Tag: James and John

For crying out loud, what do you want me to do for you?

David Herbert1 Comment

A sermon for the Last Sunday after Trinity (Year B) encouraging us to join Bartimaeus in his loud prayer that helps him see. The readings for the Last Sunday after Trinity (B) are Jeremiah 31:7-9 and Mark 10:46-end.

October 27th 2024

Here’s the question. “What do you want me to do for you?” This is the question Jesus asked Bartimaeus. It’s exactly the same question he asked the two disciples who approached him in last week’s gospel. The sons of Zebedee, James and John, came forward to Jesus, saying: “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you”, to which Jesus replied: “What is it you want me to do for you?”

It’s a question any helper might ask. “What is it you want me to do for you?” It might well be a question you imagine Jesus asking you. As you settle down in prayer you might imagine Jesus asking you, “What do you want me to do for you?” Our prayer may specifically answer that question as we lay open the heart of our concerns to God.

Not that we expect God to do all we ask. Remember James and John. They wanted Jesus to do for them wherever they asked, but what they asked for was so wide of the mark that there was no way Jesus was going to do it for them. They asked to sit either side of Jesus in his glory – there was no way Jesus was going to save the seats for them. As it turned out the gospel shows us in the crucifixion scene that those to the left and right of Jesus “in his glory” are those disgraced by society, those shamed and ashamed – all three of them convicted criminals.

But sometimes our prayers are answered. Sometimes what we ask to be done is done, as in the case of Bartimaeus. 

The beginning of his prayer is shouted out and is heard above the noise of the crowd. Often our prayer is a cry, and sometimes we cry out loud, as Bartimaeus does here: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ He goes against the crowd who mercilessly tried to shut him up. But he carried on shouting, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus heard his prayer. He couldn’t help hearing him: he was shouting so loud. 

Mercifully Jesus called him to him asking that question. “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied, “My teacher, let me see again”. Jesus recognises the faith of the blind man in what the blind man has called him. He’s called him “Jesus”, “Son of David” and “Teacher”. According to Mark, Bartimaeus has seen in Jesus what the disciples have so far not seen. He’s the one who’s seen. It’s the disciples who are blind. When we call anyone “Teacher” we’re already trusting them to show us the way. Jesus responds to such faith, insight and trust. To the blind man he says “your faith has made you well”. Jesus had helped him see again – and Mark leaves us with this spectacle of Jesus journeying to Jerusalem with this beggar by his side. We don’t very often see the procession into Jerusalem that way, do we? But that is the way Mark paints the picture.

We can’t get away from the blind in our worship. Our other reading is also about the blind and the lame. They are what’s left of Judah after generations of suffering at the hands of the babylonian empire six centuries before Christ. Babylon invaded Judah three times that century and occupied her for 50 years. Judah was ruined. There was very little left. So much had been destroyed – Jerusalem, the temple – everything that gave them a national identity was gone. And most of the people had gone as well – killed or deported. Those who were left lived with the humiliation of being beaten. They were refugees scattered far and wide.

This scripture from Jeremiah has been treasured because of the vision Jeremiah has for these people and the words he has for them – the blind, the lame and those scattered to the four corners of the earth. These are traumatised people. They are survivors of devastating disaster. Some of you will know what it is to be traumatised by what’s happened to you. You may have lost someone or you may have suffered a life-changing injury. The news these days is full of reports of whole communities destroyed and traumatised by war in Gaza, Beirut, Lebanon. We look into their faces. There are no words. We often frame our speechlessness with those very words. “There are no words”, we say.

Traumatic shock leaves us reeling disrupting our normal mental processes because we can’t work out what is happening to us. The mind shuts down and the memory of the traumatic events become fragmented. The wounds are unspeakable. There are no words. The mind automatically shuts down feelings and turns off human responses locking violent experiences away in a form of self-protection which often means we never get to understand our pain, our loss, our grief. Trauma disrupts the trust we have – whether that is in God, in others or in the future. The future we had in mind is simply no longer there – and many traumatised people are left feeling that there is no future. “I see no future.”

