Healing of Bart

By The Rev. Diane Riley

I am delighted to be here today and I want to thank Rev. Poppe and Martha Gardner for allowing me to come and preach and participate in a forum where I can share my work with you. I work for The Apostles House in Newark. This is a familiar entity no doubt to many of you especially long time members as St. Georges’. Twenty five years ago St. Georges in collaboration with four other churches was founded the Apostles’ House family shelter. Today we have many programs that serve the poor in Essex beyond the shelter, there is transition housing, continuum of care services for those moving on to independent living, a home for teenage mothers and their children where they can continue to go to school and learn how to raise strong children even as they are moving out of their own childhood. And of course our Food Pantry. I work program within our food pantry in an educational program that allows me to visit communities to raise the awareness of one of the most basic problems we encounter, the problem of hunger. We have one of the largest if not the largest food pantry in Essex. We served over 10,000 people last year. As you might guess the problem of hunger has been exacerbated by the economic crisis. We are very near to serving 10,000 people as of the end September and traditionally the last quarter of the year is when we serve the most people (almost 50% of those we served last year, were served in the fall). So thank you for all you have done and thank you for all you continue to do to help. You are our partners. Today as you walk you not only raise money for the hunger but you stand in solidarity and witness to those that are not always seen and helping others to “see” the problem of hunger. The work I do also allows me to help people “see” the not only the demand but to raise the awareness of the big picture and the actions that we can take to get at the root causes of hunger so that we can get to the point where we end the problem of food insecurity. A time when emergency food providers like our pantry will truly be called on only in cases of emergency and not as a way of life. So if you can’t be here for the seminar than please stop by and allow me to give you some info to take with you.

I am a vocational Deacon in this diocese. St. Georges’ has been blessed with several Deacons as part of your worshiping community, Kathleen Ballard and most recently Chris McCloud. And so you know that we are ordained to the ministry of service. Our ministry is first and foremost to model an active care ministry. Care of individuals as in pastoral care and also care of the community through social ministry. All of the deacons in this diocese are very different. You can see that in their day jobs. Some are nurses, chaplains, managers of social service organizations, teachers, or anti-hunger advocates. Having said that the heart of our ministry is the same. We all see the world in through the same lens – we see the world through the lens of vulnerable people. Sometimes those people are what the gospel calls “the least of these” and their needs are easy to spot – the hungry, or those that need shelter or those that are sick. Sometimes their needs are not so easy to see, like their sense of isolation from others in their community, or maybe just their sense of isolation from God. Perhaps loneliness is the most common unmet need. Our sense of separation is the most common denominator for all God’s people. Here is where it comes together for me. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me... “We participate in our own reconciliation, in mending our own relationship, traveling that distance to God when we take the “risk” of a relationship with the least of these... So there really is mutuality about serving that I want to talk to you about today. I may be meeting their needs but they are also meeting my needs. It’s a connection. In the entirety of the Bible we hear in people’s experience of God that God wants only for his people to be connected to each other; to care for each other and to find God in those caring connections.

That is not always easy even for Deacons. I’ll start with a confession. Every week on the way to work, I drive on 280 and get off of exit 15 in Newark and always I get stuck at the light at the bottom of the ramp. It a long light it turns onto Rt. 21 which is a very busy road. Sometimes I am get stopped almost making it to the turn and so I am first waiting for the light to change, and so often I am the second or third car up that ramp. Usually at this time a person appears, seemingly out of nowhere. A beggar someone who is looking for change and comes up to my window. Here comes the confession. If I am three cars back I have time to pray before they come up to the window. I pray not that we can deliver the people who live in poverty from poverty, not that maybe this person who may have a drug problem or other problems that are barriers to them becoming whole can get the help they need. No I pray that the light will change before they reach my car. I just can’t deal with it that early in the morning. I get angry that I have to. I get angry at them for not fixing their problems. I get angry at society for not helping to fix their problems. Most times when they do manage to reach me and I can’t avoid it I reach down in my purse and give them some money. I don’t always look in their eyes. This act doesn’t alleviate my anger. I still feel angry because no matter how much I work at alleviating the problem of poverty it assaults me and I feel like a failure. And then when the light changes and I am safely away from the confrontation. I feel ashamed and I begin to feel guilty at myself for having all those feelings.

