Worship
Service for October 24, 2021
Prelude
Announcements: Click here for the YouTube video of worship
Call to Worship
L: We wait for God that God might save us.
P: Let us be glad and rejoice in God’s
salvation.
L: God will swallow up death forever and will
wipe away the tears from all faces.
P: Let us be glad and share in God’s
salvation.
L: God will take away all reproach and will
make a feast for the peoples of the earth.
P: Let us act with compassion so that we may
dry tears. Let us walk with justice so
that we may silence reproach. Let us
make festival with all people so that God’s feast may be well-prepared.
Opening Hymn – Praise to the Lord, the Almighty #482/210 (3 verses from Blue Hymnal)
Prayer of Confession
Gracious
God, we confess to You that we have not been Your servant people. We have not been as loving, caring, sharing
as we should. We have been weak in the
cause of justice, slow to opportunities for kindness, quick to anger and hurting
words. We have each put ourselves in the
center of our world. We have turned away
from our neighbors in need. We have not
thanked You, nor been Your ministers, nor prayed as we should. Accept the burden of our sinful selves, heal
our pain, and set us free. In the name
of Jesus Christ we pray. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved, for Christ has promised that those who humble themselves
and cry out to the Lord for mercy will be justified. Sisters and Brothers, your sins are
forgiven. Be at peace.
P: In loving tribute for all God has done for
us, we are at peace. Thanks be to
God. AMEN.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Choral Anthem: Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
God of grace and mercy, you created us to
worship you and to love one another. You
have never ceased to call us as individuals and as nations to do justice, love
kindness, and walk humbly before you.
Therefore, Lord, this morning we pray for those who suffer injustice –
political prisoners and refugees, children who have no place to call home and
no assurance that they might eat today.
We pray this day, O Lord, for those who speak out against
injustice. Allow our voices to blend
with theirs to love one another, to speak up for one another and to point out
the injustices of the world.
Put your word into our
hearts, O God, move in us, and change us so that we might become tools of your
peace in all the places of need. Teach
us to be people of kindness, so that this congregation, our community, and even
our nation will be seen by those who do not know or hear you, as a people of
refuge, a shelter from the storms of life, a sacred place of honor and respect
for all people of the earth.
This morning, we also
pray for those who are sick and encompassed with pain or suffering and those
who care for them. Their burden is heavy
Lord, as they make difficult decisions, or struggle for each day’s breath. Comfort them Lord and renew their strength in
you.
We especially remember
in prayer today….
Hear these our prayers and the desires of our own hearts, O God, in
these moments of silence.
You alone, O Lord, can turn our mourning into dancing and our tears
into laughter. May we always rejoice in
your sovereign love as we pray together saying;
Our Father, who art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – My
Faith Looks Up to Thee #383/539
Scripture Reading(s):
OT – Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22
NT – Mark 10:46-52
Sermon –
Blind
Faith
(based
on Mark 10:46-52)
The
story that we read this morning from Mark about blind Bartimaeus is actually
the second story about Jesus healing a blind man in the gospel according to Mark.
Two chapters ago, Jesus healed another
blind man – in that account, Jesus put saliva on his hands and touched the
blind man’s eyes twice because the first time he did it the man couldn’t see
clearly. That story, in and of itself,
is rather interesting. But, in this
account Jesus only had to speak the words, “Your faith has made you well.” And Bartimaeus
was able to see. Between the two
accounts lots of events have occurred.
Leaving
Bethsaida, they stop off at various villages of Caesarea Phillippi. Here Jesus asked his disciples who others
said he was and then wanted to know you they think he is. He tells them to speak of this to no
one. There is the incident with Peter,
James, and John of his Transfiguration on the mountaintop. Coming down from the mountain, he tells them
to not speak of it to anyone. He does
some other healings along the way, tries to teach his disciples about the purpose
of servitude versus greatness, speaks about the blessing of little children,
tells the rich man how difficult it will be for him to let go of his wealth in
order to enter the Kingdom of God, and
just outside Jerusalem Jesus goes on to explain – for the third time since that
first blind man was healed – how he will be arrested, beaten, and killed, once
they do get to Jerusalem.
On the
final leg toward Jerusalem as we read last week, James and John ask a special
favor of Jesus, which doesn’t make them very popular with the other disciples, and
Jesus takes the opportunity to teach them all again how those who would be great
must become servants of all.
The
disciples are about a day and a half away from Jerusalem. Here in Jericho we meet the blind son of
Timaeus whose name is Bartimaeus, begging beside the road. Biblical scholars tell us that we should keep
in mind that begging was not specifically addressed in the early Hebrew law. Jewish law didn’t address begging because
there should have been no need for it. If
people took care of their family members the way the Law instructed, no one
would need to beg. However, as cities
grew there became a noticeable class of citizens who became beggars. Hebrew adopted two words for begging – aiteo,
and ptochos. The first word, aiteo,
as used here in Mark 10, meant someone who wandered about asking for alms. The second, ptochos, meant more of a
professional beggar who crouched outside the city limits and did nothing all
day long, but beg for food. Here we have
a named person, whose father we also know by name, Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus,
a blind wanderer who asks for some additional help. We don’t know whether his father is named as
a sort of embarrassment to the family or not, as the Hebrew law should have
been quite clear that Bartimaeus was the responsibility of his family and
shouldn’t have been out begging for food, at all. But he had not yet fallen to the more dire
position of being a professional ptochos.
