The Blind Man

"The Blind Man"
Mark 10:46-52


A small group of children ran down the alley past Timaeus’ shop.  This in itself was not unusual.  But it seemed more and more groups of people were going past, and all heading in the same direction.

He watched people as they bustled down the way.  They would look up the side alleys toward the main streets as if they were searching for something in particular.  None of these people were stopping to look at his or anyone else’s wares.  Timaeus was a weaver.  One of the only weavers in Jericho.  There were so few because if they wanted wool, they would have to make their way up out of the Jericho valley to the highlands where most of the shepherding was done.  The roads out of Jericho were dangerous.  It was more than once that Timaeus had been robbed.

In spite of it, he had been successful.  He was good at his craft.  Even though his shop was not on any of the main streets, people still searched him out.  No one could mix colors like Timaeus.  His was a secret art, not only of work on the loom, but also of the chemistry of color.  Not only the mixing of the colored dyes themselves, but of blending the colors in the blankets and mats and material that he would weave.  No one in all of the Jericho region could artfully weave a design like Timaeus.

His work swelled his pride.  But it was also a great sadness.  Sadness because he was getting old.  It was time he should have been passing on the ways of his shop to his son.  But his son was blind.  When a boy, his son had become sick.  The sickness, for some unknown reason lodged itself in the boy’s eyes.  When the sickness left him, so had his eyesight.  He had learned his father’s work before his blindness. He could continue to weave.  But he could no longer see the colors.  He could not mix them anymore.  Nor could he create a design.

His feelings of worthlessness, heightened by the sense of his father’s deep disappointment, acted as double millstones around the boy’s neck, crushing his spirit.  For the next 20 years Timaeus’ son, Bartimaeus, had sat with the other outcasts, just outside the gates, begging from people as they would go in and out of the city.

Each time Timaeus had to make his trek to buy his wool, he hurried out of the city, past his son, knowing his namesake couldn’t see him.  Besides, he could hardly recognize his son, what with those dirty clothes, sometimes fastened wrong, sometimes on backwards.  Hair and beard that looked like they had been trimmed with sheep shears.  No sandals on his feet.  Sitting on a woolen mat made by someone other than himself.  In his heart, Timaeus couldn’t really see his son, either.  It was too hard to really look.  Too painful.  So he chose not to, each time he passed by, keeping his eyes to the road ahead of him, closing his ears to the cry of his son’s voice calling out, “Have mercy on me.”


When people came down the alley, past his shop, they would usually stop and chat with Timaeus, just so they could look at his work.  Timaeus got to know many people that way.  So his curiosity began to rise as those small groups of people hurriedly walked past his and the other shops along the way.  He lay his crimson colored yarn beside the loom, and followed after a group of two men and a woman.  It was hard for his stout body with its short stumpy legs to keep up.  I have spent too much of my time just sitting on that stool before my loom; my belly will catch up to them five minutes before I do, he thought to himself with a chuckle.

He recognized one of the trio as being Yosha, the wife of an innkeeper.  Finally overtaking them, his little legs still paddling along, Timaeus greeted Yosha and asked between breaths, “What -- are -- you -- looking for;  why -- all this -- scurrying about, and searching -- as if -- for a lost dog?”
“Jesus the Rabbi, the one some are calling the Messiah, is here,” Yosha said hurriedly.  She looked down a side alley as she talked.  “He is on his way back to Jerusalem where he will be crowned as the new king over Israel.”
“Jesus?” Timaeus asked.  “I have heard a little about him.  But I confess I have been spending more time at my looms than in the marketplace.  What I have heard I have not paid much attention to.  Should have I?”

The three stopped in their tracks.  With the weight of his momentum, it took a couple of steps before Timaeus could stop himself and back up.  The three of them looked at each other and then at the short, dark-eyed man wiping his brow with the back of his long artistic fingers.  “Yes, you should have paid more attention.  You should have heard him for yourself.  With your yarns you can weave the colors of the rainbow.  But with his words he weaves the colors of life--more brilliant than you can imagine.  You would have to give all the tapestries you have ever woven to equal the value of one of his healing words of life.”
One of the other men broke in, “Yes.  We would follow him everywhere to hear such words.  They say, though we have not seen it ourselves, that he does wonders.  We are following him to Jerusalem; but so are many others.  We run down the side alleys trying to move past the greatest part of the crowd, so that we might get closer to him and his disciples.  Maybe we will see one of his miracles.”
“Come if you will,” Yosha said as she touched Timaeus’ arm.  “But we must hurry.  They should be near the city gates by now.”
Timaeus hesitated with his hand on his brow.  “Go on ahead,” he finally said, waving them on.  “I will catch up with you later.”
“Don’t hesitate too long,” Yosha called back after she hustled on with the others.  “You might miss him.”

