The Reverend Barbara K. Briggs
October 25, 2009
The Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 25, Year B

There was a crowd around Jesus.  Thousands were traveling along with him as he was coming to the end of his journey to Jerusalem.  Bartimaeus could not have helped but hear the crowd already, before they reached him outside the city.  In his eagerness to meet Jesus, he makes an embarrassing scene, shouting out his personal prayer in front of everybody.  He doesn’t care what the crowd thinks, and the crowd is not shy about letting him know his place:  He should be quiet and fade back into the background where he can be forgotten and ignored, so they can get on with their lives without bother or discomfort.

“Have mercy on me” is a basic prayer of trust and expectant hope in God’s goodness.  But the crowd tries its hardest to block his way.  Jesus, however, wants to meet Bartimaeus.  Instead of calling Bartimaeus himself, he tells the crowd to call him.  It is Jesus’ way of making the crowd an instrument of healing rather than an obstacle to God’s grace.  Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and leaps up.  The cloak would literally have been his security blanket, the only thing keeping him from dying of cold, and he leaves it behind to come to Jesus.  He exchanges the security of his possessions with the hope he has in Jesus.

We all suffer from blindness in one way or another.  When we cling to our possessions for security instead of throwing off our cloaks to run to Jesus, we are suffering from a form of spiritual blindness that is as serious as the physical blindness from which Bartimaeus suffered.

Lynn Twist was a fundraiser.  Her understanding of money was transformed one day in 1978 during her efforts to raise funds for The Hunger Project.  She went to Chicago to meet with the CEO of a major food chain.  The company had recently had some difficulties in their public relations.  In order to cure their image, they decided to give some money to The Hunger Project, thinking this would be enough.  When Lynn met with the CEO of the company, she immediately knew that the man cared nothing about the project.  He reached into his drawer and wrote a check for $50,000.  For The Hunger Project, this would make a significant difference in funding their mission.

Later that same day, she went to an old church in Harlem.  Water was coming through the roof, but seventy-five people gathered to hear her speak.  At the end of her presentation, an elderly African American woman stood and spoke for the group:

“Girl,” she said, “My name is Gertrude and I like what you’ve said and I like you.  Now, I ain’t got no checkbook and I ain’t got no credit cards.  To me, money is a lot like water.  For some folks it rushes through their life like a raging river.  Money comes through my life like a little trickle.  But I want to pass it on in a way that does the most good for the most folks.  I see that as my right and my responsibility.  It’s also my joy.  I have fifty dollars in my purse that I earned from doing a woman’s wash and I want to give it to you.”  (From The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist)

Gertrude then walked up the aisle and handed Lynn her fifty dollars.  She gave Lynn a big hug.  As she headed back to her seat, other people followed suit.  It was so moving that Lynn Twist found herself in tears.  They gave $500 of their hard-earned money for The Hunger Project.  There was a sense of integrity and heart in their giving.

When Lynn left the church, in her briefcase were scattered bills from the folks in Harlem and the $50,000 check from the CEO.  The money she had received in Harlem carried the energy of commitment to make a difference:  blessed money.  The money from the food company was fraught with guilt and shame and perhaps represented the easy way out.

Upon returning to The Hunger Project office the next day, Lynn Twist mailed back the $50,000 to the CEO.  She suggested that he choose an organization that they felt committed to and thanked him for considering them.  Six years later, she received a letter from the CEO, who had since retired.  Upon retiring, he had done some reflection on his career.  The only incident that still troubled him was the return of that check for $50,000.  He realized that now he wanted to make a difference in ending world hunger and made a personal commitment to The Hunger Project in an amount many times over the check he had first written six years earlier.

When Jesus came to Bartimaeus, he asked him:  “What do you want me to do for you?”  Bartimaeus simply told him what was on his heart.  He shared what was for him his deepest yearning.  That is what we do when we come to Jesus for healing.  It is what we can do as we prepare to receive the grace of healing for our own deepest need, whether we pray quietly in our places or whether we come forward for anointing, or whether we will go to the prayer teams in the side aisles for laying on of hands.  Our healing may not be immediate, but it will be real, because God’s grace is sure.

Copyright © 2009 by the Reverend Barbara K. Briggs