October 25, Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 10:26-52

Bryan Cones

Last weekend, while at home for my brother’s wedding, I watched a lot more football and baseball than I normally do. I also watched a bit more daytime TV, more Good Morning America and Rachel Ray, than usual. I was mesmerized by what I was seeing: During football and baseball, about every third commercial was an advertisement for one of two fantasy sports websites: FanDuel and DraftKings. They were particularly intense: Both promised big prize money, both left the impression that playing fantasy sports could change your life, or at least you would have a lot of fun you weren’t otherwise having. After I had seen the commercial 50 times, I was wondering if I shouldn’t go ahead and sign up, since if I used the promo word “punter” FanDuel would match my $200 with $200 of its own.

Good Morning America was an experience of whiplash: First there was generous coverage of the plight of an NBA athlete, Lamar Odom, who not only has the misfortune of being related by marriage to the Kardashian family, but also suffers from serious addictions that left him drug-addled, injured and unconscious in the kind of establishment that is only legal in Nevada. Following immediately on that story was “news” of a new, FDA approved injectable chemical that acts like a sponge inside your face, lifting aging skin and helping users appear to be more youthful. It turns out that wrinkles aren’t the problem so much as facial drooping.

Then NFL football commentator and talk show host Michael Strahan appeared not only on his show Live with Kelly Ripa, but immediately after on Rachel Ray, selling his new book, Wake Up Happy, in which he shares his own tips to happiness. He also has a new clothing line that can help you look happier, too, no matter how you feel.

These examples are all parodies of our society’s vision of the “good life,” notable more for the vulgarity of the portrayal than for their basic accuracy. We can find the good life in the excitement of the game, or in the rush of a get-rich-quick scheme, the pleasure of experiencing how what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas (though not always), or in looking younger than you are, or in the celebrity status that draws the eyes of millions to your life’s drama, with focus on every titillating detail, or brings fans eager to lap up your reflections on your success.

These are all examples from a certain pop culture range—and perhaps those are not the particular distractions that tempt us—but I think we could look at any kind of media and find ample expressions of these same visions of life, whether in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or in Forbes or Sheridan Road magazine, or even driving up and down Sheridan Road, or on the screen of any of our mobile devices, where our heart’s desire may only be a click away. What they have in common is reliance on appearance, on illusion and fantasy, with little substance to provide a vision for the kind of life that God wants for human beings.

Which brings us to today’s gospel story, a parable about a person with impaired vision, and how he comes to see clearly again. It may be tempting to imagine that this story is not really about us, because Bartimaeus is described as blind, though any of us that wear glasses or contacts would probably be considered “blind” in the ancient world. But this gospel story is at least in part about impaired spiritual vision, coming after Jesus’ disciples have over and over again failed to understand who Jesus is, and what his mission entails, and the place his mission must end. It’s the outsiders, such as Bartimaeus, who get it.

I see in these contemporary examples similar parables, images of how our cultural blinders bend the divine light of reality and prevent us from seeing things as they are, or, worse, propose visions of the good life that are in fact terribly destructive to us when taken to extremes. These contemporary example have got me wondering how my own vision gets distorted, and what it would take to get it corrected so that I can see again? What would it take for any of us to see more clearly the life God has envisioned for us? What might we ask Jesus to remove from our field of vision so that we could see clearly the life God proposes for us?

I can say for myself that I was grateful to have as a contrast to all that my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding, where I was surrounded by many couples, including my parents, who by grace and faith had chosen the vision of commitment and fidelity in the practice of Christian marriage. I was inspired by my brother and sister-in-law’s courage as they made their promises to each other, and as we who had gathered with them made our promises too. Their wedding reminded me of the importance of community of practice in keeping my vision clear, when there are so many other lenses out there that might seek to impair my sight with an alternate view.

That got me thinking of this community and our own practices of seeing clearly: of gathering here Sunday by Sunday to examine ourselves by the light of scripture, and by the divine vision of the world proposed in this eucharistic meal.

I see in this assembly examples of people who seek to live that vision, and notice in myself the desire to cultivate relationships with people who are for me examples of clarity. Perhaps we cultivate those relationships in the practice of gathering on Tuesday nights with “modern men of faith,” or at a Saturday morning Bible study, or by taking time out each week to knit a prayer shawl, or read and discuss a book online.