Timaeus decided he would take that chance.  He would have to close up his shop, which he didn’t exactly want to do--he might miss a sale.  And besides, he loved his work.  He needed no Messiah.  His work was his savior.  For in its concentration he felt like he could transport himself to brighter places.  “My loom is my altar,” he told his Rabbi.  “It’s here where I say my prayers and share in the creative power of God.”  Happy with his decision, Timaeus plodded back to his shop, while others, heading in the opposite direction, brushed by him.



Jesus had already gone through the gates of the city and was on his way up the road that passed the long rows of beggars.  Though it was impossible to keep from seeing them, it was hard to hear their pleas for help above the rolling, discordant sounds of the large crowd behind him.

Uncharacteristically, Jesus walked right on past the beggars and castaways, unheeding the cries of the square-pegged people pushed out and away from the round-holed society within the walls of the city.  There was a look of determination on Jesus’ face, even detachment, as if he were oblivious to the parade that followed him, or the many cries coming from along the sides.

One of the beggars, blind Bartimaeus, struggled to his feet and grabbed for the first passerby he could latch on to.  “What is happening?” he blurted out.  The man whose cloak he had grabbed shoved Bartimaeus back to the gravely ground without an answer.  Again he struggled to his feet and made snatches at others who walked by, only to be, again and again, brushed off or pushed away.

The other beggars would only do what they had always done: beat their staffs on the ground, or clomp their wooden bowls together trying to attract attention.  But Bartimaeus would not be denied.  He threw himself into the crowd and frantically began half shouting questions.  “Why this crowd?  What is happening?  Where is everyone going?”  Finally someone told him that Jesus was passing by.

Jesus, he thought to himself.  Every destitute person along that row knew about Jesus.  They had heard of him and of the miracles he was working amongst the blind and the lame.  He had dreamed so long of regaining his vision, that he could almost see himself seeing again.  If only I could get to Jesus.

Bartimaeus began pushing his way in the direction he thought the crowd was moving.  But with each step forward he was shoved two back.  “You’re getting to be a little irritating, blind man,” came a comment from his left.
“You certainly are a bother,” came another from the same direction.
“Don’t you know to keep your place, beggar,” came a deep voice from his right.  “And your place...” the voice continued, as Bartimaeus felt a strong arm grabbing and thrusting him out of the crowd, “...is over here!”  Two large hands fell on his shoulders and collapsed Bartimaeus to the ground, as if he were a piece of cardboard being folded up.

He was out of the crowd now.  All he could think was that Jesus was getting farther and farther away; and so was his chance at sight again.

Jesus had slowed up his pace, and the expression on his face changed.  His attention diverted from whatever it was on before.  He was listening to other voices now.

“Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” Bartimaeus was shouting, up on his feet again.  If he couldn’t get through the crowd, he would shout over it.  Again and again he shouted, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”
“There now,” came a voice from the crowd.  “What makes you think you’re so special that Jesus would stop this whole procession just to turn and look at you?  Go on about your business, beggar.  Here’s some money.” Some coins fell at Bartimaeus’ feet.  “Go buy yourself some bread and stuff it in your mouth.  Maybe that’ll shut you up.”

Bartimaeus picked up the money, but kept on shouting.  “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”  Louder and louder he attempted his shouting.
“You’re one of those pushy beggars, aren’t you?” a woman’s voice shot at him.  “Won’t be satisfied with what little you got; always think you gotta have more.  Well stay out’a our way--you aren’t gettin’ nothin’ here.”

“Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”
“What do you think Jesus is going to do for you, beggar man--fill your wine skin so you can stay drunk with all your beggar buddies?  That’s all you want, isn’t it?  Money so you can drink the world away?”

“Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”
“Maybe,” another voice said, “he thinks Jesus is going to make him see again.”  Laughter rippled through that section of the crowd.  “It isn’t going to happen, blind man.  So put a lid on it will ya, and get back with the rest of your kind.”

Fainter now came the cry, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”  The thumping of the staffs, the steady clomp of the beggars bowls beating together, the shuffle of the feet of the crowd every onward, all this persisted.  But Bartimaeus’ shouts, and his wrestling with the indifferent crowd had tired him.  He fell to his knees.  To himself, more than anyone else, through tears of frustration born of rejection he mumbled his prayer one more time, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”

Unknown to Bartimaeus, who wouldn’t have been able to see it anyway--as he was so painfully reminded by the crowd--Jesus stopped walking.  He was just standing for a few moments, looking half way up the road, and then down at the road in front of his sandaled feet.

