?   Only God.

We know how the story plays out.   One thief confesses his sin and defends Jesus.  Jesus says he will be with him this day in paradise.  

The other, stuck in himself — in the bitterness of his life – mocks Jesus.   All we can really say is that at this moment, the light is able to shine through the life of the one thief, and it is being blocked in the life of the other. 

Back to our story of the rich man who came to Jesus:   After rebuffing the term “good,” Jesus refers the man back to the ten commandments — actually to the ones that are most concrete:  Did you murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, cheat, and respect your parents?

This is where the man likes the discussion to take place, because he’s been successful here. “Yes, I’ve kept the commandments, ever since I was a little boy.”  Perhaps he thinks he’s going to get the praise he’s been hungering for, the assurance that he is a good man, destined for eternal life. 

The Gospel writer includes the little detail that Jesus looked at the man, and loved him.   What’s that about?  Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Jesus knows this man better than the man knows himself.  To his neighbors, this man seems to have it all together:   he’s got an impeccable reputation, he’s got money.   He seems to have it all. 

But Jesus sees far deeper.  He knows how, despite the man’s appearance of having it all together, deep down he’s still that little boy desperate for approval — desperate to be told that he is, in fact, good enough.  Jesus sees the pain of this little boy — his eternal longing for approval.

Well, if this is the case, why doesn’t Jesus just go ahead an give him what he wants:   Praise him for being good enough, tell him he is, after all, a good man, and don’t worry, you will inherit eternal life?

Perhaps it is because if Jesus were to say this to the man, he knows the man would use it to help prop up the idol he habitually makes out of himself:  “I knew it!  I really am a good person!   Perhaps the best person in this county.  Better, certainly than these others I live among.”    And that idol would promptly block the flow of goodness/God’s love from flowing through him. 

Jesus loves this man, and really wants him to find God’s peace – the real deal — and so he says to the man, “You lack one thing: Go, sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, and then come, follow me.”

Now this is deeply perplexing not only to the man, but to the disciples as well.   The tradition teaches that there is nothing wrong with wealth per se, in fact, that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing – of God’s favor.                                                                        

The tradition certainly addresses the misuse of wealth – of the sin of oppressing the poor – naming such injustice on the part of the wealthy as sin.  But the tradition never implied wealth itself was a problem.  It’s a blessing — one that can and should be used to do good. 

So it stuns the man and the disciples when Jesus implies that the man must forsake wealth and become poor himself in his quest for eternal life. 

The man is shocked, and can’t do it; he goes away sorrowfully.   He was too attached to his possessions, which, I believe, most of us can surely relate to.

Jesus  adds to the shock when he goes further:  ”How hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

What are we to make of this?

It is important to note that Jesus didn’t tell everyone he met to sell all their possessions and give it to the poor.  He seems to have asked this of some, but by no means of all.  Remember Zacheus, the rich little man who climbed up in the tree to see Jesus.   In his encounter with Jesus, the love he finds inspires him to give away half of his money to the poor, without even being asked to do so.  Jesus doesn’t say anything about the half he keeps.

What’s going on here?  Well, I think there is a clue in that preoccupation with “being good” that Jesus recognized in the man when he originally addressed him as “good teacher.”   The man has made an idol out of the idea of being a “good man.”  As long as he stays attached to that identity, his idol will block the flow of God’s grace in his life. 

And in all likelihood, as long as the man has his money, he will manage to keep hold of this idol.  When you’ve got money, it’s easy to maintain the illusions of your personal goodness.   “I don’t lie, I don’t steal.  I don’t cheat.”  Why not?  Well, I don’t have to.  My money pretty much gets me what I want and need — which in turn allows me to look down my nose at those who are tempted to do so.  I’m good.  They’re bad. 

Try being poor for a while, Jesus is saying, and see what happens to your notions of being good.  If the very real possibility exists that you will have to go hungry, or without things you need and want, or that your family will have to, you’ll see how much harder it become to refrain from breaking the commandments.  

