Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into God’s presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is God that made us, and to God we belong; we are God’s people, and the sheep of God’s pasture. Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving and courts with praise. Give thanks to God, bless God’s name. For the Lord is good; God’s steadfast love endures forever, and God’s faithfulness to all generations. —Psalm 100
“For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, For love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. For flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet; For song of bird, and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank Thee!” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thanksgiving was a special holiday for the family of poet Ralph Waldo Emerson—so much so that they celebrated for two consecutive days. They feasted at Uncle Samuel Ripley’s home on Thanksgiving Day. Then, on the following day, they would “keep festival” with extended family and friends at their home in Concord. It was one of Emerson’s favorite occasions. Indeed, he called the day “Good Friday.” According to family recollections, it was a fun-filled day of “family gossip,” feasting, and games.
Thanksgiving is central to the Christian life. Our Israelite ancestors made pilgrimage to Jerusalem, entering “God’s gates with thanksgiving and courts with praise.” At Passover, they gave thanks for God’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. At Pentecost, they rejoiced in the harvest of wheat and God’s generous providence. When New England Puritans celebrated their first American thanksgiving, their feast shared sentiments of Pentecost and Passover. They were grateful for their harvest and the help of indigenous neighbors; and they gave thanks for a new home, free from persecution for their Protestant beliefs.
The tradition of gratitude for God’s deliverance and providence continues in our annual Thanksgiving Day celebrations. Despite the hardship of pandemic and the losses that have touched our friends and families, the Lord has seen us through. Emerging from the COVID cloud has felt a bit like deliverance from bondage in Egypt. Despite the isolation and the anxiety of the past twenty months, we have much to be grateful for, from life and love to bird song and bee hum.
According to researchers at Harvard Medical School, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps us feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve our health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. Returning to God with gratitude and acknowledging God’s goodness to us deepens our spiritual life, brings hope, and builds trust that God will continue to work in ways that help and bless.
So, pass the mashed potatoes. Thanksgiving is good for us—in body, mind, and spirit. You may not follow Emerson and his family in celebrating extravagantly for two days; yet, wherever you are this Thanksgiving Day, may it be a time of goodness and gratitude.
“O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!”—William Shakespeare
“Be present in all things and thankful for all things.”—Maya Angelou
Poem for a Tuesday — “A Hardware Store as Proof of the Existence of God” by Nancy Willard
I praise the brightness of hammers pointing east like the steel woodpeckers of the future, and dozens of hinges opening brass wings, and six new rakes shyly fanning their toes, and bins of hooks glittering into bees,
and a rack of wrenches like the long bones of horses, and mailboxes sowing rows of silver chapels, and a company of plungers waiting for God to claim their thin legs in their big shoes and put them on and walk away laughing.
In a world not perfect but not bad either let there be glue, glaze, gum, and grabs, caulk also, and hooks, shackles, cables, and slips, and signs so spare a child may read them, Men, Women, In, Out, No Parking, Beware the Dog.
In the right hands, they can work wonders.
From the Kenyon Review, New Series, Spring 1989, Volume XI, No. 2
Are you worried? If you are, you’re not alone. Let’s face it. These are worrisome times.
We are feeling worried about COVID-19. The Franklin County Health Department says that we have thirty-nine cases of COVID in Harrietstown this morning and fifty-six in Tupper Lake. Those are our highest numbers of the pandemic. While most of us are fully vaccinated and not at risk for severe illness, we worry about our senior seniors and friends with immune system compromises who face greater risk. We have concern for our kids who are still getting shots in arms. We think how tough this must be for our healthcare professionals—the hospital staff, nurses, and doctors who have spent the past twenty months on the front lines.
We’re also feeling a worried resignation that we’ll be dealing with the new coronavirus for a long time. Worldwide in the past week, cases have increased in 72 countries, with twice as many new cases reported here in the states in the past 28 days. In fact, the only two countries in the world that did not report new cases last week were the Vatican and Oceania—that’s a small cluster of south Pacific Islands. We don’t like what the experts have to say. Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, warns that COVID-19 won’t go away. It will simply become one of many viruses that cause infections, and there will always be a baseline number of cases, hospitalizations, and even deaths.