Turning to his disciple Andrew, he whispered something in his ear.  Turning to face the huge crowd, Andrew spoke back to Jesus.  “Which man, Lord?  There must be over a thousand in this crowd.”  Jesus again leaned toward Andrew and spoke quietly but commandingly his request.  Andrew nodded and began to make his way back through the crowd, who at this point had all but stopped.

As Andrew angled his way toward the beggars row, a man with a strong grip stopped him and asked what was going on.  Andrew looked at the man’s face, then down at the branch-like fingers that were wrapped around his arm and said, “Jesus wishes that a certain blind man be brought forward to him.”  The man leaned jerkingly away from Andrew’s face, but still held on for a moment.
“I know which one,” said the man to Andrew.  “I will bring him.”
Andrew cocked his head and looked up at the man.  “Bring him,” Andrew finally consented.

The man pushed his way back to where he thought the blind man was.  Finally looking down, he saw Bartimaeus kneeling on the ground with his face in his hands.
“Blind man,” the big man said in a coarse but comforting tone.  Bartimaeus continued to look at the ground.  He recognized the man’s voice.  It was one of his abusers.  Had he come back for more?  Could the man not see that he was beaten?  All the powers of a crowd of people whose bodies were whole, had been used to demean and batter the life and spirit of one who was not.
“Blind man,” the man said again, this time putting his strong hands gently around Bartimaeus’ shoulders.  “Be of good comfort,” said the man.  At that point the man began to gently lift Bartimaeus up to his feet.  “Come; Jesus is wanting to see you.  I will take you there.”  Bartimaeus looked up with his white centered eyes toward where he though the man’s face was.  A different kind of fear spread over Bartimaeus, and his spirit began to tremble.

The man with the big hands led Bartimaeus through the crowed to Andrew.  Andrew nodded and joined them as they made their way toward Jesus.  The clomping of the bowls and the rattling of the staffs had stopped.  There was a low murmur in the crowd that followed the three as they approached Jesus.  Bartimaeus could sense the people opening up and moving away as they worked their way through the crowd.  “It must be like the Red Sea parting,” he said to the strong man.
“It is at that,” the man replied.

The three men stopped in front of Jesus.  Jesus looked at the big man, then at Andrew, and then to blind Bartimaeus he said, “I heard you cry out to me.  I heard it all,” and he said this as he looked at the big man.  Turning back to Bartimaeus, Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Bartimaeus hesitated for a moment, because now his request seemed so selfish.  Nonetheless he stammered out his wish, “Lord, that I might receive my sight.”

The crowd had packed in tightly together, in order to see and hear what was going on.  Jesus gazed at the crowd of naysayers, whose ways of being had been more “No,” than “Yes.”  Then with compassion in his voice, Jesus concentrated his look upon Bartimaeus and simply said, “Go your way; your faith has made you whole.”

Immediately Bartimaeus’ sight was back.  All he saw was total brightness, as if he had come out of a darkened room into the bright sun of midday.  As his new eyes adjusted, the first thing he saw was Jesus, smiling; even his eyes smiled.  “I can see!” Bartimaeus said with a hush.  And then with a quick pivot toward the crowd, looking out over them all he raised his arms straight at the sky and shouted, “I can see! Thanks to Jesus, I can see!”

A great cheer went up from the crowd.  Bartimaeus was looking, through his tears of joy and thanksgiving, at everything he could--a world that was once only deep and impenetrable darkness, was now a dance of color and movement.


At the sound of the crowd cheering, Timaeus looked up from his loom in the direction of the din.  At the same time Bartimaeus was looking in the direction of the city, thinking of his father.  Timaeus shrugged and turned back to his loom.

The Ministry of the Towel

"The Ministry of the Towel"
Mark 10:35-45


A highly placed executive of a major airline company was talking about how difficult it is to recruit people and then to train them for that industry.  He said, “Service is the only thing, really, that we have to sell, but it’s the toughest to teach.  Nowadays, no one wants to be thought of as a servant.”

I think that’s an interesting observation.  I’m wondering how much it can hold true for the church as well.

In our upwardly mobile society, those climbing the proverbial ladder do not have their eyes focused on the bottom.  They have their eyes glued to the top--or at least somewhere near the top.  All of our success stories are about people who have gone from the bottom to the top.

What is interesting, the same kind of bantering about moving up the ladder went on amongst the disciples as well.  In this story in Mark we are told about two disciples who want the two places of honor when Jesus sits on his throne in the heavenly kingdom.

When the other disciples hear about it, they are indignant.  Why?  Because whenever there is discussion about who’s the greatest, who is the most favored, who is the most important, that begs the question, who is the least great, least favored and least important.  Most of us know we won’t be the greatest at whatever it is we do.  Just don’t let us be the least.

