“Unshakable
Wholeness”
Sermon for MCC
New Haven (CT)
Rev. Brian
Hutchison, M.Div.
October 28,
2012
Texts:
Mark
10:46-52
Psalm
34:1-8
Good
morning MCC! Before I jump into the sermon, I want to first introduce myself
for all those I have not yet gotten to speak with this weekend. I am Rev. Brian
Hutchison and I am an ordained minister in MCC. I currently live with my
husband of six years James in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where I am a staff minister
at Sunshine Cathedral MCC. Before moving to Florida, James and I lived in
Maryland where I was pastor of New Covenant MCC in Laurel, MD. Before that, I
was a clergy intern at MCC San Francisco (CA) and a hospital chaplain intern
for CPMC in San Francisco while I completed my Master of Divinity degree at
Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. Before professional ministry, I was
involved with MCC Washington DC where I was a devoted member of the Gospel
Choir (I love gospel music!) while I worked on my Bachelor’s degree in
Psychology. So needless to say, I have had time to grow within MCC and I am
proud to call myself MCC clergy.
As
a minister, I bring my own unique gifts and talents that I am happy to share
wherever I go. As I mentioned, I am a singer and love the power of music. I
also believe in the power of ritual and its deep meaning in the human
experience. And so I enjoy creating meaningful rituals that help individuals
and congregations move from sorrow to joy, heartache to fullness of heart, and
from woundedness to wholeness.
And
this is where I see the Gospel meet our experience today. Are you ready for
some Good News church? (Yes!) Mark brings us some good news today. In the
gospel text we heard today, Jesus and the disciples are walking either from or
to Jericho (the translation is a bit ambiguous). Within the first five words of
this text, a biblical image comes to mind. Remember in the 6th
chapter of Joshua when Joshua leads the Israelites in a march around the city
of Jericho until the walls fall down. Then they kill all the men, women, and
children in the city because they were different… which of course was the most
loving thing to do… But the thing
in this text that comes most to my attention as an advocate for the oppressed
and those on the margins of society is that God commanded that the prostitute
Rahab and her family were to be spared because they had given refuge to the
Israelites.
We
cannot overlook that in the genealogy of Jesus found in the first chapter of
Matthew, Rahab the prostitute is listed there. The gospel writers
followed in the Way of Jesus by themselves advocating for the marginalized. And
this great gem is found in the first few words of this text.
But
it gets better folks! Our storyteller Mark tells us that this blind beggar
named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) was sitting by the road. Now let’s pause here
again for a minute. The name Timaeus means “honor” or “honorable.” And since
the prefix “bar” means “son of,” we come to an idea of what Mark is trying to
tell us. Bartimaeus was the son of honor, but what was he himself? All we are
told is that he is a blind beggar, and in the Ancient Near East, those with
such a disability and misfortune were viewed as sinful. In their understanding
of justice, this man must have done something wrong in order to become blind.
Bartimaeus’ father was called Honor, so his name might as well have been Shame.
And
so here comes the Rabbi Jesus and his followers down the road. And in their
arrogance, they hush Bartimaeus for calling on Jesus to have mercy on him. In
the tradition of the Spirituals, I can almost hear him sing, “O Lord have mercy
on me!” They attempt to silence him. How many times has the popular crowd or
the majority tried to silence us as a community? Fundamentalist Christians even
ask God to keep us quiet because we must be terrible sinners. But we see from
Jesus’ answer that we will not and cannot be silenced.
Jesus
then calls Bartimaeus to come to him.
So he throws his clothes off (amen?), jumps up, and went straight to his great
opportunity for healing. He says, “Rabbi, I want to see again.” But let’s stop
here again and for a minute, let’s assess our assumptions. We readily assume
that Bartimaeus wants to physically
see. In hearing the miracle stories, they make us wonder whether there was an
“age of miracles” (as some say) that we are just living too late to get in on.
We know that many of us face illness, but we cannot pray it away. Begging God
to take away disease has been proven ineffective. This isn’t because God is
merciless, but rather because finitude is simply part of our existence.
But
what I do know is that miracles do happen. According to A Course in Miracles,
“Miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong.” In
the teachings of The Course, a miracle does not have to do with a supernatural
occurrence, but it rather has to do with a change in perception, a change in
our vision so to speak. The miracle
is a choice of love over fear.
I
think that in this story, Mark is trying to teach us about the way we see the world. Bartimaeus wanted
desperately to escape a worldview that told him that he was “less-than”- less
than human, less than lovable, less than a child of God. And Jesus brought this
beloved child Good News: Your faith
has made you well. At once, a shift in perception allowed Bartimaeus to shed
the identity that had been given him, one of shame. In its place, he took on an
identity of faith, especially faith in himself.
How
many of us sit by the side of the road waiting for Good News to come our way,
hoping for the right thing to be said to us so that we can finally move on with
our lives? Waiting for that person to apologize or for someone else to make it
right. Friends, if any of you sit in that place of shame, know that you do not
have to wait any longer. Jesus has already spoken the words, not just to
Bartimaeus, but to you: Go, your faith has made you well!
I
know all the excuses for staying in that place of shame. I’ve been there
myself. “I don’t deserve
wholeness,” or “At least in my shame I am in control,” or “I don’t know any
other existence.” Between the
lines of Scripture, Bartimaeus may have said these things. But I can see Jesus
just smile with unconditional love, and speaking those simple words that helped
Bartimaeus to awaken from the terrible nightmare he was living in.
19th
Century New Thought teachers Malinda Cramer and Fannie Brooks James wrote this,
“Being whole must be our realization. We unfold health eternal. The individual,
as an expression of the universal Life, can be only what that Life is. The
Infinite created us out of its own health; healing is the awareness of that
health as our nature.” In other
words, since God is Wholeness and we are made in the image and likeness of God
in Original Blessing, then we are by definition whole as well. All around us may tell us otherwise, but the Divine
Light within will always repeat the truth with each beat of our hearts: You are whole, you are whole, you are whole.
Can
you believe that, MCC? After all that you have gone through, after the stress
and the pain, you are not broken. You are in fact perfect, whole, and
complete just as you are. There is no need to compare ourselves to each other
or to say that we are better than other groups of people because in the deepest
parts of our humanity, we are ALL perfectly whole.
If
in this moment, this is difficult to accept or to understand, look to the Psalm
that we heard today. The psalmist gives testimony to how s/he was saved. The
psalmist writes, “God freed me from all my fears” and “God saves the helpless
from their troubles.” And finally, “Happy are those who take refuge in God.” In the same way, MCC Doctrine tells us
that we are saved from loneliness, degradation, and despair. All it takes is a
mind-shift from fear to love, from fear to the God that we know as Divine Love,
from un-consciousness to Christ-consciousness. We have the power to not only
set ourselves free, but through our loving word and touch set others free as
well.
Saints,
the Good News today is that there is another Way. Oppressive and fearful systems
and ideologies in our world do not have to have the last word. We have the
choice. And with that choice, we can truly choose exactly what we are looking
for: the peace of God that passes all understanding and joy that leads to
dancing. Amen.