This is the context for Jeremiah. He is part of a people traumatised by events. They have lost everything. There are no words. They have no vision for the future apart from their ongoing pain. But Jeremiah gives them words. They’re words given to him by God. Jeremiah shares his vision. Our reading comes from a part of the book of Jeremiah which is known as “the Book of Comfort”. God through Jeremiah is restoring their faith and renewing their hope. They have a vision for the future. Jeremiah is helping them see again.

Our readings are related. In both people are being helped to see again. That’s the one thing Bartimaeus asks of Jesus in today’s gospel. “I want to see again.” In our Old Testament reading Jeremiah helps the whole people to see themselves again, something like the people they had always been.

I suggested that you might use Jesus’ question in your prayer. Imagine Jesus asking you, “What do you want me to do for you?” After all you’ve been through, whatever that is, what will your answer be? What will you ask for?

Remember that Jesus asked that question to James and John as well as to Bartimaeus. He wasn’t interested in answering James and John’s request for status and privilege. Jesus will never answer our thirst for power, wealth or prestige. It’s no good praying over our lottery ticket. He only answers the beggar’s prayer.

Our readings are related to inspire the church to join the beggar in his prayer (not James and John in theirs).
Do we turn to Christ to help us see – to help us see differently,
to help us see ourselves differently,
to help us see our neighbours differently,
to help us see strangers differently,
to help us see our enemies differently,
to help us see the future differently,
to help us see our past differently?

Anais Nin wrote: “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” Maybe we’ve grown old. Maybe we are jaded, tired, cynical. Maybe ….

Lord Jesus, help us to see.
Help us see the way you see so that we may follow you that way.

The glory of Jesus, the bullied and the shamed standing side by side

David HerbertLeave a comment

Sermon for Trinity 21B – Oct 20th 2024

This sermon is for the shamed, the bullied, the ostracised, the oppressed as we get to grips with our readings for today from Isaiah 53:4-end and Mark 10:35-45. I am increasingly aware that the gospel of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit is for the shamed, bullied, ostracised and oppressed. God takes his place with them.

We may well have been bullied, shamed or ostracised.

And/or we may have been the bullies responsible for shaming and ostracising. Or we may have joined in because we were afraid that if we stood out from the crowd we, ourselves, would be bullied, shunned and ostracised.

To jog your memories, let me take you back to school. I’ll take you to my school all those years ago. It was an all boys school. Then, as now, the slightest difference was picked up and became opportunity for mockery and worse.

There was a boy we called Cheggers, even though he hated that name. We were probably 12 or 13 at the time. We’d do monkey impressions in front of him, making fun of the way his jaw was set slightly differently and the way he walked differently. Of course, I joined in. I joined in because that was the safest thing for me to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Cheggers. I didn’t know him – and the bullying kept it that way. How could he ever make himself known in those circumstances?

There’s a six part series on Sky Atlantic called Sweetpea featuring a young woman who was bullied and neglected. She becomes a “ghost” of her former self – always feeling invisible. People keep bumping into her, saying, “I didn’t see you”.

The bullied and ostracised are never seen for who they are. We see that in the fear-ful treatment of refugees when they’re not seen as people but as a threat. We didn’t “see” Cheggers. We only saw his difference and the opportunity for joking and banter – at his expense. We didn’t know who he was. We didn’t want to know how he felt. It didn’t matter that he probably felt awful. We didn’t know that, perhaps he was the bravest boy amongst us – brave enough to keep coming back, lining up with us to brave the taunts and humiliation again and again.

And here’s where it matters – in the scriptures we treasure, to the Jesus we follow.

In those days, my schooldays, he, Cheggers, was the one who bore our sin. Our hatred, anxiety and fear was turned on him and he suffered because of us. In the language of our reading from Isaiah, he was wounded for our transgressions. “He was oppressed” by us. “He was afflicted” by us, myself included. 