As I pull into the parking lot and I finish my journey to work I say a different prayer, “Jesus, Son of God have mercy on me a sinner.” This prayer, “the Jesus prayer” or the “prayer of the heart” is not new it has been used for centuries by Christian communities as a first step. It is the simplest most desperate prayer when you are at the end of your rope -- a surrender prayer. It’s a prayer where I acknowledge this “true confession” to myself and then offer it up to God. In those moments I recognize that I have a way to go to be a follower of Jesus but … that I have take a step toward getting there.

Today’s Gospel gives us that prayer as part of the story. It is the last healing story in the Gospel of Mark. The last public healing, after this story Jesus moves on to Jerusalem and toward the cross. This in effect is the last statement given by our Gospel writer about Jesus ministry and so it is really a statement about what his ministry means. It is also the culmination of the stories about discipleship and what it means to be follower. Jesus is traveling and blind beggar named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) is on the side of the road begging. The name has meaning, Bart-teymeh means “son of poverty” in Aramaic. This man immediately shouts to Jesus “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” People around Jesus, you know his entourage tell him to stop and be quiet but he shouted even louder. “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stops and stands still and he tells them to call him over. And they turn towards him and say “Take heart, get up, he is calling you”. I love that. Take heart, get up, he is calling you. That’s the line that stops me in this story. All a long I have been somehow not identifying with the son of poverty the blind beggar because I am not poor and I can see. But when I hear that line, I identify with poor Bart. Even my name for him in my mind changes to a nickname of a friend a kindred spirit. I want to desperately to be in his shoes. I want to hear someone say to me, “take heart, get up, Jesus is calling you”. Me personally, someone who can’t bear to look at the beggar outside my car window. Jesus have mercy on me, a sinner. If we can agree that sin really anything that gets in the way of me relationship with God. I can say my sin is one of surrendering to hopelessness and letting fear and apathy creep into my heart. In those moments when I stare straight ahead I have clearly turned away. I don’t have the courage to turn towards that beggar. Who is not Bart at all but a disciple telling me that Jesus is calling. I don’t have the courage to believe we are deeply connected and to stop thinking of it as his problem, or society’s problem, and not my problem, our problem. To turn towards the relationship that Christ offers and affirms, I am a sinner, known and still deeply loved. Mark starts out his Gospel with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. And ends his teachings by telling us to “Take heart, get up, Jesus is calling you”. If God knows all this about me and still calls. That is good news.

Truth is we need help in believing in this News. All are worthy and we are all responsible but that there is joy waiting in this connectedness and responsibility. What do I want? I want what Bart has. I want to feel what Bart feels. I want to throw off whatever I need to throw off (my pride, my money, by cloak or whatever keeps me from) feeling that deep sense of acceptance that knowledge of being known and loved and jump up with the enthusiasm and energy. The energy that has him leaping to his feet with, joy just at the invitation. When asked, “Diane what do you want me to do for you?” I want to answer to clearly and firmly. “I want to see again”. Lord, help me to see the truth again. Help me to believe in that reality. Heal me so that I can “see” that. Truth be told we need serve not just as duty because the Bible tells us to help the poor, we need the connection to the “least of these” to address our own deep need for connection with God. They help us understand what we cannot see.

Nora Gallagher is a writer and a reporter and she wrote a book that chronicles part of her journey of faith through a year seen through her eyes in the life of her Episcopal parish in California. She talks about the ordinary days within the entire year and her connections with people there and her work in the soup kitchen. “Things blind us, crowd our vision… In our midst is a man without a blanket and shoes too large for his feet. We have organized our lives so that he is hidden from us. He lives, like God in invisibility. But when we do see him, I think tonight, we keep a rendezvous. In the seeing is a glimpse, a foretaste of the kingdom: it will be a place where everyone is seen, including us. Here we are together in Ordinary time, learning how to see.”

I have not met a person who volunteers in a pantry, soup kitchen or any outreach effort that actually meets and talks to a people they serve that does not come away changed. Amazed by their stories, amazed by their hospitality, and more often than not amazed by their faith and belief in the hopefulness of the world and the unfailing love of God.

Jesus ends his public ministry to us today with one more story about a marginalized person. Someone who is poor and outcast. Like all the others it is easy for us to see that he needs help. Like all the others Jesus reminds us that he is the “first” to get that. Because he is vulnerable he has no illusions about it. We are reminded one final time that though we are “last” to get this the invitation is still open. He calls us not son or daughter of poverty. He calls us, child of God. So take heart, get up, have courage to turn towards that persistent knocking on your window and follow.

©2009 The Rev. Diane Riley