The same thing can be said in various other arenas.  It is easier to think of yourself as a good person when your health is good, and you have lots of energy, and in turn to look down your nose at persons who don’t have your personal vitality and energy.  But what happens to that identity when you are laid low with illness, and you feel tired and sick all the time, and you can’t help but think about yourself all the time.  

Or how much harder is it to do the right thing – to act lovingly when the people around you aren’t praising you, telling you how good you are, but rather are competing with you, criticizing you, fighting with you?

So what exactly is the point here?  Is it, go, live as a poor person (or for that matter a sick person, or in a war zone), and then if you can consistently follow God’s laws and do the right thing, then you have the right to call yourself a “good person”?  Then, and only then, can you enter the kingdom of God?

No.  Jesus looked at the man and loved him and saw the heavy burden his idol had become.  Jesus was inviting the man on a path in which eventually he would find himself humbled.  He would come face to face with the fact that he was quite capable of doing evil.  He would learn what it means to say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

In a nutshell, that’s what happened to the disciples on the night of Jesus’ arrest.   They thought they were better than others, but were humbled when their terror evoked the survival instinct.

If the man could willingly follow this path, the humbling he would undergo would teach him compassion — that we really are all in this thing called life together, and that the walls we set up between the good people and the bad people are in the end just idols that block the light of God’s love in our lives. 

The lectionary this Sunday included a reading from the book of Job.  The themes dealt with in Job seemed to be just too enormous for me to address in this sermon, but after I thought about the story of the rich man coming to Jesus, it opened up the book of Job to me in a new way.  You may remember that Job is a righteous man – a “good man” – and the preoccupation of the book is with the fact that this really good man who starts out rich, fat and happy has everything taken from him.   For thirty chapters or so the book debates what this all means.   In the final scene, God appears face to face with Job.   Before the awesome wonder of God, the questions that have preoccupied Job and his so-called friends regarding good and bad people and what they can expect in return, are suddenly revealed to Job to be ultimately irrelevant. 

In Romans, Paul says that the sufferings we endure in this life, which can seem so very overwhelming while we are in them, will seem as nothing in comparison to the glory that is to be revealed to us – the wonder of what Job saw – the awesome splendor of what Russ saw when he breathed his last breath in this life last week.

(Delivered at a memorial service held on October 10, 2009.  Psalm 100, 1Corinthians 13, and John 14:1 – 3, 6 were read during the service.)

Russ was born on April 20, 1921 in Paterson, New Jersey.  He was the second of three sons born to Hilda and Henry, hard-working first generation emigrants from Holland and Denmark.   At age three Russ was hit by a car; fortunately he sustained only a mild knee injury, but the event inspired his parents to move out of the congestion of Paterson to live in nearby Hawthorne.  

At ten, Russ first learned how to swim when his five-year-old brother Ferdy fell into a pool, leading his mother to push him in as well in order to save his little brother, which he did.  It was a close knit family.  Living through the depression, Russ did what he could to help support the family, delivering newspapers and shoveling snow to earn money to buy coal to keep the family warm in winter.

He loved to ice skate and play hockey.  His real passion, however was music.   He took up the guitar, teaching himself how to play.   At age twelve his parents figured it was time for Russ to begin formal guitar lessons, but his first lesson promptly became his last when Russ found himself correcting the way his teacher played a song.  With his enormous natural musical talent, Russ had already taught himself more than the teacher knew. 

On a trip with his parents to Atlantic City, Russ first heard a Hawaiian band playing, falling in love with their style of music, and developing a life long romance with the pedal steel guitar.

In high school Russ played in the school orchestra and chorus.   With his imposing physical stature and his natural athletic ability, the football coach tried to recruit Russ for his team.  But when Russ witnessed a teammate get hurt – his arm mangled – Russ walked away from football.  He needed his hands to play music, and wasn’t about to to risk losing the ability to play music by a football injury.