Don’t we, like the disciples who heard what Jesus said next, feel at least a twinge of deflation?  Servanthood, not lordship, is the key to greatness.  The greatest one in the midst of a people is the one who is a slave to the rest.  The most important person is the one who authentically and in symbolic ways washes others’ feet.  It isn’t when you reach the top, but the bottom, that gauges your success.

A group of Korean clergymen invited a professor from Princeton seminary to South Korea to conduct a seminar on modern biblical scholarship.  The professor began by asking a series of questions about the Bible.  Among the questions he asked was, “What is the most impressive incident in the Gospels?”

The Korean pastors huddled up and talked it over.  After a few minutes they said they had a unanimous answer.  It wasn’t the Crucifixion.  It wasn’t the Resurrection.  It wasn’t the Sermon on the Mount.  It was Jesus kneeling to wash the feet of the disciples.

It must be one of the most impression-making events in Jesus’ life for us as well.  As I mentioned last week, Jesus reverses the whole way we determine who has authority.  According to Jesus our authority is one of function--that is, service to others--rather than status.  According to Jesus our authority is one of powerlessness, not the accumulation of power.

People who are servants are free.  They are content with their hiddenness, their behind-the-scenes activity.  They find their joy in building up the people around them, rather than pumping up their individual ego.

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross is the author of several books about death and dying.  In one of those books she wrote about a middle-aged woman who worked for many years in a Chicago hospital mopping floors.  It was said of this janitorial woman that whenever she left the room of a dying patient, that patient always, without exception, was happier and more at peace.

Dr. Kubler-Ross was determined to find out why this was happening.  She learned that this poor, uneducated, cleaning woman had faced a great deal of suffering and tragedy in her life.  The woman told of the time when she had waited in a public health clinic for her three-year-old son to be treated for pneumonia.  But, before the little boy’s turn for treatment came, he died in her arms.  “You see, doctor,” the scrub woman said, “dying patients are just like old acquaintances to me, and I’m not afraid to touch them, to talk with them, or to offer them hope.”

As a result of this conversation with Dr. Kubler-Ross, hospital administration offered the scrub woman a newly-created position of “Counselor to the Dying.”  Yet she turned it down because she said that’s what she was already doing in her own singular way, while cleaning the floors in patients rooms.

This kind of service Jesus is talking about is the best way to cultivate a humble spirit.  Humility is one of those elusive rainbows that get farther away the more we chase it.  Probably the best illustration of this is one of my favorite Peanut cartoons.

Linus and Charlie Brown are sitting on the curb, talking about what they want to be when they grow up.  Linus says, "When I get big I'm going to be a humble little country doctor.  I'll live in the city, see, and every morning I'll get up, climb into my sports car and zoom into the country!  Then I'll start healing people.  I'll heal everybody for miles around!”  And he concludes this speech with,  “I'll be a world famous humble little country doctor."

For Jesus, you can’t be world famous and humble at the same time.  The hiddenness of Jesus’ style of service creates an authentic humility because our prideful side screams against hidden service.  We want someone to notice so much of what we’re doing.  But humility lets our serving get the upper hand so that recognition isn’t important.  Our heavenly Father recognizes and that’s all that’s important.

When we are all about self-recognition and self-promotion, we end up being like the arrow described in an essay by the theologian Soren Kierkegaard.  Kierkegaard suggested we think about an arrow racing on its course.  Suddenly it halts in its flight.  It began to admire how far it had flown, or how high it soared above the ground, or how fast it was flying, or with what grace it soared through the air.  At that moment when the arrow halts to look at itself, it falls to the ground.  Self-preoccupation, rather than humility is always dangerous and ultimately self-destructive.

Jesus talked about this humble hiddenness in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.
“When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.  (Matthew 6:1-4, EHP)

This kind of hidden, humble service has a ripple effect in the church.  It’s something all people of all ages can be engaged in, and it creates a level of fellowship that is unparalleled.


In conclusion, I’d like to offer a model of a prayer that is at the heart of the ministry of the towel.  Pray this prayer at the start of each day, and see what happens:

Lord Jesus, please show me someone today whom I can serve.  Amen.

Sticker Shock

"Sticker Shock"
Mark 10:17-31


Jesus said some hard things.  Hard to hear.  Hard to listen to.  Hard to comprehend, not because they were so difficult to understand, but because they were understood all too well.

One of the reasons Jesus’ sayings were so hard was because they were startling reversals of what was common coin thinking of that day.  In sayings like the one with which we’re faced today, it’s not difficult to see how Jesus’ sayings continue to reverse the “way it is,” and probably the way it was way before Jesus ever opened his mouth for the first time.  The reversal came when Jesus placed what he thought was important in contrast to something the culture of the day thought was important.  The results are opened eyes and quizzical expressions.