Or maybe we find that clarity in service together, by welcoming our Family Promise guests this week, while also asking clarifying questions about why our society tolerates conditions that leave families without safe housing. Maybe such practices leads us to a Wilmette Village Board meeting about affordable housing in our community, or a press conference about gun violence, or a demonstration about peace or economic justice.

“Your faith has made you well,” Jesus says to Bartimaeus. It strikes me that all these practices are indeed practices of the faith that makes us whole and well, that help us keep our vision clear, and that like Bartimaeus we have this role in our healing: to commit ourselves over and over to the practices that help us to recognize the distortions around us, and to have clarity about what God is calling us to. I wonder if, at our best, that’s what Christian churches, and our church, might be for the world around us: a community always asking Jesus to help us “see again,” practicing the faith that heals, always seeking clarity as we follow the way of Christ. 

October 18, Feast of St. Luke

Kristin White

2 Timothy 4:5-13, Luke 4:14-21

During a call shift the summer I served my student hospital chaplaincy in seminary, we had an especially frightening emergency. A teenage boy had fallen from a significant height. We knew that he was being flown to the hospital by helicopter. We knew that his parents were in another city at the time, and driving frantically to get to the hospital to be with their son. We knew that the situation was very, very serious. And we didn’t know any more than that.

What I remember of that night was the waiting. Two teams gathered in the largest treatment space in the ER unit: the hospital trauma team, and the pediatric trauma team. Doctors and nurses and other staff stood lined up around the walls of that space, waiting for the noise of the helicopter, for some sign that the boy who had fallen had arrived into their care. They were silent. There was a kind of tension in that room, with all the people gathered, people who were particularly and especially equipped for this moment, ready to do work that would mean life or death. I remember the silence. I remember the palpable tension of gifted people poised for action.

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Today we celebrate the feast of St. Luke. He lived in the first century in the city of Antioch, in ancient Syria. Scholars argue about whether he was a Gentile convert who began following Jesus, or an Hellenic Jew. The apostle Paul claimed Luke as a friend, as we see in that very curious passage from the Second Letter of Timothy today: “Only Luke is with me,” Paul says. “So get Mark and bring him, because he’s useful. And bring my cloak, and the books, and above all: the parchments.” Well, more on parchments another time. Whatever books and parchments Paul required there, we know that the Church ascribes authorship of the gospel of Luke to the saint we celebrate today, as well as the Acts of the Apostles. The patron saint of artists, physicians, surgeons, students, and butchers is known to have been a physician himself, as well as an artist.

Each of the four gospels accounts in the Bible carries its own imprint, its own particular kind of focus. Mark’s gospel moves quickly and economically through the stories of Jesus, using the word “immediately” at almost every turn to convey the urgency of all that Christ and his followers are doing. Matthew’s gospel looks at Jesus through the lens of fulfilling ancient Jewish law and promise. John’s gospel invites us into the story with otherworldly poetry. And Luke? Luke makes the gospels more whole. Luke invites in the others, the crazy relatives, the people on the margins, people you don’t see elsewhere. Only Luke releases the stories of the angel and of Mary, tells of Mary’s visit with her cousin, Elizabeth. Only Luke recovers Mary’s song: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” Only Luke frees Simeon and Anna in the temple to witness the holy child: “Lord, let me now depart in peace, according to your word,” Simeon sings, “for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people.”

Of all the passages from the gospel of Luke that organizers of the lectionary could have chosen for his Feast, it seems interesting that they settled on this one. It’s not a passage about a woman healed, or a child restored to life, or a man taking up his mat to walk away from a troubled pool of water. This is not even a passage about Jesus casting out demons, often reframed in modern conversation as Jesus healing someone of mental illness. Instead, we have this passage: Jesus teaches around the country, and the people pay attention to what he has to say. He goes home to the synagogue at Nazareth, stands up to read the scroll from Isaiah about good news and release and recovery and freedom. As he rolls up the scroll, the people can’t take their eyes off of Jesus. He “begins to say,” the passage tells us, “He begins to say” – ‘Today this is fulfilled. And you have heard it.’

It would seem, from our knowledge and tradition that St. Luke was about the work of healing people’s bodies. Our history and tradition tell us that this was the vocation that Luke was particularly equipped to do. And I think he did. And I think there was more. I believe that St. Luke was also about the work of healing a people, that he was somehow divinely inclined toward the healing of the nations.