Russ always loved to be out doors and go on adventures.  At age fourteen he bicycled all the way from Hawthorne to Flemington.  In his parents’ basement Russ built a kayak which he used to explore the Passaic River. 

Russ graduated from high school and soon afterwards was drafted into the army.   The United States was on the verge of entering the war. Although playing in the army band was an option open to Russ, in this instance patriotism led Russ to risk life and limb, joining instead the infantry.  After training in Maryland, Texas and New York, Russ was sent overseas to fight, first in England, and then travelling by foot across France, Italy and Germany.  Trained as a sharpshooter, Russ saw a great deal of bloodshed and misery close at hand, having a close brush with death himself at least once.  When the war in Europe ended, Russ was going to be shipped over to the Pacific to continue fighting.   The war there, however, came to an end, so he was discharged in 1943 having served his country for three years.     

Taking advantage of the GI Bill, Russ enrolled in college at Farleigh Dickinson at the Rutherford Campus.  In addition to being a student, Russ worked selling silverware and then insurance.  He also gave music lessons.  He began playing in various bands.  After graduation Russ took a day job working with Metropolitan life, pursuing his musical passions in the evenings and on weekends.

Eventually Russ began “The Music House”, a school he ran out of his home for over forty years.   At the peak of the business, the Music House was the center of the music scene in Parsippany, with several teachers providing instruction in a variety of instruments, and Russ personally giving instruction in guitar to seventy students a week.  In the words of his wife Ruth, “Russ was patient, expert and innovative, teaching hundreds of students in the course of his lifetime.”

Russ’ first marriage brought forth three children whom he cherished:  Bruce, Susan and Laurie.   The marriage, however, didn’t survive, but after it dissolved Russ was blessed to find his soul mate in Ruth.  After a lengthy courtship they were married on July 4^th, 1983, in a lovely, simple ceremony in the back yard of the house in Parsippany.   Ruth had four children from a previous marriage, Donald, Garrett, Andrea and Lynelle, to whom Russ opened wide his big heart.   Their children became his grandchildren – they affectionately referred to him as “Pepa.” 

Ruth became Russ’ “roadie,” and together they spent their weekends traveling from Connecticut to Maryland playing gigs with his various bands.   In the summertime they would head to the beach where Russ loved to swim and to fish.   Ruth and Russ’ adventures took them to New England, Virginia Beach, Florida, the Bahamas, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand.  Locally, they enjoyed going out to local venues to hear their musical friends perform. 

Russ’s creativity extended beyond music.  He could draw, making subtle charcoal renderings.  Russ had a huge work bench in his basement where he would do household repairs as well as fix broken musical instruments.   He loved to cook, but not to measure, experimenting with every spice he could get his hands on. 

Russ also loved to talk, and made friends wherever he went.  All the local shop owners were charmed by Russ. 

He was just a very loving person.   Russ loved Ruth dearly.  Even when he’d get mad at her, he’d still say these utterly romantic things like, “I don’t know why it is, but I just adore you!”   He’d buy her flowers and sing her songs.  

Russ wasn’t raised in a church-going family, but over time a deep faith grew within him, a trust in a God of love who holds us tenderly in life and in death.  His favorite verse, of course, was “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the lands!  Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into God’s presence with singing!”  (from Psalm 100)

For Russ, music was a way to express that innate joy and thanksgiving that lived inside his big heart. 

To live in this world is to know heartbreak; Russ knew this well.  He knew the sting of death up close in the war.  He knew it other times as well.  Soon after his return from the war, at the age of twenty-six he went to visit his beloved younger brother Ferdy, who once upon time he’d saved from the waters of swimming pool.  Ferdy was hospitalized for what was supposed to be a relatively minor health matter, but the heart of Russ was broken when he discovered that Ferdy had suddenly died of an aneurism in his abdomen.  Fifty three years later Russ’ heart broke again when he went with Ruth to visit his son Bruce at his apartment, only to discover that his beloved son had unexpectedly died.