Such was the case with the man who had died and went to heaven.  He was being shown around.  An angel gave him a tour of a lovely mansion.  “Whose is this?” he asked.
“This,” said the guide, “is your gardener’s.”  The man grew in his anticipation, thinking that his heavenly accommodations would be beyond imagining if that’s what his gardner got.  Soon, they arrived at a shack, barely holding together.
“Whose is this?” asked the man.
“This is yours,” said the guide.  To an astonished man, the angel explained, “You see, you didn’t send us enough material to prepare anything better.”

Startling reversals. That’s what much of Jesus’ teaching was comprised of.  He reversed traditions.  He reversed values.  He reversed ideas of enemies and friendship, love and hate, first and last, what was important and what was not.  And maybe most importantly, Jesus gave an eternal dimension to our thoughts and actions.  That is, what we do, what we think, what we feel--all that has eternal consequences.  Not just consequences for the here and now.  That in itself was a reversal of a long standing religious conviction and conception.

The encounter of Jesus with the rich man is what we will look at this morning.  What Jesus is about to do is to pull the threads out of a tapestry of theology that had been woven over many centuries, thus altering its design forever after.

Matthew’s story of this encounter tells us that the rich man is young.  Luke adds the information that he was a ruler.  He sounds like a person who, by the world’s standards, had it all:  youth, money, power.  Yet Mark tells us that the man came running up to Jesus and knelt before him, begging him to tell the secret of how to obtain eternal life.  Something clearly was lacking in the life of that man, who from all outside appearances, was so enviable.

What we find out next adds more to our puzzlement concerning the man’s apparent emptiness.  The man was asking for religious fulfillment, but we find out in response to Jesus’ recitation of a few of the commandments, the man has kept them all!  And not just lately, but since he was a kid.  This man was not only wealthy, young, and powerful.  He was deeply religious as well.

What appears to be on the man’s mind is that he’s got all the bases covered for this life.  But somehow, Jesus’ teaching about an afterlife has got him thinking.  “I’ve got myself in a position of security for the rest of my life,” reasons the young man to himself.  “But if there’s another world, another realm, if there’s more as Jesus speaks about it, then I better make sure I’m set for that as well, whenever it comes.”  Thus the question the man asks Jesus: “How do I get this eternal life?  How do I make sure I”m all set up for the hereafter?”

Now I’m assuming, since this was a wealthy young entrepreneur, wise to the ways of the world and its commerce, he must have been prepared to pay something for what he was asking.  This man was not expecting to get something for nothing.  Everything has it’s price.  He knew it was going to cost him, and he many even have been prepared to pay a lot.

But little was the man prepared for the “sticker shock” that Jesus laid on him:  “Go and sell all you possess, and give to the poor…”  Everything the man now leans upon for his security in this life must be given up in order to have that which is eternal.  To gain the one, he loses the other; to keep what he has, makes what he has requested of Jesus slip through his fingers.  Mark tells us the man’s “face fell.”  As the Good News Bible has it, “gloom spread over his face.”

What is interesting to me is that even though his was a bartering society, the man didn’t even make a blink of an attempt to bargain Jesus down.  There must have been something about the look and the tone of Jesus that told the man, no discounts were allowed on the price of eternal life.  No haggling about the price of Kingdom come.

There are a couple of points I find interesting about this familiar and distressing story.  I’ve just alluded to one of them about no bartering when it comes to eternal life.  Why didn’t the man stick around to see how serious Jesus was about his demand?  But he didn’t.  It’s the disciples who take up the bartering with their Master.  One almost gets the feeling that they are so astonished at what Jesus said, and so bewildered they were almost tempted to yell after the man as he walked away, “Come back; Jesus was only kidding.  Weren’t you, Jesus?”

It’s interesting to me that it’s the disciples who mouth and express the astonishment, shock, and amazement that would have been more appropriately expressed by the rich man himself.  The disciples take up the ball, dropped by the rich man, in terms of the price tag on eternal life.

What has happened is that the rich man understands clearly.  He knows exactly what Jesus is doing with him.  He knows what the decision before him is.  He makes his decision and walks away.  It’s the disciples, men who have been with Jesus all along, men who you would think would also understand clearly, but do not. They are still trying to negotiate a better deal.

Maybe that’s why some people are so involved in church.  It’s not that they are lovers of Jesus as much as it is they are still bartering with Jesus, using their activity as coinage to leverage Jesus down from his original demands.

A second point of interest to me is that Jesus accepts the rich young ruler’s evaluation that he has been a religiously faithful person since he was a kid.  He has been faithful to the commandments that Jesus recited out of the list of God’s Top Ten:
Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not bear false witness.
Honor your father and mother.

