Reflection on "Bar'chu et Adonai ham'vorach."

A Sermon for XXII Pentecost (Proper 25)                    All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC  October 28, 2012                                                    Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Job 42:1-6, 10-17       Psalm 34:1-8     Hebrews 7:23-28         Mark 10:46-52

From the Book of Job: “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

Last week, instead of being here, I was in New Jersey to attend the Bat Mitzvah of the young daughter of friends, and much of the services were in Hebrew.  Except for a couple of words, I don’t know Hebrew.

Reader (you):  Bar'chu et Adonai ham'vorach.
Congregation answers:  Baruch Adonai ham'vorach l'olam va-ed.
Reader repeats:  Baruch Adonai ham'vorach l'olam va-ed.
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher bachar banu mikol haamim,
v'natan lanu et Torato. Baruch atah, Adonai, notein haTorah.
Bless Adonai who is blessed.
Blessed is Adonai who is blessed now and forever.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has chosen us from
among the peoples, and given us the Torah. Blessed are You, Adonai, who gives the Torah.

I said the words, I wore a Yarmulke, and by the end of the Shabbat and Bat Mitzvah, I was able to bluff my way through the responses. I was aware that, as much as I wanted to fit in for my friends’ sake, I was only getting the surface of the service. I wondered if Jesus had gone through a Bar Mitzvah service, but he probably did not since there exists little evidence of the service before the Middle Ages. I think it developed as a service to help the children claim the Torah as a basis of life, internalizing it so that they grow into adulthood as a “living” Torah. The service was not the beginning of the process, but the acknowledgement of what had been going on for years as the community gathered together on a daily basis, as a family gathered for evening prayers, for the Friday night Shabbat service, and as a community in the synagogue. 

I was a guest for the service, but in essence, a voyeur looking in from the outside for my own pleasure. In order for me to really be an integral part of the community, I would need to make a full commitment to incorporate my past, investing my talents for the benefit of the community, and begin again to learn from the community of faith by following not just what they said during the service but what they do as well on a daily basis. However, I saw myself as just passing through, and I was comfortable where I was and did not leave my place of comfort to make the decision to commit.

My friend’s daughter, Micah, was making the commitment. She was moving out of her comfort zone and was upping her commitment of talents and time. She had learned Hebrew and sang the passages from Torah, explained what they meant to her, and shared what she was doing to make the world a better place. She had been named by her parents “Micah” in honor of the prophet, who asked what God requires, (and here I am using Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation):

But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
    what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
    be compassionate and loyal in your love,
and don’t take yourself too seriously—
    take God seriously.  

Here in this service Micah was committing herself to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with her God. The highpoint was when the assistant Rabbi took her to the tabernacle where the Torah scrolls were kept and talked with her without any of us hearing and then placed her hands on Micah’s head and sang out the blessing. I think she was reminding Micah that she was now part of the tradition of keeping the Torah alive for the world in how she intentionally lived her life. She can no longer go back to being a child, and she was moving into a new stage of the hard work of following her namesake.

Which brings us to the story of Bartimaeus in the Gospel reading for today. He is a blind man who lives by begging, and he hears that Jesus has been to Jericho and is now leaving to go to Jerusalem. Matthew and Luke tell a similar story, but the way that Mark tells the story is different. First of all, Mark remembers the name of the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus, which can be translated as “Son of the Unclean”. This is a man whose affliction was seen by the people as an outward and visible sign of the sins of his father. All of his life he was seen as a person whom God was punishing. He calls out asking for mercy, that which he has not known all of his life up to this point, becoming like Job - “uttering what he did not understand, things too wonderful for him, which he did not know.” The crowd yells at him to shut up and accept his lot as a child of sin.

Jesus hears him and tells him to come forward. This is different from Matthew who remembers the beggars staying where they were, and Luke who remembers the unnamed beggar being escorted up to Jesus. Mark remembers this blind “child of sin” throwing off his cloak, which would be his only covering, and taking steps into the dark, a leap of faith without protection, for if he is not cured of blindness, there would be no way he would ever find his cloak again. He opens himself up to danger, leaves behind what he knows, and moves into what he does not fully understand. His steps into the dark are the beginnings of the road to commitment. 

In the New Testament Jesus uses blindness as a metaphor for not seeing the Kingdom of God right in front of them, echoing the prophet Jeremiah:  “Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.” (5:21). The crowd, which has eyes to see, does not see the Kingdom that Jesus proclaims, whereas the blind man without eyes sees the Kingdom and takes God seriously, putting his trust in that which his eyes cannot see but which his faith illumines. 

It is all about making a commitment. Each day I need to make a commitment so that I “utter what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” and move into the leap of faith, asking for healing of my own blindness so I can faithfully follow Jesus and ‘do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.”  How about you?