Through it all, Russ trusted that the love did not die, and that one day he would be reunited with Ferdy and Bruce, his parents, and all the many friends who along life’s way have touched Russ’ big heart.  

Two years ago on November 11, 2007 Russ was so very pleased and proud to come to the altar of this sanctuary and, alongside his bride, profess his faith in Jesus who he knew loved him, and to become a member of our church family.   And we were pleased and honored to know this wonderfully warm-hearted man.  

In recent years, Russ struggled with a gradual memory loss that was often very frustrating.   Through it all, the love that Russ and Ruth shared was steadfast and constant.  Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.”

In these final two weeks of Russ’ life, his condition deteriorated so rapidly, and there were at times much pain to endure.   It was a truly holy thing for me to witness the sweet tenderness with which Ruth cared for Russ, and in turn the sweet tenderness with which Russ expressed his love for Ruth.   He’d sing to her of course.  “Have I told you, lately, that I love you?”  

Russ got to come home from the hospital to spend the last hours of his life on earth in the place where so many happy memories were shared.   This past Saturday morning, as he rested in the ocean of God’s love, Russ breathed his last breath in this life. 

He came home to his Father’s house, in which there are many dwelling places. 

There’s a place prepared for you there too. 

Love never ends; the Apostle Paul reminds us.  And it’s all that really matters, in the end.  We were put on this earth by God in order to love like Jesus, to follow his way, to make a joyful noise with what God has given us, to follow the path of openhearted love that is willing, when necessary, to suffer for that love – to have one’s heart broken for that love – for the joy comes only in such love as this. 

“¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly,” write Paul, ^* “but then we will see face to face.”  It can be so very confusing, this life.   What we see, we see dimly.   But, says Paul, one day we will see face to face, see the very face of God, and that day has come for Russ. 

It is so very beautiful what Russ gazed upon when he passed through the veil this past Saturday.   There are no words to describe it.   Elsewhere Paul says that the sufferings of this age –- and sometimes those sufferings can seem pretty overwhelming, in no way compare with the glory that is to be revealed to us – the ocean of love and light that Russ now beholds.   

One day we will behold the glory with Russ.  In the meantime, we carry on in the school of love, learning what it means to love in the day in and day out moments of our lives.   To rejoice, and to weep, to laugh, and to sing, to forgive and to persevere in gentle faithfulness with one another.

A sermon preached on October 4, 2009 based upon Mark 10:13 – 16.

And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them.  But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.  Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”  And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.”  (Mark 10:13 – 16)

The story that little Cassie read for us this morning is one that most of us have heard many times in our lives – indeed, I refer to it every Sunday when I invite the children to come forwards.    It tells us, of course, that Jesus loved the little children.  But, pondering the story this week I realized that it contains the very heart of the Gospel.

To review the story, people were bringing little children to Jesus, in order for him to touch and bless them.  The disciples, functioning out of the mindset of the world, judge the children to be unworthy of Jesus’ time.  They see them as a distraction from the more important matters of his ministry, which begs the question:  what makes a person worthy?  In the eyes of the world,  a person’s worth is based upon what the do, what they accomplish, what they achieve,  and so from this viewpoint, children are pretty worthless.  They haven’t accomplished anything by the world’s standards. 

You can really blame the disciples, because they are simply functioning out of the normal way of seeing things, and they are trying to watch out for what they assume are Jesus’ best interests — keep these distractions away from Jesus so that he can focus on his real work.  But Jesus rebukes them, a strong word, saying do not hinder them, for to such as these little children the kingdom of God belongs. And then Jesus goes further:  “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

How do these little children receive the kingdom?  Well, the story concludes with this very tactile image:  Jesus “took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.”  They let Jesus take them up into his lap, in his arms, that he may hold them, bless them, love them.