Such is the emotional and physical suffering of the scapegoat.

We usually read this passage from Isaiah with Jesus in mind. It is normally read on Good Friday when we turn our minds to the suffering servant bearing the shame and pain of crucifixion. This is how we have come to know Jesus – mocked, bruised, afflicted and even numbered as one of the transgressors, one, two, three of them in the crucifixion scene.

But what we say of Jesus from this passage we can surely say of any we’ve scapegoated that he/she/they have borne our sin – our hatred, anxiety and fear. They are oppressed and afflicted when we, like sheep, have gone astray, turning to our own way of doing things. They are wounded by our transgressions and crushed by our iniquity. 

It’s not clear who Isaiah is referring to as the scapegoat in this passage.  He might have  someone in mind, or a community used to suffering persecution (such as the Jewish people down the centuries) or any sufferer of bullying. We don’t need to narrow the scapegoat’s identity down to Jesus, though, certainly the choice of Jesus was to join the afflicted, tormented and bruised, becoming one such himself.

In the book of Acts we find this very same passage from Isaiah being read, and Luke takes us scripture readers to this particular scripture reader. (It’s Acts 8:26-40). It’s an angel who directs Philip to the reader who is on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. He is  an official in the court of the queen of Ethiopia. So important. But he was a eunuch. Historians of the period point out that although eunuchs could be given great responsibilities they were seen as “monstrosities”, stigmatised for being morally and sexually distorted and the objects of suspicion and derision. They were seen as sexual deviants. They were a laughing stock scapegoated for no fault of their own.

So, here, on the road to Gaza, we have a man who was seen as “not a man” reading of one who was “oppressed and afflicted”, who was “wounded for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” – and an angel of the Lord, from the realm of glory, had directed one of Jesus’s disciples to help him to read, mark and inwardly digest that he was reading about himself, and that he was also reading about Jesus – and there and then, he was baptised.

God’s realm of glory is very different to the realms of glory we have in the world, where glory is measured in wealth and winning, in power and popularity – and in importance. This is the way of thinking of James and John when they come to Jesus and ask him for the best seats in the house. Their request, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 

The disciples are always getting it wrong according to Mark’s gospel. They’ve missed the point of Jesus and his mission. Jesus points out the ways of the world and underlines the suffering caused by the ways of the world. He points out that those we recognise as our rulers so often lord it over us, making themselves exceptions to their rule, enjoying the power they have over others – and in so many cases turning out to be tyrants, striking fear into people, upsetting their lives and causing suffering.

He said, It is not so among you: but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be your servant must be slave of all. This is not what James and John had in mind when they came to Jesus with their request to be one up on everyone else. (Nor is it what we have in mind when we choreograph our ecclesiastical processions or when we excuse the abuses of power in a culture of deference.)

No, scripture points us to another way of doing things. Glory in the kingdom of God is for those, in the words of Isaiah, afflicted, wounded and oppressed by the powers that be, just as Jesus was afflicted, wounded, mocked and shamed by those rulers of Jerusalem and Rome, the rulers of religion and empire – just as the eunuch would have been, just as whole groups of people are, just as certain ethnic groups continue to be.

Who will be on Jesus’ left, and who will be on Jesus’ right in his glory? Is it James? Is it John? Mark gives us the answer. The glory of Jesus is first witnessed by the Roman centurion, who, faced with Jesus, said “truly this man was God’s son!”. And on his left hand and on his right were neither James or John. They were nowhere to be seen. They’d deserted him. Instead, on his left and on his right were two “bandits” – together with Jesus – the three of them shamed, mocked, scorned and killed by empire and those who want the glory of being empire builders.

This, brothers and sisters, is where the gospel of Jesus Christ takes us – to the cross where one oppressed, afflicted and wounded was hung out to die – with one on his left and another on his right, neither of whom are James or John. They’re still glory seeking – they’re in hiding, saving their own skin. The glory of the kingdom is the salvation of those who bear the sins of the world – victims of shame, injustice and empire (maybe ourselves included).