Luke shares with us a vision of reconciliation among all those characters who were cast out of the other narratives of Jesus’ life in this world. And so just by including them, he gives us a vision of reconciliation, of wholeness, made possible. And he goes on further to speak it into being as though that wholeness has already taken place: “He has filled the hungry with good things,” Mary sings in the Magnificat, “And the rich he has sent away empty.” “Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus says to the people in the synagogue who can’t take their eyes off of him.

I find myself thinking again of that boy flown in to the hospital where I served, after falling from a significant height. And I think of what the good news of this gospel might mean for him, both then and today. I wonder what release and recovery and freedom might mean in his young life. And I pray again in thanksgiving for that silent and well-prepared team waiting for him, who by their work would serve as agents of healing for that boy who had fallen.

I find myself thinking about St. Luke’s home town, Antioch, in ancient Syria. I think about the bombings and the bullet holes and the people fleeing with the family they can gather and the things that they can carry. I think about the art of millennia to be found there, some of it stretching back to the time of Luke’s life and before, even perhaps the icons that Luke would have written, now destroyed forever. What would good news even mean for people who have lived there? What would release and recovery and freedom look like in their lives? What would it take to proclaim the healing of Syria?

And I wonder about good news for us, for you, for those whom we serve. What does good news mean in your life? Where have you experienced release or recovery? Where have you found freedom? And how have you been healed? How have you been an agent of wholeness and healing for other people?

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In honor of St. Luke, we will pray today for healing and wholeness and peace. We will pray for those who serve to heal our bodies and our minds, for those working to heal the world around us, for those who heal in the name of the Church.

Today, and in the days to come, I also ask you to do this: please pray and reflect on the ways that God has particularly equipped you as an agent of God’s healing in the world. You may be a doctor or a nurse, a teacher or a therapist. Or you may not. Either way, I invite you to imagine yourself into that ER unit almost a decade ago, tense and silent and poised in anticipation of the life-giving work that needs to be done. How are you especially prepared to be a bearer of God’s good news? What kind of release and recovery do you have to proclaim? How is God preparing you to free yourself and others from oppression?

You have gifts to offer, each one of you, gifts that will help make this world more complete, more whole, more fully the world that God created us to be. As you do, as you share those gifts together with the gift of yourself, you claim your legacy among the company of saints, right alongside Luke the healer. As you do, you help proclaim this as the year of the Lord’s favor.

And Christ’s words echo again and still, speaking truth into being: “Today. Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

October 11, Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Mark 10:17-31

When I was chaplain at Northwestern Hospital, one of the big events of the year was Nurses’ Day, a celebration and recognition of the work of nursing. We chaplains had a table where we offered a blessing of hands. We would usually ask the nurses which unit they worked on, and then offer some blessing appropriate to that unit. The last nurse who came to me that day was a little different: She had been a nurse in direct care on a unit, and later had gotten a MBA and become a nursing administrator, specifically working with budgets and cost control. As we prayed about her work, I remember praying something about her care for and shepherding of money. Afterward she noted that she had never heard a prayer that specifically mentioned money before, or had asked blessing on her particular work, as if working with money were somehow unworthy of prayer.

I was thinking of her as I was reading the story of the rich man, because one of the standard interpretations of it might explain why that nurse had never received a blessing about her work with money, and maybe reflects a common Christian presumption about wealth, one that might be getting in the way of hearing what the story of the rich man might be saying to us.

In my head, that interpretation goes something like this: If you want to really follow Jesus, and I mean really follow Jesus, you have to sell what you have or give your possessions away, and be a wandering beggar for the sake of the reign of God, living totally on faith and trusting that God will provide. That’s what the serious Christians do anyway: they become medical missionaries, or join a volunteer corps at home or abroad, or enter a monastery or convent, or an intentional community of social workers— all worthy vocations by the way. What you don’t do is save too much money, or have investment accounts, or shop at the mall, or heaven forbid, spend all your time working with money—as if Jesus said it would be really hard for an accountant or a mutual fund manager or a banker to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Of course, like today’s rich man, not everyone can really do that, so the rest of us try to make up for it by trying not be too materialistic, sharing the money we have, maybe making a nice pledge to the church or to charity. Maybe we try to find ways to support those “serious Christians,” while still feeling more or less guilty about not being super hardcore followers of Jesus.

Now I am probably just working out my own salvation there, revealing my own insecurities and assumptions about what it means to follow Jesus. But I think it’s not uncommon to boil this story down to the basic “moral” that wealth and possessions are more or less corrupting, and serious followers of Jesus do their best to limit contact with material things, which is one reason why my nursing friend had never heard a prayer blessing her work with money.