He has obeyed all these.  It was as if Jesus were asking a present day person,

Have you taught Sunday School?
Have you sung in the choir?
Have you attended church services more Sundays than you’ve missed?
Have you gone to all the potluck suppers?
Have you involved yourself in a small group?
Have you ever served as Elder or Deacon?

The modern person would reply, “Yeah, Jesus; I’ve been doing all that since I was a kid.  We never had a choice when I was growing up.  Whenever the church doors were open, we were there.”  And Jesus replies, to all of us who are so rich in church activity, “That’s great.  Uhh, (pause) but there’s one other thing.”  You should know that when Jesus says, “But…” you better duck, because one of his great reversals is on its way at you.  Let’s see if we can ease ourselves into this reversal a little more gently than the rich man was.

First, Jesus recited some of the 10 Commandments.  Can anyone tell me what the other ones were that Jesus left off his list?  If you can’t remember specifically, tell me what they dealt with.  Anyone remember?

You shall have no other gods besides me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol…
You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God am a jealous God…

Jesus had left off the first part of the list of commandments that deal with relationship with and faithfulness to God above all other things.  That’s what Jesus was hitting at when he asked the young man to sell everything.  In effect, Jesus was telling the man, “You’re doing OK on the last seven.  But you’re falling on your face with the first three.  And they’re the most important.”

Jesus didn’t have to recite the first three commandments to the man, or ask him to recite them.  Instead, Jesus craftily came in the back door and exposed that which was getting in the way of the first three commandments.  That way, Jesus didn’t have to speak one word of the first three commandments for the man to understand clearly where Jesus was headed.

What the rich young ruler had done was to substitute his relationship with his possessions for his relationship with God.  And he had used his religiosity as a smoke screen to cover up the fact that, though he appeared faithful, he didn’t know God at all.

There was an actor who was at a reception.  He was asked by the host to recite the 23rd Psalm with all the thespian talent at his command.  He agreed to do so on the condition that a minister, who was also present, would recite the Psalm after he was finished.

It was agreed upon by the minister, so the actor stood up and slowly, effectively, and dramatically began to recite the psalm everyone knows so well.  When he lay down beside the still waters, the audience could almost see a pond.  His walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death was a chilling, sobering journey for the rapt listeners.  The table prepared in the presence of his enemies was almost visible, and they could almost smell the food, so powerful was his tone of voice.

When the actor concluded there was a slight pause, and then tremendous applause, whistles and cries of “bravo!”

Then the minister stood up.  He began quietly, somberly, but powerfully.  There fell a hush over the room.  As if such a thing were possible, the hush grew even deeper as he continued.  Then, softly, the rustle of tissues was heard as the people were moved to wet eyes and sniffling noses.

The actor rose beside the minister and said, “I’ve reached your senses, for I know the 23rd Psalm.  But he has reached your hearts, because he knows the Shepherd.”

Likewise, so many can recite the words of religiosity, and throw up smoke screen after smoke screen, hiding the shallowness of their relationship to the living Lord who stands behind those words.  Instead of knowing God, they know something else.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be money, as it was with the young man.  It can be anything else that has taken that spot of ultimate concern in our lives.

Jesus may honor our smoke screens to a point, as he did with the rich young man.  But (and there’s that word again) at some point the Lord is going to also say to each one of us, “One thing you lack:  go and…”  How will the Lord finish that sentence for you?  Go and do what?  Go and sacrifice what--that which we’ve been on a more intimate basis than we have with God?

And let’s ask ourselves one more question about this man’s encounter with Jesus.  What would have happened if he sold his possessions?  Personalize it.  What would happen if we eliminated that which captivates our ultimate concern and attention?  What would happen is that there would be a huge hole in our lives.  What would happen is that there would be a vacuum, an empty space, that would need to be filled.

What we decide to put in that empty place is the bigger of the decisions.  The decision to “Go and sell” is a big one.  But the decision of greater import is what we will fill the empty space with.  Or more appropriately, with whom will we fill our void?  The best decision, according to the first three commandments, this encounter of Jesus and the rich man, and the witness of the whole Bible is God.

The rich man was looking for eternal life.  But Jesus was trying to get him to see that what he really needed was nothing less and nothing more than God.  To have God would be having eternal life.  To have God means having it all; but the converse is not true:  having it all doesn’t mean you have God.

A man told about the time he was riding a trolley in San Francisco.  He noticed the driver could easily make the car go slowly or fast.  When they came to a crossing street, the driver could touch the handle and make the trolley creep along like a snail.  But touching the handle again, the driver could make it speed up the hills.

The rider became curious and spoke to the trolley driver about it.  The driver said, “When I squeeze this handle I open the mouth that grips the tracks, and it barely touches them.  When I want it to go fast, it grips the tracks fully and gets all the power from the overhead wires.  We call going slowly, ‘skinning the wire.’