It’s a powerful image, and one I found myself coming back to at least three times this past week, in experiences I’d like to share. 

First, there has been the experience of eighty-eight year old Russ’s death.   Russ was in the process of dying this past week.  Thursday afternoon at the hospital he had a good day, visiting with loved ones, joking, singing songs.  But in the early evening, Russ began to become agitated, assaulted by pain, along with his mental clarity falling away.  Russ was in a great of distress, and Ruth called to ask me to come to the hospital, which I did.    As Russ repeatedly cried out for help, Ruth was there, holding his hand, leaning in close, speaking softly to husband, singing him lulabyes, encouraging him to let go into the rest of sleep.   She was so tender, so steadfast.  

Eventually the proper medications were prescribed for the pain, and finally Russ was able to sleep.  The next afternoon, Russ was brought home to the house he’s lived in for 40 years to receive hospice care.   There Russ rested peacefully, and Ruth also was able to rest.  

His passing was quick.  At 10 on Saturday morning, Russ quietly passed into the arms of Jesus.  

Ruth called me, and I came to the house.  It was peaceful now, so unlike the evening two nights before.   I was moved by something Ruth said:  that she had felt Jesus holding her – during the ordeal of his death, and throughout her life. 

The second memory from the week that seemed to connect so closely to this image of Jesus holding the little children was a conversation I had with a mother from our church.  She shared how as a small child growing up in church she had caught hold of this understanding that even though God was invisible that God was real, that God was there for her, and that this conviction had been her rock throughout her life.

Her concern, now was for her children, pondering the mystery of what does it take for a child to catch hold of the faith with which she was blessed.  She was grateful for the sermon I had preached two Sundays earlier when I had challenged the congregation to learn the names of all the children in our church, and indeed, more than the names, to learn who they are.  She realized that she needed the church family for her children to catch hold of the kingdom of God. 

The third experience of my life that connected to this tender image of Jesus holding the little children has been the opportunity given to me to get to know ten year old Joseph, who arrived just three weeks ago from Ghana to live next door to me.  

I’ve been learning more of Joe’s story.  Ghana is a very poor and conflict-ridden country.   When Joe was 3 or 4, his mother Ese came to America in order to make money for the family back in Ghana, working as a live-in home health aide. The extended family in Ghana tends to be stronger than it is here, so Ese was able to leave Joseph, as well as her older children, in the care of her sister.

You may remember a while back the nothing-but-nets program where we raised money to send netting to folks in Africa to protect them from the mosquitoes that carry malaria. Well, Joe came down with malaria.  He was fortunate to survive, but it required two stays in the hospital.    When he was five, Joe went off to a boarding school.  There he had more structure and opportunity to learn, but there wasn’t much love there, not of the sort conveyed by that image of Jesus holding the little children.   It wasn’t possible for the aunt to come for visits.   Understandably, Joe felt abandoned. Meanwhile, Ese was making the money that was keeping the family from starving.  

Finally it became possible for Ese to bring he youngest child to live with her in America.  He was thrilled to come, to be once again with his mother and to experience the opportunities that life in America provides.   But as I’ve gotten to know Joe, I recognize that given his experience, it’s not easy for Joe to trust and let love in.  And so I’ve thought about Jesus holding him.

The story of Jesus with the little children raised this question:  Are we loved because of what we do, what we accomplish, or because of who we are?   If this is how we understand the love we are given, it is a precarious love indeed, leading to constant anxiety about whether we’ve done enough.  It leads us to a posture of defensiveness and hostility because the assessment of worthiness is constantly at stake.  It isn’t a love you can rest in, like a child resting in the arms of Jesus.

The good news of the Gospel begins with the gift of love.   We are loved not because of what we do but because of who we are.  We are God’s beloved children, God’s cherished creations.

What God wants from us before all else is to allow ourselves to be loved.   This isn’t as easy as it might sound, since we are so locked into this other way of viewing love.  If love is something we earn, then in theory we can be in control of it – dutifully doing our job.  The love God wishes to give us requires giving up this attempt at control.  It requires letting go of control, which is precisely what most of us adults find so hard to do.