Even
though Bartimaeus might be physically blind, he recognizes Jesus as Messiah. He knows that Jesus has the authority and
power to heal. And healing is what
Bartimaeus wants.
He
doesn’t want a handout. He doesn’t want
pity. He simply wants to see again. He knows he cannot solve his own problem, but
he also knows that begging only meets the superficial needs of his poverty. Bartimaeus knows he needs a radical and
fundamental change in his present condition in order to get himself out of
poverty. Because, evidently, his family
is of little or no help to him. And the
only thing that now stands between Bartimaeus and the healing power of Jesus is
… the disciples.
We
need to stop and think about that for a moment. It’s the very followers of Christ who crowd
around him as he leaves Jericho who sternly ordered Bartimaeus to be quiet. It’s the closest followers of Jesus who keep
him from being healed, who order Bartimaeus to leave Jesus alone. The very people who want to be closest to Christ
are the same people who are keeping Bartimaeus away from him. They see themselves as doing a righteous thing
– keeping the riffraff out, looking out for Jesus’ best interests. They don’t want him to be bothered by a lowly
beggar who has obviously been cast out by his own family. So, there has to be more to the story, right?
But
notice what Jesus does? He looks beyond
the crowd pressing around him and makes room for one more. He says, “Call him over here.” In saying this, he reminds his own disciples
that following means inviting others to follow, as well. It means welcoming others into the group. It means making room for someone who was an
outsider and inviting that person to become an insider.
When
Bartimaeus learns that Jesus is calling for him, he throws off his cloak and blind,
though he may be, he hurries toward Jesus. And Jesus asks Bartimaeus a question: “What do
you want me to do for you?”
It was
the very same question he asked of James and John, when they asked for places
of honor to sit at Jesus’ right and left in the coming kingdom.
Bartimaeus
doesn’t want a place of honor, he simply wants to be able to see again. His request is simple. He wants his eyesight back. Unlike the man who was born blind, Bartimaeus
remembers what it was like to be able to see. He knows what he’s been missing.
Here’s
the point of this healing story in Mark.
Do we know what we’ve been missing? In what ways are we “blind” to God’s Kingdom
right here around us? How have we lost
our vision for that Kingdom? How do our
ideas of “who belongs” prevent us from seeing all the Bartimaeuses around us,
the people on the margins who want to be part of God’s Kingdom now?
We often
offer only thin solutions; when we help just enough to make ourselves feel good
about doing something, but not enough to actually help, heal, or bring someone
back to health. Sometimes our thin
attempts only make the problems worse. We
must press deeper into the needs of others. That is not easy. And it can get messy.
But we
have three choices.
Choice
number 1: We could quiet those who need
healing and pretend we don’t hear their cries of mercy, praying and hoping that
we can get on with our own lives without having to give of ourselves in anyway.
Choice
number 2: We could hand out a little almsgiving. We could help ease the burden of another,
offering the surplus of our blessings, the crumbs that fall from our table, as
another story in the gospels may have put it.
That might ease our conscience.
In today’s story regarding Bartimaeus, it’s at least more than his own
family did for him.
Choice
number 3: We could take on the body of
Christ and truly live into being a disciple.
Which would mean to take on the mind and mentality of Jesus who teaches
us that we come ‘not to be served but to serve’. And the reason we serve isn’t to make
ourselves feel better; we serve in order to share the love of Christ made
complete in us by God’s grace.
Jesus doesn’t have to touch Bartimaeus
or spit on dirt to make mud. He simply speaks,
and Bartimaeus is healed. The only other
time Jesus has said, “your faith has made you well” in the gospel of Mark was
to a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. Like Bartimaeus, she was determined to have
personal contact with Jesus, again in spite of his followers, who tried to keep
her away.
Bartimaeus
goes from “sitting beside the road” to “following Jesus along the road.” He joins the others who are following Jesus on
his way to Jerusalem. This story is a
way of reminding us that we need to let go of our nice, neat plans for just the
acceptable ones, those who carry no baggage, those who have no need of healing
and open ourselves to be a true servant, to let others in, to do whatever is
necessary for the healing of those in need.
Why? Because, in the Kingdom of
God, there’s always room for one more, after all.
Offertory
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
Generous
God, receive these gifts, only a portion of all you have given to us. Receive them as a sign of our gratitude for
your many blessings: food and shelter, family and friends, and all we need to
sustain daily life. Receive these gifts
also as a sign of our commitment to serve you through our worship, our words,
and our actions. Strengthen us always to
do your work in the world that through us others may come to know your love and
grace. AMEN.
Closing Hymn – Song of Hope #432/Screen
Benediction
Our worship has ended, now the
service begins. Go in peace and serve
the Lord. AMEN.
Postlude
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