Now I’ve found that when I think I know what some passage from the Bible “means,” it’s a good idea to go read it again because I am probably missing something important. For example, even though Jesus highlights how hard it is for a rich person to enter the reign of God, he goes on to promise Peter and the disciples a “hundredfold” of all that same stuff now and in the future. Who needs a hundred houses? Much less “brothers and sisters”? Maybe this teaching is a bit more complicated.

When I reread this story this week, what struck me was the basic response to Jesus’ teaching: The rich man was “shocked.” Jesus’ disciples were “perplexed,” then “astounded.” “Who can be saved?” they start asking.  After all, the rich man in Mark is not like those wicked wealthy and powerful people the prophet Amos is denouncing in the first reading. He’s not defrauding the poor, or taking their land, or cheating them of a fair measure of grain, as the rich were doing in ancient Israel.

On the contrary, Mark’s rich man is a paragon of Israelite virtue: He is keeping the covenant perfectly, and like any righteous Jew was probably giving some of his wealth as alms for the poor—just like the Torah says he should. In fact, if he got rid of his wealth, he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore; he would actually be less righteous than before.

Mark’s rich man hasn’t done anything wrong— in fact, it seems he has done everything right, and everyone there would see his wealth as a sign of God’s blessing on his righteousness. Even Jesus is moved by his example: “He loved him,” says the gospel, or “Jesus’ heart warmed toward him.” And then Jesus bursts his bubble: “You lack one thing: go, sell what you have, and give to the poor.” In other words, what you think is a sign of your righteousness actually has nothing to do with it. Your wealth is not a blessing for you; in fact it is holding you back from the life you seek. And everyone is shocked, perplexed, astounded, because Jesus is questioning their basic belief: If you do good, God will make sure you also do well.

Now before I go looking for a spiritual lesson here, I don’t want to let us off the hook: Jesus is talking about wealth and possessions, about the danger of having too many (or even any at all), and about the obstacles to full living and a just society that too much wealth in the wrong places can bring. Jesus was familiar with the prophet Amos, whose words to my ear ring as true now as they did then. It can’t hurt us to let the sting of Amos’ denunciations and Jesus’ warnings unsettle and disturb the common American wisdom about wealth: that more is always better, that money is the key to security and happiness, or even a sign of God’s favor or of the virtue of the person with the money.

But to let this story be just about the rich man and his wealth would also leave those of us who aren’t rich off the hook. Perhaps Jesus’ advice to the rich man was specific to him, and I wonder if Jesus might have advice for each of us about what it means to follow him. What might Jesus say to each of us if we came asking what we must do to follow him more closely? Is there anything about ourselves we cling so tightly about what makes us worthy or righteous or good that we would be shocked, perplexed, astounded, if Jesus told us it was getting in the way of to following him? What is it that I hang my hat of virtue on? What would it be like to let it go or give it away?

After all Jesus has called all of us to be “serious Christians,” whether we are bankers or teachers or stockbrokers, or health care workers or priests or full-time parents. And rather than wanting us to feel guilty about not measuring up, Jesus is inviting each of us instead to enter more deeply into the gospel path of life and freedom. So what would Jesus ask you to do or to let go of, so that you could have life and have it to the full?

October 4, Baptism of Charlotte Jacobsen and Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Kristin White

On Wednesday, July 22, at 1:44 p.m., this is a text I was so glad to send: Welcome to the world, Baby Charlotte. We’re glad you’re here.

And today, October 4, I'm really happy to say this: Welcome to St. Augustine’s Church, Baby Charlotte, where you will be baptized in a little while. I understand that you like baths! We’re going to baptize you at the same font where your mom and your godmother, Auntie Lizzie, were baptized, in the same church where they were both confirmed, which is the same church where we prayed and sang your grandfather, Bill Thullen, out of this life and into the next.

I never had the chance to meet your Grandpa Bill. But I got to know him in the same ways that you will, by hearing stories of who he was, stories your family told, stories they will tell you too. You’ll hear about how he loved to do yard work, and how he loved to organize things like numbers and files, and places like the attic, how he slept here at church a few times a year so that people who didn’t have houses to live in would have a place to stay until they did. You will hear, Charlotte, about how very much he loved his family, and his neighborhood, and his friends, and this church.