Prayer is many things, but I would suggest to you that the start of prayer should be akin to crawling up into the lap of Jesus.  Before we begin to put our petitions before God, spend some time using your imagination to rest in the arms of God.   In your imagination, bring all your senses into play.  Be the child who is caressed in a loving embrace.  From this starting point, a desire to share the blessing will naturally flow.

There’s this story about a little girl who awakens in her bedroom at night to the sound of lightning close at hand.  She is frightened and calls for her mother, who comes to her bedside to comfort her.   Her mother reminds her, “You know that God is always here with you.”  The girl replies, “Yes, but sometimes it’s helpful having someone with skin on.”

When Jesus walked upon this earth, he was God with skin on.  Now as the body of Christ, we are called to be God with skin on as well.  “And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.”

A sermon preached on September 27, 2009 based on Mark 9:38 – 50.

 If you read the Gospel of Mark, you know the disciples don’t come off too well.   We’ve seen this in the last two Sunday readings:  

*Two weeks ago we heard how Peter tried to “correct” Jesus’ understanding of his mission – the fact that he must suffer and die – and how in Jesus rebuked him, calling him “Satan.”  

*Last week we heard that when Jesus continued to speak of his impending suffering and death, in their discomfort the disciples avoided the whole subject.  In contrast to the extreme humility and his intention to offer his life up as a servant, the disciples get caught up in an argument among themselves regarding who is the greatest.

 Elsewhere in the Gospel of Mark we hear about …

*the disciples trying to persuade Jesus to send the hungry crowds away, in response to which Jesus asks them to give up the food they have brought, thereby bringing about a miracle that feeds the five thousand people.

*They try to keep the children away from Jesus, assuming the children are not worthy of Jesus’ attention, evoking Jesus words, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” 

*They get anxious in the boat when a storm blows up, and then angry, waking Jesus from his sleep, saying, “Don’t you care?!”,  evoking a rebuke by Jesus;  “O men of little faith, why did you doubt?”  

*And of course there is the whole debacle of the night Jesus was arrested – how the disciples said they would be there for Jesus, and then run for cover, with Peter three times denying he ever knew Jesus. 

 Now the point that Mark is making isn’t what dummies the disciples were in contrast to ourselves; rather, how very human they were, and how hard it is for us human beings to shed the world’s way of thinking as we attempt to get a hold of Jesus’ way of thinking.

This week’s Gospel lesson provides yet another instance of this theme:  The disciples come upon a free lance Christian who, in the name of Jesus is casting out demons from possessed persons, and they command him to stop it, because he isn’t one of them.  When they tell Jesus about this encounter, they assume that Jesus will pat them on the head for maintaining order, but instead Jesus rebukes them,  saying.“whoever is not against us is for us” a story that anticipates a long history of dissension in the Church.

We are accustomed to hearing the Pharisees come off as the “bad guys” in the Gospels.  Time and again they criticize Jesus for performing miracles of healing on the Sabbath day, because for them the most important thing is keeping the law, and the law states that people shouldn’t work on the Sabbath.  Their obsession with the rules keeps them from acknowledging the good that is there in plain view — this act of compassion and healing relieving the pain of people with various afflictions. 

In this morning’s story the disciples are acting rather like the Pharisees.   They are so pre-occupied with the fact that this free lance Christian isn’t a part of their group following their protocol than they fail to recognize the simple goodness of what he is accomplishing — bringing serenity and focus to people oppressed by psychic forces that cause them inner-violence and misery.  

