Now We See

The Rev. Jeffrey A. Geary

Reformation Sunday

Psalm 34: 1-8, 19-24 Mark 10: 46-52

October 29, 2006

There are two stories of blind men in the gospel of Mark. The first is the one I just read, about Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, who shouts out “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” Yes, He shouts, because Jesus’ disciples, as well as others in the crowd, are doing their very best to keep Bartimaeus quiet. Silent. Hidden.

Is his need embarrassing? Are they in a hurry? Is it that others simply judge their own needs more important than this blind man’s? Or have we actually found a crowd … have we actually found people who want to hear what Jesus has to say rather than see a miracle? Perhaps as Bartimaeus was getting louder and louder in order to be heard, they were less and less sure this was the kind of person Jesus needed to meet.

In any case, his cries work and Jesus does ask to meet him. “What is it that you want?” he inquires in what I find one of Jesus’ most beautiful sentences. Jesus does not presume to know even this man’s, this blind man’s, needs, but asks Bartimaeus what the content of mercy means for him. “I wish to see” is Bartimaeus’ reply. And we are told, that having seen his faith, Jesus cures him.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. That’s the moral of the story, as I see it. Jesus said he saw this man’s faith, and unless we want to add to the story Jesus fantastic ability to look deep within another person’s heart and to pretend that Jesus was just playing dumb when he asked his beautiful question, “what is it that you want,” then as far as I can see, all that Jesus saw was a blind man willing to be as loud as he needed to be in order to be brought before Jesus. The squeaky wheel indeed.

But in the gospel of Mark there is another story about a blind man who asks Jesus to give him the ability to see. In this other story of a man born blind, Jesus picks up a handful of dirt, spits in his hand, makes mud which he applies to the man’s eyes, and then washes him clean. When this man opens his eyes, Jesus asks him what he sees, and the man replies with the words that inspired the song by Johnny Cash, “I see men as tree walking.” In other words, he sees about as well as many of you would if you removed your glasses: it’s a blurry world. So Jesus tries again, and the second time around everything becomes clear(er). I take heart that even Jesus sometimes had to try more than once to get things right, but more importantly, that when in need, we can turn to Jesus to touch us again, and again, and again, until we are made right.

Today, the last Sunday of October, is what we recognize as Reformation Sunday, the Sunday closest to October 31^st (1517), when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenburg, Germany. “This dramatic event marked the beginning of a movement of reformation in the churches and set forth a spirit of reform that is at the heart of the gospel and the experience of the New Testament church.” And today is also the first day of study for our confirmation class. They will encounter Blind Bartimaeus again this coming March when they join the confirmation classes from five other churches for a retreat up at Holmes. And this second story about the man born blind is always the last story we read together in class, just before they are confirmed, because it exemplified that the process of confirming our faith is a lifelong process. Both we and our faith are not static, but are challenged to change and grow by God, and by our new experiences, and that God will come to us again and again and again.

The story of the man touched twice by Jesus is a message not only for individuals, but for the church. Like the man born blind, the church has too often in its own life simply mimicked the culture and values around it, making it blind to God’s work in our midst.

I could not let 2006 pass away without drawing our attention to the fact that across the denomination there have been conferences and celebrations throughout the past year marking the significant milestones in the ordination of women and challenging the church to confront the continuing obstacles to the full and equal treatment of women in ministry.

At one point in our church’s history, the exclusion of women from positions of leadership and moral authority was a given fact, little discussed and often a direct result of faulty biblical and theological scholarship which ascribed to women characteristics of weakness, promiscuity, and limited intellect. But thanks to women who heard God’s call and refused to be silenced (women like those who started their own mission boards in 1860 because their denomination refused to send out single women as missionaries), and after decades of rigorous theological debate, women were ordained deacons in 1906 and elders in 1930. Lest we think the ordination of women was easy, hear what a conservative publication called “The” Presbyterian published in May of 1920: “The question of woman is one of the most pivotal questions in the human race and in the Holy Catholic Church. Error here has caused the collapse of civilizations, and may mean the apostasy of the church.”

In 1956 the General Assembly approved the ordination of women as ministers of Word and Sacrament, and Margaret Towner became the first woman ordained to preach and administer the sacraments in the Presbyterian Church. (She’s still an active member of Peace River Presbytery in Florida and a regular preacher). Thus, this year we are marking the 100^th anniversary of women as deacons, the 76^th anniversary of women as elders, and the 50^th anniversary of women as ministers of word and sacrament.

I took a very quick look at our record books earlier this week, and here in Setauket, Caroline Strong was the first women ordained to serve on the session in 1954 (although Jack Strong tells me that Oriette Peterson was serving on session before that, even though her name does not appear in the records). Dorothy Pilkington was the first woman ordained as a deacon in 1972. Dorothy is no longer with us, but Rowena Scarrow was ordained in the next class of deacons. And in case you think Setauket didn’t struggle with the equality of women, Rowena has some good stories to tell about what it was like to serve as a woman on the board of deacons when meetings were characterized by men together in a room smoking cigars asking the women to take the notes.

Let me be clear. It is not just that the church once held one position on “the woman question” and now we hold another. A relativist would argue that we can make the bible say anything we want, and any belief is as good as any other, that all belief should be respected. I am saying that we came to believe that the beliefs we formerly held were wrong. Wrong not simply because we read our bibles wrong, but wrong because those readings were oppressive, and fundamentally did not recognize that all people have been created by God in God’s image and equally deserving of rights and recognition in the church and in society. Further, we were wrong because we took upon ourselves the sovereignty that belongs only to God and tried to close ourselves off from the light and truth God was bringing to us through these “outsiders,” from those our 1990 Brief Statement of Faith calls “voices long silenced.”

In his recent book, Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church, The Rev. Jack Rogers explores the history of how the church has used the bible to justify not only the oppression of women, but to justify slavery, the exclusion of people who were divorced from pastoral and congregational leadership, and still today, the exclusion of gay and lesbian deacons, elders and pastors who share their lives in a loving relationship with another person of the same sex. He discerns a disturbing trend - in a society already dealing with tremendous change, our churches increasingly turn to scripture in order to preserve and justify the past, rather than as a way of encountering the living God who loves us and leads us into the future.

Women, slaves, the divorced, gay men and lesbian women, the poor, have played and play, the role of Bartimaeus, crying out. The church itself, reformed and always reforming, has stood and stands, in need of being touched again by Jesus.

Two weeks ago over 20 people showed up at my house to discuss Jack’s book. We talked about biblical interpretation, church history and the present policy of the church which upholds a standard of chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage for all church officers, but allows for the ordination of gay and lesbian deacons, elders and pastors, if a local session or presbytery discerns that they are called by God to this ministry. Last weekend, 21 members of our congregation went to Huntington to hear Jack Rogers deliver a call for our denomination to go further: to issue an apology for its past and present exclusion of those who are gay or lesbian, and for the General Assembly to amend the constitution of the church to make it clear that sexuality is not a bar to ordination.

Last spring, we discussed taking a similar action on a local level here in Setauket. One of the goals put forward in the strategic planning process was to make a clear statement that as a congregation we are both open to and affirming of the gifts of gay and lesbian people as members of our church and in leadership roles. I think it is significant that this was the only option put forward by the congregation that received unanimous support from the discernment team.

Reformation is about opening ourselves to the cries of those long silenced, and being willing to have Jesus touch us again, and again, and again, if need be. Reformation Sunday is an opportunity not only to remember our past, but to consider the future, God’s future.

We are a reformed church. We are a church always in need of reform. And by God’s grace, we are a church always being reformed.