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The Little Book of Consolation - The Rev. Barbara Ballenger
Sermon from the Rev. Barbara Ballenger for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 25. Today's readings are:
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost...Let us pray.
The Book of Jeremiah was written for Israel in exile. And much of the prophet Jeremiah's work is getting Israel to understand how failure to uphold the covenant with God got them into the mess they were in, and how that same covenant would get them out.
A commentary I was reading the other day described the Book of Jeremiah as "a river of accusation, destruction, and weeping," but for the exile, also "a book of life." And tucked right in the middle of the Book of Jeremiah is what's called the Little Book of Consolation. That's what today's first reading is, a page of the Little Book of Consolation.
In the middle of the story and the experience of captivity there is this promise, this vision of restoration. Imagine how that impossible, crazy vision would have sounded to someone who had been forced from their home and impressed into servitude elsewhere or scattered in diaspora.
"See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those with labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them. I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble."
The Little Book of Consolation is a description of profound hope. Future generations will make it home one day, much the way that God led Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. But it's more than saying that everything's going to go back to the way it was, or that God will help us out like God helped us out before. It provides a glimpse not of Israel's vision for itself, but of God's vision, of God's hope for the covenant relationship in full blossom. To be consoled by these words is to be consoled by a loyalty to God's agenda. To be in covenant with God is to partner with God in the divine vision.
I think it that this was the vision that Bartimaeus, begging, blind along the road in Jericho was longing for in Mark's gospel. But how could he know exactly the shape that healing would take when he told Jesus "I want to see again"? He was no man born blind. And there he was in the messy middle, somewhere between I saw once and I see now. And he cried out for consolation "Son of David, have pity on me." How did he know it was the Son of David, the messiah walking by when people told him that Jesus was near?
Bartimaeus knew because Bartimaeus could see very clearly through his eyes of faith. Some commentators call this story an "acted parable" because with the healing of the man's blindness, Jesus was acting out a lesson on faith and discipleship that he had been teaching his followers for a few chapters now. In fact Mark begins this long lesson on discipleship, which we've been studying for several weeks now, with the healing of another blind man. That man is brought to Jesus, and it takes a couple tries for Jesus to get the healing to take. Then he sends that man home to keep the secret.
It's not unlike the learning process that the followers of Jesus experience as Jesus tries to get his disciples to see through his eyes, to live into his vision of what discipleship should be. They must love fully, they must walk empty, they must include the lowly, their faith must be child-like, they must be lower than least, they must serve, even lay down their lives. And woven through these lessons is the hardest one of all: that the son of man must be betrayed and suffer and die, and that in order for God's eternal life to be made manifest, Jesus' followers must first follow him to that cross.
And throughout these lessons, the disciples strain to see. Their faith is not ready for public display. The faith of the people that Jesus introduces them to along the way far surpasses the faith of his disciples. Over and over again Jesus is reading to them from the Little Book of Consolation and they don't recognize it. But Bartimaeus, one of the little ones, one of the blind and the lame does. He asks to see again, but Jesus does not restore him to whatever status he had before he lost his sight and was reduced to begging along the hillside. Upon his healing, Bartimaeus becomes a follower of Jesus, and he follows Jesus into the last week of Jesus' life.
This is what Bartimaeus will see with his new eyes: he will see the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He will see Jesus mystify the crowds and offend the local authorities. He will see Jesus betrayed and tortured and executed. And if he can stand all of that, he will see Jesus risen. His sight is not restored to behold the old things as they were, but to see the new things as they are revealed. And some of that is not pretty to look at.
As a faith community, our own moment, our messy middle, has some small similarity to our scriptures today. The pandemic scattered us. It isolated us. It kept us away, and the return has been slow and hard going and ongoing. It's not done yet. We are not as we were 18 months ago. Some are arriving with babies in arms, where there were no babies before. Families have appeared under the 9 a.m. worship tent, where there was no tent before. Some people have beards now. Some of us are silver now. It is still difficult to recognize one another under the masks from the nose up. And there are new faces that we are welcoming - faces we have yet to see all of.
It is a thrill to see the seats filled again. It is a heartbreak to know that there are some who will not fill their seats again. And I think all of us are straining to see what will happen next, what will become of us, what is God's vision for this time.
There is a book of consolation here. There is an acted parable at play in the messy middle that we occupy. It has to do with what God sees in us and what God is making happen in us right now: God's vision, God's big picture. And we can't see it distinctly, but can glimpse it in the longing of our hearts. We can recognize it in the inklings of compassion and mercy that we witness. We can even detect it working at the edges of the ugliness that we are witnessing right now - making visible injustices that have always been there, but that many of us are seeing for the first time or with a new resolve to not look away.
The little book of consolation before us is a story about making a way where there was no way. Our invitation is to live into that way. How will we assist God in helping people negotiate that way and their arrival? Who is on the road with us? How far are we willing to go to find them, to invite them, to tell them of the love of Jesus that we have witnessed? What kind of place are we preparing for them?
The acted parable before us is a lived story about being made to see what God is doing, and to trust in what we can't see of God's plan. What are we seeing for the first time as we open our eyes again? Who is crying out for God's mercy, and who is trying to hush them up? And what are we to do about it?
Sunday after Sunday we are invited to see ourselves in the stories of faith that we hear proclaimed, and the rest of the week we are asked to make those stories visible to the wider world. We are asked to make our lives a page in someone's little book of consolation. We are asked to allow Jesus to use our vulnerable selves as an acted parable to show others the way to the kingdom. We are asked to be ready when the message comes: Take Heart. Get up. He is calling you!
Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org
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By St. Martin-in-the-FieldsSermon from the Rev. Barbara Ballenger for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 25. Today's readings are:
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52
Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost...Let us pray.
The Book of Jeremiah was written for Israel in exile. And much of the prophet Jeremiah's work is getting Israel to understand how failure to uphold the covenant with God got them into the mess they were in, and how that same covenant would get them out.
A commentary I was reading the other day described the Book of Jeremiah as "a river of accusation, destruction, and weeping," but for the exile, also "a book of life." And tucked right in the middle of the Book of Jeremiah is what's called the Little Book of Consolation. That's what today's first reading is, a page of the Little Book of Consolation.
In the middle of the story and the experience of captivity there is this promise, this vision of restoration. Imagine how that impossible, crazy vision would have sounded to someone who had been forced from their home and impressed into servitude elsewhere or scattered in diaspora.
"See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those with labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them. I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble."
The Little Book of Consolation is a description of profound hope. Future generations will make it home one day, much the way that God led Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. But it's more than saying that everything's going to go back to the way it was, or that God will help us out like God helped us out before. It provides a glimpse not of Israel's vision for itself, but of God's vision, of God's hope for the covenant relationship in full blossom. To be consoled by these words is to be consoled by a loyalty to God's agenda. To be in covenant with God is to partner with God in the divine vision.
I think it that this was the vision that Bartimaeus, begging, blind along the road in Jericho was longing for in Mark's gospel. But how could he know exactly the shape that healing would take when he told Jesus "I want to see again"? He was no man born blind. And there he was in the messy middle, somewhere between I saw once and I see now. And he cried out for consolation "Son of David, have pity on me." How did he know it was the Son of David, the messiah walking by when people told him that Jesus was near?
Bartimaeus knew because Bartimaeus could see very clearly through his eyes of faith. Some commentators call this story an "acted parable" because with the healing of the man's blindness, Jesus was acting out a lesson on faith and discipleship that he had been teaching his followers for a few chapters now. In fact Mark begins this long lesson on discipleship, which we've been studying for several weeks now, with the healing of another blind man. That man is brought to Jesus, and it takes a couple tries for Jesus to get the healing to take. Then he sends that man home to keep the secret.
It's not unlike the learning process that the followers of Jesus experience as Jesus tries to get his disciples to see through his eyes, to live into his vision of what discipleship should be. They must love fully, they must walk empty, they must include the lowly, their faith must be child-like, they must be lower than least, they must serve, even lay down their lives. And woven through these lessons is the hardest one of all: that the son of man must be betrayed and suffer and die, and that in order for God's eternal life to be made manifest, Jesus' followers must first follow him to that cross.
And throughout these lessons, the disciples strain to see. Their faith is not ready for public display. The faith of the people that Jesus introduces them to along the way far surpasses the faith of his disciples. Over and over again Jesus is reading to them from the Little Book of Consolation and they don't recognize it. But Bartimaeus, one of the little ones, one of the blind and the lame does. He asks to see again, but Jesus does not restore him to whatever status he had before he lost his sight and was reduced to begging along the hillside. Upon his healing, Bartimaeus becomes a follower of Jesus, and he follows Jesus into the last week of Jesus' life.
This is what Bartimaeus will see with his new eyes: he will see the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He will see Jesus mystify the crowds and offend the local authorities. He will see Jesus betrayed and tortured and executed. And if he can stand all of that, he will see Jesus risen. His sight is not restored to behold the old things as they were, but to see the new things as they are revealed. And some of that is not pretty to look at.
As a faith community, our own moment, our messy middle, has some small similarity to our scriptures today. The pandemic scattered us. It isolated us. It kept us away, and the return has been slow and hard going and ongoing. It's not done yet. We are not as we were 18 months ago. Some are arriving with babies in arms, where there were no babies before. Families have appeared under the 9 a.m. worship tent, where there was no tent before. Some people have beards now. Some of us are silver now. It is still difficult to recognize one another under the masks from the nose up. And there are new faces that we are welcoming - faces we have yet to see all of.
It is a thrill to see the seats filled again. It is a heartbreak to know that there are some who will not fill their seats again. And I think all of us are straining to see what will happen next, what will become of us, what is God's vision for this time.
There is a book of consolation here. There is an acted parable at play in the messy middle that we occupy. It has to do with what God sees in us and what God is making happen in us right now: God's vision, God's big picture. And we can't see it distinctly, but can glimpse it in the longing of our hearts. We can recognize it in the inklings of compassion and mercy that we witness. We can even detect it working at the edges of the ugliness that we are witnessing right now - making visible injustices that have always been there, but that many of us are seeing for the first time or with a new resolve to not look away.
The little book of consolation before us is a story about making a way where there was no way. Our invitation is to live into that way. How will we assist God in helping people negotiate that way and their arrival? Who is on the road with us? How far are we willing to go to find them, to invite them, to tell them of the love of Jesus that we have witnessed? What kind of place are we preparing for them?
The acted parable before us is a lived story about being made to see what God is doing, and to trust in what we can't see of God's plan. What are we seeing for the first time as we open our eyes again? Who is crying out for God's mercy, and who is trying to hush them up? And what are we to do about it?
Sunday after Sunday we are invited to see ourselves in the stories of faith that we hear proclaimed, and the rest of the week we are asked to make those stories visible to the wider world. We are asked to make our lives a page in someone's little book of consolation. We are asked to allow Jesus to use our vulnerable selves as an acted parable to show others the way to the kingdom. We are asked to be ready when the message comes: Take Heart. Get up. He is calling you!
Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org