46 As [Jesus] and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50 So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” 52 Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way
Mark 10:46-52
My sermon from Reformation Sunday (October 27, 2024) on Mark 10:46-52.
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So earlier this week I decided it was time to reseal my asphalt driveway. This work, while necessary, isn’t my favorite because I always end up covered in black goo. Growing up, I didn’t know resealing driveways wasn’t a thing since all the ones in my neighborhood in Colorado were made out of concrete. But when I moved to Northern NJ, I was soon staying up way too late watching videos on Youtube about how to maintain my driveway. The people in these videos told me all the rules they assumed I needed to learn to do this job right. And so once I felt like I might be able to pull this project off, I headed to the store. Whenever I work on any kind of project, I know that knowing what I’m supposed to do and actually doing it are two entirely separate things. Not every rule I learned would fit my particular context. It was vital for me to stay flexible, using what I learned as a baseline that I could bend to meet my goal. And as we see in our reading today from the gospel according to Mark, Jesus and his followers often bent the spoken and unspoken rules to make sure that God’s love always rules.
Now when Jesus and his friends left the city of Jericho, several spoken and unspoken societal rules were lived out. There was, for example, a rule about which side of the road they should walk on when they left the city and another rule telling those begging for money and food where they should sit. Those who needed this kind of help were supposed to be visible but not so visible that they couldn’t be easily ignored. Giving money and support to those who don’t have enough has always been a godly thing. Yet the spoken and unspoken rules about how that worked was determined by those who gave rather than those who received. It was expected those who needed help would wait for others to come to them without any fuss and outrage. And once they did receive some money, they were required to show incredible grace and gratitude to those who saw them. Those who followed these rules were seen as those who deserved help while those who didn’t were considered unworthy of any grace others might give. And so when Jesus, the One who could help, left Jericho, it was assumed he would decide who deserved his help and who didn’t. Bartimaeus, though, wouldn’t let these rules get in the way. Rather than wait for Jesus, he made a scene which shocked those around him. Bartimaeus knew what he was supposed to do but chose to bend those spoken and unspoken rules so he might have access to the kind of life he hoped to live.
Now today is Reformation Sunday when we, as a community, remember how Lutheran Christianity started because a monk who was also a university professor decided to bend a few rules about what it means to be faithful. After noticing how some of our thoughts about faith treated God in a very transactional way, this monk posted 95 thoughts about God on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. The church door, at the time, served as a public bulletin board and was a way professors communicated with those in the community about what they’d like to talk about. Nailing these thoughts to the door was expected but Martin Luther bent the rules by doing the strange thing of mailing a copy to the local archbishop. That archbishop recognized how revolutionary Luther’s thoughts were and so forwarded them to the Pope for his review. Luther’s story is one we might know – yet the Reformation was, and continues to be, full of people bending our rules so God’s love rules instead. And some of these faithful people included women who, during the Reformation, bent the rules so God’s grace could freely flow. One of those women was Marguerite de Navarre, queen of Navarre, who was also the older sister to the king of France. Her upbringing was a bit unusual because she received the same kind of education as her brother. Marguerite was known throughout the 1500s as a talented negotiator who used the spoken and unspoken cultural rules of her time to resolve wars between empires. When she became aware of the Reformation, reading lots of works and writing letters to all kinds of theologians, she used her wealth and status to offer refuge to those who were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Marguerite didn’t let the rules about womanhood or class get in the way of letting others discover the grace God already had for them.
Another Reformation-era woman who made a difference was Olympia Morata. Her life was, tragically, cut short – not letting her to embrace the incredibly rare and surprising opportunity to be a woman teaching at a local university. When she was in her late teens, her faith in Christ blossomed, serving as a firm foundation for her even during those times when she, along with her husband, were imprisoned for their protestant beliefs. While in prison, her health was damaged but her faith grew and she even wrote in Greek a popular devotional book all about the psalms. Olympia wouldn’t let our rules about living the faith be the limit of what living with faith might be. She was, in her own way, a bit of a firecracker Olympia which is a word that could also describe another woman from the Reformation, Argula von Grumbach, a noblewoman from Bavaria. She refused to stay in the background, regularly publicly challenging theologians, nobles, the learned, and unlearned for the sake of the gospel. Arugula and Luther would occasionally write to one another with him eventually publicly her as always “making a valiant fight with great spirit, boldness of speech and knowledge of Christ.” She, like all these women and countless others known and unknown, knew what was expected of them. But they wouldn’t let these rules limit how God’s love changes the lives we get to live.
Now when Bartimaeus called to Jesus, Jesus didn’t follow the usual spoken and unspoken rules. He, instead, called him over and refused to make any presumptions. Jesus didn’t assume he knew best by offering Bartimaeus money, food, or even giving him sight. Jesus simply asks – letting the one who needed help in the words of Pastor Meghan Murphy-Gill, have “the audacity to cry out for mercy—and then shout it even louder when everyone around him is telling him to keep his mouth shut.” Bartimaeus wouldn’t let our rules stop him from asking for help. And when Jesus saw Bartimaeus, he wouldn’t let our spoken and unspoken rules stop him from paying attention and listening to the one crying out in need. I’ll admit we don’t always get the answer to our prayers like Bartimeaus did nor do we necessarily have the wealth and resources like Marguerite, Olympia, and Arugula to make a faithful difference in the world. But we shouldn’t assume that our social and cultural rules are the limit of what love can, or should, do. The rule Jesus invites us to recognize is how God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness always matters. Now what that might look like in our daily lives can’t be easily discovered by watching a few how-to videos on Youtube. But when we let ourselves have the flexibility to know what the rules are and how God might be bending them in small and big ways, we’re doing more than being good. We’re also acknowledging how, in Jesus, God has already bent the rules of our lives by making sure imperfect people like us can, should, and will be part of what God is doing in the world. Jesus will always live out those holy rules that have a habit of bending the rules we pretend are divine and true. And if Jesus is willing to bend the rules to make sure we’re included, we can also reform all those rules we create that get in the way of letting God’s love thrive.
Amen.
Article about these, and other Reformation women, is by Valerie Abraham and is located here: https://romanroadspress.com/2015/10/5-women-of-reformation/