It’s my prayer that each person here would let go of those things which only allows you to barely grasp the power of God; that you would keep from just skinning the wire with God and God’s power.  Instead, let us grip God, and God alone, so that we can know him fully, powerfully, and eternally.

Celebrating A New Normal

"Celebrating A New Normal"
Job 1


What’s a normal day for you?  Think about that question for a minute.  What is normal?  When I asked myself that question this week, it was hard for me to come up with how I was defining normal.  Maybe following a certain routine.  But my days are all different.  There is no set routine.

What’s strange is that even though I have never sat down and written out the parameters and boundaries of what’s normal for me and my days, I still feel like I have some vague idea of what it is in my head.  I kind of know what my expectations are of how a normal day would unwind itself before me.

In my musings and meditations this week, I wandered back to the book of Job.  I read and reread the first chapter.  And I thought about what’s normal and how normal gets shifted every now and then in our lives.

In the opening lines of Job’s story we find out what’s normal for him.  In terms of material wealth, Job had a lot of stuff.  Basically he had a huge feed lot full of animals:  7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 oxen, and 500 donkeys.  His normal day must have been filled with a bad chorus of animal noises; and a bad mixture of animal smells.  The story says he had a lot of servants, and I would guess most of them were feeding all those animals all day long.

There were children in Job’s normal day.  Seven sons and three daughters.  The story says that part of this family’s normal routine was to take turns holding feasts for each other’s families.

But then all that shifted dramatically.  A very abnormal set of events disrupted their normal day.  First, all Job’s oxen were stolen and the servants watching over them were killed.  Then lightening started a range fire burning up all the sheep and the servants tending them.  Then the camels were stolen, and all the servants tending them were killed by thieves.  And last, and most painful, Job’s sons and daughters were in the middle of one of their family feasts when a desert storm hit the house they were in, sweeping it clean away, killing all within its walls.

What was normal for Job before, was not normal for him any longer.  There was no warning his normal would change, and there didn’t seem to be any hope for restoring any sense of previous normalcy.  It was all gone in a sweeping string of unmerciful events.

That seems to me to be one of main ingredients of grief:  the loss of what is normal.  The transition from the old normal to a new normal is a roller coaster ride that disrupts every part of your life.  How do you ride that out smoothly?  You’re on the ride whether you want to ride or not.

Using the story of Job, let’s figure out how to get through those times in life when normal isn’t normal anymore, and a new normal must be created and celebrated.

First, when normal is taking a drastic turn, let yourself be human.  Abnormal times either bring out or create painful human feelings.  Most people don’t know what do do with all those feelings, some of which may be new to your experience.  It’s normal to think you have to apologize for feelings or ventilating emotions that you are experiencing.  You don’t have to apologize to anyone for being human.

Here’s what Job did, after his whole life was disrupted in loss--he cursed the day he was born.  Why did he curse the day he was born?  Because in birth we gain our humanity.  And being human, as Job saw it, meant you had to experience pain and trouble.  Later on in the book he will tell his so-called friends, “Man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward” (5:7)

We are human.  We aren’t superhuman.  Bullets don’t bounce off.  Especially the emotional bullets.  We wish they would, but they don’t.  They pierce the toughest armor.  They make it through the thickest parts of our self-protection.  We need to accept that, as human beings, we are fairly fragile creatures.  Let yourself be human--accept the imperfections and mysteries of life and death.  Some times there are no good answers, solutions or assurances other than, we are human.  If we think we’re something else, we will end up being frustrated, bitter and angry most of the time.

Secondly, when we move from one type of normal to another, a lot of loose ends get left behind that we can never make neat again.  So part of making the transition between what was normal to what will become normal is to let some of the puzzles go unfinished.  Sometimes there is no solution.  Most of the time pieces are lost and won’t be found.

We can’t fix everything.  So things, some situations, refuse to be fixed.  A lot of the time, especially in the early part of the transitions away from what was normal, we think we can’t go on if we can’t find the answers we think we need, or solve the problems that loom so darkly.  All we are trying to do is get it back to the way it was.  But the new normal will only be found by relaxing from trying to find impossible answers and solutions, so that other directions can be pursued.

Job ranted and raved, and demanded a hearing with God.  He wanted answers to his questions.  He wanted God to answer them.  He wanted God to put the lost pieces of his tragic puzzle in place so he could make sense of what happened.  It wasn’t until Job finally relaxed, stopped all his shouting and foot stomping, that God finally spoke.

