February
9, 2018 – The 187th Convention of the Diocese of AL
Opening
Eucharist – For Social Service
©
2018 Evan D. Garner
We gather this
afternoon as the assembled Diocese of Alabama, our particular stem on this
particular branch of the Jesus Movement, and, even though we gather as a
unified diocesan family, there are cracks running through the body of Christ.
Some of them are hairline fractures that are too small for us to see. Others
are deep rifts that feel like they could break us apart at any moment. But
don’t lose heart: the body of Christ has been broken before, and that hasn’t
ever gotten in the way of what God is doing in the world.
Where are the
fissures and cracks that we bring with us today? What fractures do we embody by
our very existence? What brokennesses have we papered over, like a couple
desperate to sell their house, hoping that no one will notice what’s behind a
fresh coat of paint or under the new carpet? What chasms do we hold out proudly
in front of us for anyone and everyone to see like wounds that we choose to
define us?
There are rectors who
have angered their biggest pledgers by preaching about guns and gays and
#BlackLivesMatter and whose vestries have begun to meet without them—not in an
official capacity, of course, but just to talk about the situation. There are
parishioners who resent the preferential treatment that others always seem to
get—the newcomers who are allowed to sit wherever they want, the altar guild
chair to whom everyone is expected to make obeisance, the ushers whose
not-so-secret society is more selective than Skull and Bones, and the kitchen
ladies who never seem to need any help because the same eight people always
have every job covered. Then, there are the individuals and parishes and
sometimes dioceses who decide to take a stand on whatever issue has ruffled
their feathers this week, and there’s the rest of us who wonder why they care
so much about the latest controversy when the “real problem” (in our
not-so-humble opinion) is the work of the gospel however it is that we
understand it. And, of course, there are the bishops who, depending on your
perspective, aren’t doing enough about it or are getting too involved and who,
as a result, are responsible for the whole mess.
Perhaps, as we gather
together as the leaders of our diocese—bishop, priests, deacons, delegates,
spouses, seminarians, and guests—it is important for us to remember that Jesus
would have made a terrible rector, that no one would have ever elected him to a
vestry, that the altar guild and ushers would have kicked him out long ago, and
that, as a bishop, he would have been remembered as a dismal failure. Yet, even
though Jesus never would have been accepted in any of those roles, he is still
the hope of all of them—of all of us to whom he calls out, “Come, follow me.”
And his call is the only thing that can bring us back together and reconcile us
to God and to one another.
This gospel lesson
from Mark 10 begins at a moment of real brokenness among the disciples of
Jesus. As is so often the case in our own contexts, the cause of that
estrangement is hidden from us—a part of the story not recounted in this
abbreviated narrative. A few verses before our passage begins, James and John,
while walking with the others on their way toward Jerusalem, caught up with
Jesus, who was walking ahead of them, to ask him a favor. “Teacher,” they said
to him coyly, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” We remember
how that part of the gospel story plays out. James and John revealed their
ignorance and their arrogance by asking their master if they might be granted
the privilege of sitting next to him—one on his right and one on his left—when
he came into his kingdom. To us, it seems like a ridiculous power-grab, and to
the ten disciples who overheard them, it was a galling request that threatened
to break their fellowship apart.
How could those
brothers be so naïve? How could they travel this far with the Son of Man and
not understand what he was all about? And, to make things worse, Jesus didn’t
rebuke them the way that he had said to Peter so harshly, “Get behind me,
Satan!” Nor did he reject their request outright just as he had sent away the
rich young man a few verses earlier because that man had refused to sell all of
his possessions. Any one of the other ten disciples happily would have traded
the comforts that come with having a rich colleague like that would-be disciple
for the empty arrogance of James or John. Mark tells us that the ten were
indignant at them, and, as today’s gospel lesson picks up the story, we aren’t
sure how this rift between the disciples could possibly be healed.
So what did Jesus do?
“Jesus called them to himself.” He called the ten together along with James and
John, and, right away, their hearts and the anger burning within them began to
soften. Jesus called them together and reminded them that “whoever wishes to
become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first
among you must be slave of all.” None of them had been chosen by Jesus because
of his accomplishments or his abilities or his particular brand of holiness.
They had been chosen because of their willingness to follow him—to stand at the
back of the line and follow the example of their master and become a servant of
all. When Jesus calls you like that—calls you because of who he is and not
because of who you are—it becomes easy to let the differences and disagreements
that separate us fall away…at least at first.
But even those of us
who walk in the back of the line behind Jesus have a tendency to forget how we
got there. A few verses later, as the disciples and Jesus made their way
through Jericho, a blind beggar heard who was passing through. “Jesus, Son of
David, have mercy on me!” he cried out. Unable to see whether Jesus was near
enough to hear him, the beggar sat on the side of the road, yelling out his
request over and over, hoping that the famous rabbi would stop. But “many
rebuked him, ordering him to be quiet.” They knew that Jesus didn’t have time
to stop. By this point in his ministry, he was finished with miracles. His face
was set firmly on Jerusalem. The work ahead of him was too important to allow
for any distractions. If Jesus didn’t have time for a rich young man, he
certainly didn’t have time for a blind beggar. But, to everyone’s surprise,
Jesus stopped, and he said, “Call him.” And, when he did, something happened.
Yes, Bartimaeus, the
last recipient of a healing miracle in Mark and the only one whose name is recorded
for us, had his sight restored, but he wasn’t the only one whose blindness was
cured that day. Notice what happened to the crowd when they heard Jesus call
Bartimaeus: those who rebuked him became the very ones who said, “Take heart;
he is calling you!” No longer was Bartimaeus seen as a distraction, an unworthy
diversion that threatened to take Jesus and his disciples away from their
mission. When the people heard that Jesus was calling the blind beggar,
everything came back into focus, and they saw that, because of the master’s
call, Bartimaeus was just like them, another disciple waiting to follow Jesus.
Something happens
inside of us when we hear Jesus’ call. And something else happens inside of us
when we hear him call those people who, in our judgment, don’t belong in his
company. No one likes the Bartimaeus of our day. No one wants the important
work of the church to have to stop and turn aside to address the cries of one
blind beggar, one angry protestor, one radical diocese, one cause-happy parishioner
or rector or bishop. But the call that Jesus issues to us is the same call that
he speaks to them. None of us is called because of who she is but because of
who Jesus is and because of who God is. God is the one who loves us with no
regard for who we are or what we think or how we act. That is the gospel of
Jesus Christ. That is the nature of his call. And, when we hear it, spoken both
to us and to those whom we find most threatening, we discover that, in Christ,
covered by God’s unconditional love, we are all one.
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