Related to the pandemic, we are feeling stressed about economics. The US consumer price index has surged 6.2 percent from a year ago in October. That’s the highest rise in thirty-one years. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last Sunday that quashing COVID-19 is key to lowering inflation. If we can get a handle on this acute phase of the epidemic, then the surge in the price of commodities, like crude oil, should abate in the second half of 2022. But in the meantime, we are feeling the spike in prices at the grocery store and the gas pump. We may have also noticed a phenomenon that has been named “skimpflation.” Businesses can’t keep enough employees to deliver the experiences and customer service that we previously enjoyed, and so we are paying more for less. Service is slower at restaurants. Airline flights are being cancelled. Businesses have cut hours. To complicate matters, COVID has created supply chain issues. Santa might give us a raincheck this year as imported goods don’t make it to store shelves or we balk at the exorbitant price of the latest gift fads. Am I making you feel worried in writing about this?
As Jesus shared today’s words from the Sermon on the Mount, his friends and followers had worries of their own. Many people in the Galilee were subsistence farmers, always one crop failure or drought away from hunger. Some of Jesus’ friends were fishermen. The fish in the Sea of Galilee belonged to Caesar, but you could pay a pretty shekel for a license to cast your nets and earn your living. That licensing fee was substantial—the cost of about a third of your catch. A night when your nets were empty wasn’t just a waste of time, it was a threat to your livelihood. First century financial failure didn’t land you in bankruptcy court. It led to debt slavery, consigning yourself or your family to a period of conscripted labor. That sounds worrisome to me.
Jesus and his friends also contended with the constant anxiety of foreign occupation. Client kings, like Herod, were appointed to rule locally in the emperor’s stead, and they typically did so by living large at the expense of the people. Every major city in the land garrisoned Roman soldiers. The Pax Romana (Peace of Roma) was secured with an iron fist, and the law was swift and harsh in responding to civil disobedience. Jesus and his followers lived with the terror of crucifixion and public execution.
Beyond the poverty and the politics, there were religious problems. Even the Chief Priest in the Jerusalem Temple was a Roman appointee. Factions like the Pharisees and Sadducees divided communities with competing understandings of the Torah. It doesn’t take a Bible scholar to see that these factions were lining up in opposition to Jesus. Already, his cousin John had been arrested in an effort to silence his prophetic voice. Already Jesus was anticipating his journey to Jerusalem and the rejection that would await him there. They may not have faced COVID-19, but Jesus and his friends had plenty to worry about.
Jesus’ words in our reading from Matthew 6 are a response to those worries. “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” Jesus called his listeners attention away from their worries. He invited them to instead attend to the present moment: the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. He pointed to pelicans skimming above the surface of the sea and to storks spirally slowly up from nests in the marshes. Jesus gestured to fields of anemones, bright blooms bobbing in the breeze that swept across the hills.
In the gift of the moment, Jesus called his listeners to remember their place in God’s good creation. The empire might be Caesar’s, but the world and all that is in it belonged to God. God, who brought the world into being, continued to care and provide for the birds of the air, the flowers of the field, and those worried first-century Israelites. Jesus reminded his friends that beyond Caesar’s empire there was a holy Kingdom all around them, like a treasure hidden in a field or a pearl of great price. Long after Caesar’s empire would crumble, God’s Kingdom would prevail. It was to this eternal and unstoppable Kingdom that they belonged.
I like to imagine that as the crowd that followed Jesus listened to his words and attended to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, they felt better. Those worried furrows in their brows lost their crease. They took some nice deep breaths. Their hearts began to beat a little slower and their blood pressure fell. As they saw God at work in creation with beauty and power, something shifted within them. They remembered the eternal Kingdom that they served and the Holy One, who had brought them into being and would one day welcome them home. Heads nodded in agreement. An occasional “Amen” broke forth from grateful lips. Everyone went home that day feeling a little less worried and lot more thankful.
We, too, might feel less worried and more thankful if we took Jesus’ words to heart. I’d like to help us do just that.
First, we can make some time in the coming days to attend to the birds of the air, the flowers of the field, and the goodness of God’s creation. Stretch your legs with a favorite neighborhood stroll. Take to the trail. Park your car at Lake Colby and watch the sun set. Watch the rolling flight of the pileated woodpecker. Let the Grey Jays on the Bloomingdale Bog eat from your hand. Ponder the blooms on your Thanksgiving cactus. As we attend to God’s presence and providence at work everywhere all the time, we can trust that God is at work in and for us. We can know that God is with us, even in the dark valley of pandemic. God’s Kingdom always prevails.
