Cheer up! (a sermon from 24th Oct)

Today’s sermon is Cheer Up! Take courage, be of good heart! Cheer up! Shortly we will be saying in the Eucharist – Lift up your hearts! We lift them up to the Lord!

Cheer up!

Yes but How? Well here’s the Son of Timaeus, Bar-timaemus – odd isn’t it that we get this name, I wonder if there is more to his story than we are told in the gospels, I wonder if St Peter who helped St Mark write this gospel, I wonder if Mark said ‘Peter do you remember the name of this blind man? And Peter said ‘Oh yes its Bartimaeus. I wonder what he went on to do and what became of him’.

Never mind, for the moment Cheer up. How?

Here’s this blind man outside Jericho and Jesus walks by but then is lost in the crowd that is swarming around him.

Cheer up? How. Step one Listen out for the sounds of the Kingdom, for rumours of miracles and God at work, or Look for glimpses of angels’ wings.

Step 2 is Seize the Day. Carpe Diem. Suddenly there’s this Jesus walking past you and Bartimaeus has this moment to just – choose? To say – Ah that was nice. Years from now he can say – I once heard Jesus walk passed me, it was a lovely moment. OR he can grab this moment.

I’m not always very good at this. A little over a decade ago I went to Jerusalem, to sleep on a friend’s floor and just have some quiet, unagendered me time. I’d just arrived, not unpacked and not had breakfast and one person says I’m off to the Dead Sea today, want to come?

My body says No, you’re here for a month, it can wait, my brain says Oh Go On, go on go on, you know it will be good for you.

And my tongue accidentally says Ok, I’ll grab my water bottle and off we went. I had the most superb day, we drove to the Dead sea, I bobbed in it for a while, I tried to wash off the grit but you really spend the rest of the day feeling gritty, in a good way. We drove to Ramallah which was only a little dangerous, we drove through Jericho.

In Jericho there is this huge sycamore tree and everyone says This is the tree that Zacchaeus climbed up and no it really isn’t but it could be a very great great grandchild of that first tree.

Seize the day. I have so many stories to tell you from that one day. I hope that you have similar anecdotes where you on a whim had an invitation and you grabbed it. I don’t always grab them, very often I have a prior engagement and I feel I should stick to that, but also very often I’m shy and reserved and not sure about things.

Bartimaeus was listening out for signs of the kingdom, and he grabbed the moment, seized the day and started Shouting.

Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!

And the Crowd shush him. Possibly, to be fair to the crowd they shush him because they too are listening for the Kingdom, listening to Jesus and this beggar is interrupting that.

We see it throughout the gospels – the pushy mum who keeps coming but the disciples whine to Jesus, tell this woman to go away, she won’t listen to us! And then Jesus has to tell the disciples to let the Children come to him, and then the Disciples think they’re doing the right thing by stopping someone who’s not one of the 12 from praying, doing an exorcism. So there are moments when we get this wrong. And of course, we always hear those stories.

But as I get to know you you’ve been telling me your stories about how you first came to be part of this church and you’ve been telling me about how you came in here and found it to be your spiritual home, to be welcoming. So well done, keep at it. We will get it wrong, the 12 disciples got it wrong, don’t worry, keep at it.

Cheer up! You found a welcome here, and now it’s your job to be a cheery welcomer too! 

Cheer up – but how – Bartimaeus is listening for the signs of the kingdom, Jesus walks by and Bartimaeus starts shouting, the crowd are not helpful, but he persists.

And we see that in the pushy mother trying to get to Jesus, – being pushy and persistent in prayer and in coming to be part of the family of the Church – that’s a good thing, if you want to be cheerful then keep being pushy with Jesus!

And focus on Jesus.

And Jesus says What do you want me to do for you?

This is a great thing to note for any of us who visit people, or do prayer ministry after the service, not to presume, Oh I know what prayer you need, but to stop and ask How can I pray for you? I forget that sometimes, sorry about that, if I do it again, by all means do just interrupt and tell me – Jesus doesn’t presume – and even though He knows I rather think that He likes to be asked. He likes to hear it from you.

?What would you say to Jesus – What do you want me to do for you?

Perhaps Bartimaeus will ask for a sandwich, for some money, perhaps he will ask for the moon?

Job in the OT persists through some 40 chapters and persistently his demand is that Job wants his day in court with God, he wants God to admit that Job is innocent and that his suffering is not his fault. And we the reader can see this all the way through, but oddly when the moment comes, Job doesn’t know what to say at this point and is instead silent and filled with Awe.