A year after your Grandpa Bill’s funeral, it was a blessing to pray the blessing of your mom and dad when they got married. You will hear some good stories about that day too, and some that are a little bit funny…now…like the one about the priest who was very serious about all of the people in the wedding remembering to sign the marriage license right afterwards, but then who maybe, just a little bit, forgot to sign the marriage license herself.

You will make and tell stories of your own, Charlotte Marie, right here at St. Augustine’s and out in the world. We will tell the story of your godparents, your Auntie Lizzie and Uncle Walter, who promise today to love you always, to raise you up in good faith as the child of God you are. We will tell about lighting the candle of your baptism, which is the very same candle that the Rev. Joe Mazza lit when your mom was baptized right here. We’re going to light it from the same big paschal candle that burned while we prayed and sang our way through your Grandpa Bill’s funeral.

Welcome, Baby Charlotte Marie. Welcome to this family in which you are a gift of legacy. We belong to you. And you belong with us. And that is what we acknowledge together, today, as we baptize you and welcome you into this household of God.

We have more stories to share with you. Some of those stories tell about who we are – like the first story today that your godfather, Uncle Walter, read – about how God loved us too much to leave us alone. So God made creatures, like your dogs Artie and Phoebe, to be our companions. And when that wasn’t quite enough, God did more. God created us in partnership with and for one another – bone of bone, and flesh of flesh.

Some of the stories we have to tell are confusing, like the one about the people coming to Jesus in the gospel that I had to read just a little while ago. The people were testing Jesus. They were trying to trick him in a way that proved him wrong. And what Jesus said about divorce and adultery can seem harsh and unkind. Sometimes people – even people in church – have taken Jesus’ words and used them to be harsh and unkind to other people. So we need each other in those moments, Charlotte. We need each other, to remember that the people who were testing Jesus cared a whole lot less about what Jesus said than they did about proving him wrong. We need each other to remember, like your dad the lawyer will one day teach you, that the law was never meant to do people harm. Instead, God gave us the law to help us all take care of the people who are smallest and the most vulnerable, who need the most protection: like children, like babies, like you.

Some of the stories we have to tell will never make sense, and shouldn’t, and can’t, Baby Charlotte. Because this world, as it is, is not the world as it should be. People get lost in terrible ways. Sometimes, and even more than sometimes, they hurt one another. Sometimes, and even more than sometimes, they kill each other. It happened this week in the place where I come from, in Oregon. It happened this week in Chicago, a place very close to where we are right now. And it happened for awful reasons…and for no reason at all. So we need you. We need you to remind us that God calls us each and all to work together to help create a world that is safe and beautiful for you to grow up in, and for Baby Grace, and for Baby Piper, and for Flora and Violet and Brady and Jack and Taylor and Lauren and Teddy and Anthony and Robbie and Clare and Allison and Sadie and Asher and Daniel and Anderson and Angus and Julia and Jake and Rachel and Jasmine and Rosie and all the other small people and babies who are part of this community and every community. We need you. Because we all have moments when we have to remember that we’re a lot like you – a little bit vulnerable, in need of somebody who watches out for us, someone who will reassure us that we’re not alone, who will care for us when we can’t quite do that for ourselves.

Most people didn’t pay much attention to babies like you during Jesus’ time, Charlotte. I’m embarrassed to say that, but it’s true. Babies and children were kept off to the side, out of the way of adults – especially fancy adults with money and lots of power. But in this story about Jesus today, moms and dads like yours tried to bring their own babies and children to Jesus. And the really embarrassing thing about that part of the story is that even Jesus’ disciples – his friends, the people who followed Jesus all around and tried to learn all the things he taught – even they were harsh and unkind to the moms and dads, and to the children and babies.

So Jesus stopped them. “This is the way the world is supposed to be,” he said to the people who had tried to trick him into making a mistake, and to the people who were his friends but who had lost sight of what was most important. “The world as God means it to be, is a world where even the smallest people belong and are as important as everybody, everybody, everybody else.” And so he picked up the children, he picked up the babies. He picked them up in his own arms, and he blessed them.

That’s what we’re going to do right now, Baby Charlotte Marie. We're going to carry you to the font of our salvation, the font of your mother and godmother, where we will welcome you with singing and prayer and water and oil and light. And joy, Charlotte; we'll welcome you with the joy that is your legacy as well. We will welcome you into this sacred and growing family that is yours and ours, and has been for a long, long time.

Together, we will welcome you into this household of God.