A Meditation on Mark 10:32-52. Sunday, May 13, 2012.
1
You know how,
every once in a while, you stumble upon a book you want all your friends to
read? It hits you just that hard. Or it brings you to tears and you want
everyone to know why. Well, here’s the
book I’m begging you to read. It’s
called These Dreams of You by Angelino Steve Erickson. I’ve got fifty copies right here, right
now. I want you to think about taking
one. I want you to feel this story, then
come back, and we’ll talk about it.
The novel
traces the story of an American family as they lose their California home to
foreclosure. It’s very
contemporary. How they doubt themselves
and fear their future. How they rage
against the money machine that mindlessly eats them whole. At the same time, the story explores the sharp
edges of race and racism in America as that same family struggles to raise the
very black girl they’ve adopted in a very white world. And it all happens in the weeks and months
after the election of America’s first African-American president.
Hope and cynicism
seem to wage war across this book’s pages.
I don’t know. Does that sound
familiar? Hope and cynicism waging war
in our hearts? Alexander and Vivian are
young, creative, idealistic; and they’re in the process of losing just about
everything. Questions abound. Questions around suffering and vocation. Questions around history and redemption. Are we at last defined in America by bank
accounts, mortgage statements, the latest and greatest gadgets? Or is ours a higher calling still—a community
of compassion where neighbors still risk tenderness and redemption measures
success? Here’s a couple in profound
distress. And a country coming apart at
the seams.
Here’s just a
taste, the narrator’s commentary on the summer of what must have been
2009. “At citizens meetings in towns
across the country,” he writes, “people are becoming unhinged
about...everything. These are people who
were not part of the small era of good feelings that followed the election;
these are people who held their tongues.
The hysteria isn’t really about what’s proposed or opposed or the facts
of these things, no more than was the original hysteria. As was the original hysteria, it’s about the
president himself and how into a time of tumult and anxiety has come someone
that some regard as so alien that now the emotional tenor of every debate is
separated from reality. It’s the dark
nihilist brethren of the euphoria that greeted the new president’s election,
the commensurate response to a hope and promise too uncommon and maybe
delusional to last any longer than fleetingly” (Page 191).
Now there’s the
language that brought me to tears the first time around. That there might have been, in 2008 and 2009,
“a hope and promise too uncommon and maybe delusional to last any longer than
fleetingly.” Are we reduced now, in this
country, to delusion and hopes that pass fleetingly across our desktop screens? It really hurts to read it again.
2
And yet, and
yet, like a masterful storyteller, Steve Erickson finds—in the midst of all
this chaos: foreclosures and displacement and the even the unraveling of a marriage—another
story. Another American story.
You’ll have to
read for yourself to see how these stories connect, and how, in the end, they
redeem one another. But this second
story is a story of repentance and conversion, a story of vision and
sacrifice. It’s the story, in part, of
Bobby Kennedy in the 60s.
Now it’s
fictionalized. It’s all part of the
writer’s construct, his struggle to understand America in the 21st
century. But what Steve Erickson does
with the Bobby Kennedy story is tender and provocative. It’s both troubling and inspiring. It’s not just about Bobby Kennedy. It’s about us.
This is a Bobby
Kennedy who’s looked at his life and his family and his values and his
country—and come to regret the flaunting of power, the rush to violence and the
so-called sins of the father. This is a
Bobby Kennedy who agonizes over the violence his family knows so well—and makes
devastating connections with the violence he can only imagine. Violence in the immigrant camps of
California. Violence in the tenements of
cities. Violence on Indian reservations. And violence on a hotel balcony in Memphis,
Tennessee.
For example…
“There’s
another sort of murder, he warns...a sort of murder as fatal as the sniper’s
gunshot, and that’s the violence of the institution that never sees the poor in
their rags or hears the sob of the hungry or feels the touch of the
forsaken. This violence shatters the
spirit. It not only accepts but advances
the premise that this is a country where it’s acceptable to succeed by
destroying people’s dreams and breaking their hearts” (Page 180).
You see what I
mean about devastating? This violence, he
worries, “accepts the premise that this is a country where it’s acceptable to
succeed by destroying people’s dreams and breaking their hearts.” I cried there too.
So this Bobby
Kennedy listens and listens and listens.