And if you were prepping Bartimaeus, if you were giving him some advice, before he got to meet Jesus, what would you be saying? I as a trained theologian, I would be saying – Well lets start with how you’re going to address Him because this title ‘Son of David’ stuff wont really wash with Jesus, He doesn’t like it, it smacks of militarism and killing Romans and wars and Jesus isn’t keen on that  – but we note that Jesus is not as fussed about that sort of hypocrisy or ignorance or what have you – Jesus is glad to have someone shouting for His attention and mercy.

So my first bit of advice wouldn’t be that useful.

My next piece of advice, as a trained spiritual leader would be, Start with the Spiritual bit first – ask for your soul to be healed, for eternal life, ask to follow Jesus, that’s the important bit, and then maybe later ask about your physical bodily needs.

But Bartimaeus didn’t get to hear my wisdom, and that’s probably for the best! He is straightforwardly honest with Jesus.

And it takes great faith just to ask the question.

I believe that you can do this – heal me – whatever it is that you’re about to ask.

If I were to ask you Can you make me fly? You might laugh, you might say I don’t have any magic powers you’re nuts, or you might say I’m not strong enough to pick you up and throw you over the hedge!

If I ask Can you make me a coffee? Can you read a bible reading for me? Then that shows you that I think you can do that. I have faith in you, to that level.

But very often our faith is limited by our experience even by our imagination.

Its why I’m asking you, esp as we look at re-ordering St Leonards as we come to sell the hall, I’m asking you esp the PCC, to go and see different churches like St John Sub Castro in Lewes to see what they have done because I think there’s a moment where we see these things and say Wow I didn’t think that was even possible to dream like that.

And the more crazy thoughts we have the better and they will settle slowly into something viable and wonderful.

But we need crazy and we need faith to get us going.

I wonder what you would say to Jesus’ question “What would you like me to do for you?” And I wonder if we might grow enough faith to answer that question afresh each morning.

Sometimes we might have different answers:

Jesus I want you to help us with institutional racism, give us open eyes to see where we fail to see your image in all people.

You might say: Jesus I want you to help us sort out our homeless, help us to help homeless people – there was a moment in lockdown where we did, we solved homelessness but alas in the rush to go back to normal we have gone back to homelessness.

Each day we should try to answer Jesus’ question – What do you want me to do for you? And stick around to hear what Jesus might say back to you.

Cheer up! We do this by listening for signs of God’s kingdom, by seizing the day if we see it, by focusing on Jesus, by answering His question – What do you want me to do for you?

Lord I want this pain to go! Lord I want a date for this operation to happen! Lord …

I think its good for us to answer this question  each day, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Because when we hear the question, we hear the kind heart of Jesus, we hear him calling us to come follow him,  

You know as we go into this Holiday Club week – I will be telling Jesus exactly what I’m wanting Him to do! It will be to keep us safe and it will be for the gift of faith.

I’ve been doing some Thoughts for the Day this last month, focusing on October as Black History Month – and I’ve just been astonished at how some of these black saints, who have been so badly treated by their white owners – and if you’d asked them what their faith was – they would have said Christian, we love Jesus – and yet here they are – man-stealing and badly treating these people – and yet so many of these black people find peace and healing and forgiveness and meaning and purpose in Jesus.

Harriet Tubman – I didn’t know about her – she ran away as a slave, found her freedom, and then kept coming back in order to steal away other slaves and bring them through what became known as the Underground Railroad – a system of safehouses – she got the nickname of Moses because she led these people from slavery to the promised land!

And this is what I like about Bartimaeus, about Harriet Tubman, and so many others, that Jesus gave him his sight and we read how, Bartimaeus followed Jesus along the road.

He could have said ‘Thank you’ and gone back into Jericho, found a job, settled down, and no one would think the worse for that. Harriet Tubman could have done the same as a free woman but instead she chose to use her freedom for something more.

And that for me is the last tip about how to be Cheerful.

It starts with listening for signs of the kingdom, grabbing opportunities when you spot them, I’m sure we miss lots of them, but there will be some you spot and you’ll hesitate and say I don’t know, But Bartimaeus started shouting. And persisted with it.

Listen for the kingdom,

Grab the moment, persist with it!

Ask Jesus what you want him to do for you

And Follow Jesus.

Its okay you can go back to normal if you want to, but I cannot promise that there you will find much cheer, but it seems to me that the way to be cheerful, the way to lift up your hearts

Is to listen for Jesus, focus on Jesus, to cry out to Jesus, come to Jesus and persist in following Jesus And I think that that will help us Cheer up.  Amen.