22nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 25B

22nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 25B October 24, 2021 Years ago, when I was working at Stewpot, the inner city soup kitchen in Jackson, Mississippi, I almost, inadvertently started a riot. I had been talking to one of the community members who was homeless, and he revealed to me that as the temperatures were beginning to drop, he was concerned because he did not have a blanket. I was delighted that I could help him; we had recently received a donation of about 20 brand new blankets, still in their packaging. So, I went to where they were stored, and I brought one out and gave it to him. I’m not sure how word got out, maybe other community members saw his new blanket, and they started mobbing the office where the blankets were kept. It eventually took the intervention of our security officer to quell the crowd. I had never seen anything like it, and I learned to be much more discreet when handing out new blankets in the future. Years later, I was serving as a priest in a downtown church. We had another man who was homeless stop by the church on a specific mission. As the deacon was talking with him the man said, “I have these two blankets here. Would you please keep them and give them to someone else who may need them more than me?” Blankets are a hot commodity among those who are homeless and impoverished. They can mean the difference between survival and not. Now, I don’t know how many blankets this man had, but it is striking to me that he must have felt that he had an abundance of blankets, and so he chose to give away two to try to help someone else in need. In our gospel reading for today, we see a blind beggar named Bartimaeus who is at work with his cloak or blanket in Jericho. When Jesus and his followers come by, Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” First, this is unusual, because this is the first time the writer of Mark introduces Jesus’s connection with David into this gospel, although if we continue on with the story, we will see it again shortly in Jesus’s triumphant entry in Jerusalem. Second, it is important to note that translators tell us that there is no good translation for the Greek words into English for what is translated as “have mercy on me.” It is a much more active demand in the Greek, and would be more like us saying, “Do something!” or even “Mercify me!” Bartimaeus encounters resistance from the crowd, but he just calls out louder. And then Jesus tells the crowd to tell Bartimaeus to come here, which they do. “Take heart,” they say. “Courage!” “Get up, he is calling you.” And this is the part that really strikes me in this story. Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, and he jumps up, and he goes to Jesus. Think about that for a minute. The man is a beggar. His cloak is most likely his most valuable possession (much like my homeless visitor’s blankets). Bartimaeus would have used his cloak as a shelter from the elements; he would have laid it on the ground as a place to gather and collect any alms he received as people passed by. And when Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and leaves it behind, he knows that he most likely will not be able to find it after his encounter with Jesus unless he has assistance. What tremendous faith and courage to cast off the one most valuable thing that helped him eke out an existence as a beggar to go to Jesus and seek out a whole new and better life, a new way of being and a new way of seeing! Bartimaeus is unique in all of Mark’s healing stories (of which this is the last) because Jesus tells him to go, his faith (courage, chutzpah) has made him well, but Bartimaeus doesn’t go. He follows Jesus on the way, which means that Bartimaeus follows Jesus into Jerusalem, where he will witness others throwing their cloaks down and proclaiming Jesus to be the “Son of David”. In the daily meditation “Brother, give us a word” from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, one brother writes this about the word “Savior”: “I would be willing to bet that nearly everyone here this morning has some inconvenient truth in his or her life that may well seem beyond the pale of redemption—a failed relationship, a debilitating illness, a financial or professional setback, some loathsome habit or compulsion or addition. Take heart. You are not alone. King Jesus saves us and is with us and is for us, always, no matter what. That’s the good news—and the truth.” i Each of us has an inconvenient truth--something for which we cry out to Jesus, “Have mercy! Do something!” And Jesus offers us an invitation asking “What do you want me to do for you?” And I’d be willing to bet that each of us also has some sort of cloak or blanket, a way of coping, a way of getting by that seems essential to life as we know it, but may be encumbering our progress in following Jesus. What is your inconvenient truth? What is your cloak? Do you have the faith, the courage, the chutzpah, to throw it off, to leave it behind so that you may be given the gift of new ways of living, new ways of seeing, new ways of being? What are the gifts that God have given you—the gifts of God for the people of God? What is God’s hope for their use? What extra blanket are you being called to share? What old cloak are you being called to leave behind to receive the new, abundant life that Jesus is offering you? i. From “Brother, Give Us A Word” on 10/24/12 by Br. Kevin Hackett www.ssje.org.