He listens to the migrants in their fields. And he listens to the black crowds in their
grief. And he listens and he listens and
he listens.
And in all that
listening, in all that anguish, he turns
away from the American mirage and squares up to the American obligation. Again, here’s how the story plays it: “I
don’t believe one man changes everything,” he says, “maybe no one man changes anything, least of all me. I’m an accident. But I
believe there are times when even men who aren’t great must find a way to try
and do great things. People think
I’m afraid of nothing when the truth is I’m afraid of everything, and not so
long ago I vowed before a God I love and trust a little less than I used to
that I would do all the things I’m afraid of, because I do believe anyone can
change part of something, and that part of something changes something else,
and soon the ripple in the lake is the
wave on the beach” (Page 168).
3
So here’s why I
want you to read this book. And here’s
why I want you to read it as we dive into these months of study and discernment
and visioning.
There is
undoubtedly too much violence in this country.
The kind of violence that shatters the human spirit. The kind of violence that turns from the poor
and sows seeds of fear and ignorance.
But we believe—aren’t we a people who believe?—that anyone can change
part of something, and that part of something changes something else,
and that soon the ripple in the lake is like the wave on the beach. We believe that here. We can be the change we want so desperately
to see in the world.
So that’s the
task, I think, before us over these next months. What kind of change do we want to see? What kind of ripple do we want to be? What kind of mission lies before us—right
here, right now, in our own time and place?
I hope you’ll
read the book. It’s a great book. And then come, be a part of the process, be a
part of the conversation. You’ll see in
your VISION PROGRAM that we’ve already planned a first congregational retreat
for Saturday, July 14. Read the book
before then. Come with your ideas, some
passages circled, some dreams and prayers and passions to share. We dare to believe that God’s ripples become
God’s waves. And that’s what this next
Vision Process is all about. Making waves. Making waves together.
4
And finally,
let’s appreciate, for just a minute, this story about Bartimaeus on the road
out of Jericho (Mark 10).
What Bartimaeus
desires (more than anything else), what Bartimaeus wants (enough to make a
total nuisance of himself), what Bartimaeus begs of Jesus is vision. He wants to see again. Bartimaeus wants to see again.
From a dusty
gutter, on the road out of Jericho, our desperate alter ego cries out for
mercy, cries out even more loudly when the disciples move to shut him up. Because that’s what they do: the disciples
order Bartimaeus to shut up, keep quiet, quit making such a fuss. But—no such luck. “Have mercy on me!” he demands now. “Have mercy on me! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” There’s nothing Bartimaeus won’t try, nothing
he won’t do. He only wants to see
again.
And right
there, on the road out of town, Jesus just stops. In this cacophony of noise, in this mean
maelstrom of dust, Bartimaues crying out, all those disciples fighting back, Jesus
just stops. Jesus stands still. And he calls for Bartimaeus.
You know, with
all these stories, we have choices as to how we read them and interpret them
and make them work in our lives. For
example, we can insist on reading this one literally—as a miraculous moment in
which Jesus literally heals a blind man and gives him back his sight. Or we can look at it in context, in the ebb
and flow of Mark’s gospel, and wonder whether the story’s really about moral
vision, spiritual vision; whether it’s about Jesus’ passion for moral vision
and his commitment to renewing ours. Our
moral vision.
Could it be, is
it possible, that this old story is not so much about curing blindness as it is
about moral vision? That’s my
hunch. My hunch is that Christians told
this story over and over to remind one another of the power in Christ, the
power capable of renewing moral vision, and inspiring spiritual vision, and
restoring the kind of vision that illuminates a community’s path to freedom and
wholeness and service. When we turn to God in prayer, when we
invite God’s mercy into our lives, ripples become waves. A church becomes a mission. Love becomes a movement.
And that’s what
we have in mind for these next six months.
A whole community turning to God in prayer. A whole community inviting God’s mercy into
its life. We imagine ourselves learning
together, studying together, and moving together toward the healing future of
God’s love.
In the end,
Bartimaeus regains his sight, his vision, his passion. And then what? Remember what happens then? Then he steps into the holy parade and
follows the Lord of Love. Disciples on
the way. That’s who we are. Disciples on the way. That’s how these little ripples become mighty
waves of hope. With Bartimaeus and all
kinds of saints in all kinds of places from all walks of life. We see that we might follow.