 It is tough, sometimes, to make sense of scripture.   There are a number of reasons for this.   We don’t understand the cultural context in which the words were originally spoken.  There’s the issue of the early scribes who made copies of the earliest manuscripts, and some times took liberties:  for instance, in this morning’s reading we heard three separate times a riff about the fires of hell never going out.    In the earliest manuscripts, there is only one such riff; an early editor apparently liked the sound of that phrase, adding it two more times, thereby giving it an emphasis that wasn’t originally there.   There is the issue of each of the writers having their own axes to grind, and sometimes they weren’t God’s ax, and how, for God’s sake, do you tell which is which? 

And then there is the use of hyperbole – a figure of speech used to make a point by exaggerating a point.  It is safe to assume that Jesus didn’t literally want people going around plucking out eyes, and cutting off hands and feet in order to avoid sin, although there was an early church father who apparently was distracted in his prayer life by fantasies of dancing, nude women, and took it upon himself to cut off a certain part of his anatomy in order to lessen the distraction.

When we read scripture, we do well to listen with our hearts as well as our heads.    In Mark’s Gospel, a primary image for what sin is all about is the “hard hearts” – an expression used in the Old Testament for Pharaoh and others.   The image implies that our hearts develop hard walls around them, so that access to our hearts is cut off.   You may remember that when John Wesley experienced the grace of God in Jesus at Aldersgate street, he described the experience as one of having his “heart strangely warmed.”

This image also helps us understand the appeal of children for Jesus.  Children aren’t perfect, but generally speaking, children don’t have hard hearts.   They have access to what they are feeling – the truth that is within them.   Overtime something happens to all of us as we grow up that we develop this hardness of heart.  Oftentimes it feels like a necessity:  How will we survive in this world with soft hearts?  But something essential – something that keeps us in touch with truth with a capital T – gets lost in this process.  

Our bodies are hardwired by our Creator for truth.   Why do lie detector tests work so well?  Because inside the vast majority of us, there is something in our “hearts” that isn’t comfortable with a lie.  A lie registers in the physiology of our bodies.  Scientists have also been telling us things like there are enzymes in our mouth that are released that fight off the flu when we are motivated by compassion.  They tell us that people live longer and happier when they are forgiving and connected to others in love.   The truth with a capital T is inside us.  In our hearts, we know what is true.  But over time, the world we live in leads us away from this Truth.   We become indoctrinated in a world view that blocks access to our heart.

 Most of us read Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” when we were in school.   There is that classic scene where the thirteen-year-old Huck is making his way down the river with Jim, the escaped slave.   The world he has grown up in has taught him that what he is doing – aiding and abetting and escaped slave – will destine him to burn in hell.   But Jim has become his friend – in his heart he knows that Jim deserves freedom.  And so he goes with his heart – assuming that in doing so he is consigning himself to hell.

So in our heart of hearts, we know what is good and true.  The passage gives us some clues in this regard:   It is good when a person who has been plagued by inner psychic forces that block the life-force and their capacity to love is somehow brought to a peace and clarity whereby they are free to live and love.   This is good, pure and simple.

It is good, Jesus indicates, when you give a drink of water to someone who is thirsting.  This is good, pure and simple.

It is good to care for children, and conversely, it is bad to abuse them. 

The us vs. them mentality that separates the human race isn’t good.   Attempts to overcome this barriers are good.

Many of you will remember Myra Heitschel, a long term member of our church who died a few years back.   Myra suffered from severe diabetes that in the last years of her life led to first her toes, then her feet, then her legs being amputated.   It was very hard for Myra and her husband Hank who loved her so, but throughout it all, Myra’s heart stayed warm.   Her capacity for love was not blocked. Beneath her deteriorating body, her soul was whole. 

This is serious business, Jesus is saying.  Your soul is at stake here.   Our culture is pretty enamored by physical beauty, and repelled by people with physical disabilities.  We admire the beautiful clothes of beautiful, rich people, and we turn away from the stench of the poor.   But Jesus would have us remember that you can have body beautiful and expensive clothes and still have a hard heart that is endangering your soul.   If we lose access to our heart, which, in the end, knows what is true and good, there is a very real sense in which we are damned.