What God told Job, towards the end of the story, is that God is a God who created, creates and recreates.  In other words, if Job wanted to see what God was up to, it wasn’t going to be by looking in the past and trying to find answers.  It was going to be by looking to the future to see what God was going to create and recreate:  a new normal for Job.  Even God can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.  But God can make the new.  In order for Job to accept God’s new, he was going to have to let go of all the puzzles and questions from the past that were never going to be solved or complete.

Thirdly, in order to move from one normal to a new normal after a life altering event, find a listening friend.  The times between normals are meant to be shared with those who can accept you and your situation without judgement.  Job had three good friends who showed up to try and bring comfort.  That is, until they opened their mouthes.

When they came to Job, and saw him huddled on the ash heap, covered with sores, they couldn’t believe their eyes.  They wept.  The tore their clothes in symbolic sorrow.  They threw dust on their heads.  They didn’t say a thing for seven days.  Then they started talking.

The conversation with Job makes up the whole rest of the story.  The gist of what they tell Job is that he must have done something terribly wrong for all that bad stuff to happen to him.  If he would only confess his wrong doing, God would let up on him.  But Job contended he was innocent and undeserving of what happened.  The three of them ended up being graceless and unhelpful friends.

Good friends, through healthy, non-judgmental conversation can support a person in Job-like circumstances diffuse their intense feelings of anger, fear and betrayal.  Those are just a few of the main feelings we feel when we are moving from old normal to new normal.  A friend can provide companionship rather than answers or platitudes or judgment through abnormal times.  They can make the transition bearable.

When I was serving a church in Nebraska, one of the pastors I knew got cancer.  He moved to Lincoln for treatment.  But it quickly became terminal.  His normal shifted in a matter of a couple of weeks.

The dying pastor wanted to see three of his friends, but they wouldn’t come.  They just couldn’t do it.  Finally one of the friends relented.  He said to the other two, “I’m going to Lincoln; I’m coming to pick you up before I leave town to drive you with me.”  One of them went.  The third just couldn’t bring himself to go see his dying friend.  The two who went had a great time.  They talked.  They laughed.  They ended up going back time and time again.  The first visit was all they needed to break through their reluctance.

Still the other friend wouldn’t go.  Finally he said he’d come see him when he got back from vacation.  The day before the friend left for vacation, their pastor buddy died.  Now the friend who held back was feeling guilty and sad and angry at himself.  When his friend needed a friend, he held back.

When normal has shifted dramatically in one of your friends life, GO!  Don’t wait.  Don’t hold back.  They need you to weep with them, to journey with them in a compassionate and understanding way as they begin the process of constructing something new in their lives--even when the new is terminal.

And lastly, pray.  This should be a given.  A no-brainer.  But many times when people are moving from one normal to another they let their fear and anger get in the way of their praying.  It’s hard for them, like Job, to simply accept things at the hands of God.  Or people think they should pray well ordered, flowery, happy prayers.  But “stumbling prayers,” honest feeling prayers are best.  They won’t be well-ordered or gushy.  They will be raw, incomplete sentence prayers that express to God your fears and worries.  This kind of stumbling, groaning prayer will help God understand how you are feeling.

Other times it’s hard to know what to pray for.  You have no idea where your life is headed.  You want to know what, and when normal will return.  In those times pray for patience..  Not everything will be brought to clarity immediately.  Maybe not even for several years.

Pray for hope.  Hope may be shown to you in a tiny glimpse of what is to come.  Hope gives you something to hold on to, something to move toward.

Pray for faith.  Don’t give up on God.  Prayer is, more than anything else, a reaching out to the Great Companion.  God will see you through.  I don’t say that as a platitude.  I know it’s true.  In the four years prior to coming here my life had taken one of those major shifts away from my once dearly held normal.  For four years I prayed, asking God what was to become of me.  I wondered out loud to God if church councils were more powerful than He.  A Jewish counselor I had as a spiritual director told me not to give up--that it was my faith in God that carried me through previous hard times--faith in my sense of call from God that threaded its way all the way back to junior high.

And then, all of a sudden I was here.  And it’s been utterly amazing from day one.  This place has been an affirmation and confirmation of God faithfulness over me.  The Pratt church has become the new normal that God has placed me in.  So I can say with the certainty of my own prayers and praying, that praying for faith helps open up new shifts in God’s new normal.


I titled this message, “Celebrating A New Normal.”  When what was once normal is changing drastically, and life as you once knew it is gone, it’s hard to see that there’s anything worth celebrating.  In one respect, the anxious transition helps you celebrate the normal days when you have one.  What a blessing a “normal” day is.  Don’t take it for granted.  Celebrate it!

And, though it’s hard, celebrate when the abrupt changes come.  It means God will be at work, helping create and recreate your life, albeit to a new set of definitions about what will become normal.  Look for God.  See where you find him in the shaping of what you are becoming.  And when you find God, celebrate!