Seeing All People and Perspectives (2/5)

B Pentecost11 2015

August 9, 2015

Mark 8:14-25

BLC Value #2

Elevate the Gospel for the Alleluia and Response

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]

¹⁴Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.¹⁵And he cautioned them, saying, "Watch out — beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod."¹⁶They said to one another, "It is because we have no bread."¹⁷And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?¹⁸Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember?¹⁹When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" They said to him, "Twelve."²⁰And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect? And they said to him, "Seven."²¹Then he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"
²²They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him.²³He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Can you see anything?"²⁴And the man looked up and said, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking."²⁵Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.    

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is really peppering them with questions:

·        “Why are you talking about having no bread?

·        Do you still not perceive or understand?

·        Are your hearts hardened?

·        ¹⁸Do you have eyes, and fail to see?

·        Do you have ears, and fail to hear?

·        And do you not remember?

·        ¹⁹When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?...

·        Do you not yet understand?"

Well, no, not really, Jesus.  While the disciples stare blankly off into space, grasping at the concrete questions Jesus asks – “Oh, I can answer that one!  There were 12 baskets leftover, then 7!”  “But Jesus…” I want to say with them, “Am I supposed to know some fancy numerology for that?  Is there a code to crack here that I haven’t picked up on?  And what does that have to do with yeast and Pharisees?” 

Do you not yet understand?  No, not really. 

We’ve been reading through Mark this year, maybe we are starting to see some patterns.  This question gets asked frequently, “Don’t you get it?”  Even when Jesus tells them flat-out exactly what is going to happen, the disciples have a hard time integrating the information.  This section of Mark from chapter 8-10 is especially this way.  Over and over again, Jesus does a “deed of power” as Mark calls them, revealing again and again God’s kingdom of wholeness – where deaf and hear and blind can see – and over and over again, the disciples, those who are most consistently with Jesus and receive special instruction and empowerment, over and over again they forget Jesus has the power to feed, they seek to be on Jesus’ right and left in glory.  I feel sorry for the guys, I mean, Jesus is asking them to completely change everything they have been taught about what the Messiah will do and how power works… they just don’t get it.

And well, neither do I.  It makes so much more sense that the first will always be first and the last will always be last… that’s sure what it looks like from our news headlines.  Ok, so one guy says that by being rejected, he will change everything, but the times I’ve been rejected, it has not been immediately apparent how God plans to use rejection for redemption.

Except… well, I know the end of the story.  And so do you.  We have seen redemption come out of rejection, haven’t we? 

In fact, two people I was speaking with this week have experienced redemption out of rejection this summer.  Both Thad and Tina gave me permission to mention this.  Their redemption is coming in different ways out of the rejection of losing a job.  Redemption that brings back into focus the important things in life, that brings clarity to our values and re-connection to our relationships.  When have you have seen new life bursting out of a suffocating death-experience like losing a job?  The death of one thing is necessary before new life can appear.

We know this.  We know the end of the story.  We know that God overcomes the grave.  We know how it works.  And yet, it can be hard to see. 

It can be hard to see.

The disciples, who don’t have our advantage of knowing the end of the story, are struggling with their ability to see.  This blindness is what he is warning them about when he speaks of the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod.” They have chosen blindness, rather than see God’s way being demonstrated over and over again in the deeds of power Jesus shares.  And so Jesus teaches them, yet again, this time with the visual of the blind man from Bethsaida.  This is a unique healing story.  Other times Jesus heals with his saliva, in other gospels this story is cleaned up into an instantaneous healing.  But the gospel-teller Mark does this on purpose.  This is the only time that Jesus heals in two phases – he checks back in, asks if the man can see yet…sort of like he’s been doing with the blind disciples, mind you with what appears to be a tone of exasperation, “Do you understand YET?”   In these three chapters of the gospel Jesus will directly tell them three times that he will go to Jerusalem and be killed by temple authorities.  Though he draws them a clear picture, they cannot set it.  There sight is clouded by their preconceived ideas…

Call it blindness –by accident and sometimes by choice – but it can be so hard to see how God sees. But you, Bethlehem, have named it.  Our second core value as a congregation is “Seeing All People and Perspectives.”  The other three are: The illuminating Word of God, Serving our communities with delight and Opening the eyes of Faith at every age. By the Word we See  and Serve in Faith.  We take seriously seeing as God sees.  

I used my eyes this past Thursday for some very exciting video watching!  I don’t know about you, but I was anticipating all week the live-action conversation that I could stream on my iPad.  No, it wasn’t the Fox News GOP debate, or the last episode of the Daily Show with Jon Steward – though they are no doubt much excitement on their own.  But the streaming I was checking into on Thursday evening was a conversation hosted by our national Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, who is the head church leader in our church – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  In a webcast entitled “Confronting Racism” Bishop Eaton and the President of the ELCA church council, William B. Horne II, had a conversation about race.  How as a white woman and a black man, they have very different experiences of the world, the Bishop said they are leading “parallel lives.”   This image of parallel lives can be helpful for us as we think about how sometimes it is hard to see the people and their perspectives when they are so different from our own. 

In describing these “parallel lives,” Bishop Eaton talked about how her colleagues in ministry who are people of color experience things that she, as a white woman has not.  She talked about how painful it was to hear the stories of her friends and colleagues people who “want to make a difference in Jesus name,” who are followed or profiled in their interactions in stores or with law enforcement.  Mr. Horne, a city manager, shared his experience of the economic and emotional impact of race (riots?) of growing up in segregated Tulsa, OK.  And specifically talked about how his father taught him how to act anytime he might have contact with the police.  Both Bishop Eaton and Mr. Horne shared much more of their own stories than I can share now; we will watch the video in full as a part of an adult education hour this fall. 

We lead parallel lives, we see people like walking trees; we who are privileged with whiteness cannot see clearly the lives and experiences of people of color.  People like me, who do not experience racial prejudice, usually can’t see it. So our fuzzy vision, or even blindness, allows us to believe that it doesn’t exist.  At the least, we can forget about the racial discrimination others experience on a daily basis because, we don’t walk into a store and get followed and questioned about our purpose there.  We don’t have to adjust our name on our resume so that it will get read and considered.  So if we’ve had these positive experiences of how we think the world should be it is hard to remember that it may not be that way for everyone.  We live our lives, blind to the hardship of people of color. 

When you identified this core value, church, in the cottage meetings, the CAT assessment and in other conversations, the goal of this core value was that we can be a welcoming place to a wide swath of people and that we can hold safety for people with diverse life perspectives. This is a beautiful and a challenging value. Seeing all people and perspectives is a powerful way for us to shine beyond the trees.  Racism in our culture is just one issue that matters to God and to us.  When visitors experience the warmth of this place, they are often swept up into the community by it – and so excited that they have found this place to be church.  The challenge is to take that welcome to a deeper level.  To enter into deeper and deeper faith together through conversation and commitment to learning God’s Word.  The gift is in being able to live with one another in faith and to continue to love each other and to hold one another accountable to Christ, regardless of our disagreements.  This is what will continue to weave us into a community that stays together and grows together. 

Like the disciples, we won’t always understand what Jesus is trying to tell us.  There are plenty of times that we will be like the blind man, seeing just trees walking.    But we trust that God will do what God promises, restore our sight to God’s will – God’s kingdom vision that Sees All people and perspectives in love.  Please pray with me...  

Jesus, open our eyes, open our ears, break open our hearts that we might see as you see.  That we might love as you love.  That we might see and hear one another with all our varying perspectives, unified in the one thing that holds us together – that we are all redeemed in you. Amen.