Next, we can spend some intentional time with the Lord this week. Carve out ten minutes to sit with God in silence. You can begin by reading today’s gospel reading. Then, do some holy listening. In the quiet of the moment, you can count on your worries to rise up and greet you, as they often do when we actually sit still. Instead of allowing your cares to hijack your quiet time, hand them off to God. Use your imagination to put them in Jesus’ hands. He promises to take our burdens and give us rest. Take some deep breaths in that quiet space, and remember that God, who has worked in the past, will work again in your future.
Finally, once we are reoriented and centered in God, it’s time to get busy in service to that holy Kingdom that calls for our ultimate allegiance. Lace up your sneakers and run to raise money for neighbors in need with the Saranac Lake Turkey Trot. Find a nice, sturdy cardboard box for your Reverse Advent Calendar, adding a canned or dry good daily in December to benefit the Food Pantry. Serve the church in this Advent season by sharing your dramatic or musical talents to help me with a pre-recorded Christmas Program for the children and those feeling a little childlike.
I suspect that as folks travel for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, our COVID numbers won’t improve. We’ll still be wearing masks and minding our social distance. We’ll pay more than we should for that Christmas gift for someone special. When we get a gander at the price, we’ll trade our Christmas roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for ham or turkey. And yet, I have hope that in the coming weeks we may also feel less worried. We’ll consider the birds of the air, the balsam in the forest, and the billion stars in the Adirondack night sky. We’ll remember who we are and Whom we belong to. Thanks be to God.
Resources
Steven P. Eason. “Pastoral Perspective on Matthew 6:24-34” in Feasting on the Word, Year A, vol. 3. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” — Genesis 3:6
“Part of Eve’s Discussion”by Marie Howe
It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time.
from New American Poets, ed. Myers & Weingarten. Boston: David R. Godine Publisher, 1991
“Eve in the Garden” by Anna Lea Merritt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom.
from James Wright, The Branch Will Not Break, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1963.
He toddled after me. Bare feet kicked pebbles and stirred small storms of dust. He was practicing his words. “Deshe,” he said, handing over a tuft of dry grass, brittle with drought. I added the grass to my basket.
“Giza etz?” he said tentatively, holding up a stick, just the right size for kindling. Into the basket it went.
“Perach.” He smiled shyly, extending a tiny wilted bouquet of chamomile, clenched in his small fist.
Such a good boy! So generous! I tucked the flowers behind my ear and scooped him up, holding him next to my heart. I could feel his little ribs beneath his robe and see the delicate throb of a vein, pulsing at his temple.
It hadn’t always been like this. My husband, like his father and his father’s father, had gone to sea. We Phoenicians are a seafaring people, weaving a vast web of trade that spans the Great Sea from Sidon to Cyrene, Rome, Malta, and beyond. We pluck fish from the ocean depths, harvest rare pearls from the Gulf of Arabia, and hew great ships from the cedars of Lebanon. For men, it is an adventurous but dangerous life, always at the mercy of wind and wave. For women, it brings loneliness. Always the siren call of the water pulls our men back. Always, there is the waiting.
They said my husband was killed by a lightning strike. First the rigging caught, then the weathered decking. When the fire reached the amphorae of olive oil in the hull, it launched a ball of fire into the sky, worthy of the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria. I don’t know if he drowned or if he burned, but I do know the tight cage of fear that had held my heart ever since.
Our son was weeks old. There was no patriarch to take us in, no kindly kinsman to offer protection. In Zarephath, my neighbors made the sign of the evil eye behind my back, worried that my misfortune would rub off on them. The large amphorae of flour, oil, and salt fish that my husband had left behind slowly emptied, despite every economy. I had grown slight with hunger and my milk had eventually failed.
I was collecting wood for a final fire, a last loaf to be baked, a little oil to be poured out. My child, perched on my hip, looked at me with enormous eyes set in wan cheeks that had once been chubby. As my eyes filled with tears, he demanded to be put down, little arms pushing and legs kicking. With both feet on the ground, he stretched up a hand for me to hold.
“Ezra, Ama!” (Help, Mama!) he said. He tugged on my hand, pulling me homeward. Help? Whose help?
We saw him outside the city gate. He looked like he had been sleeping rough for a long time. His tunic was rumpled, the armpits stained with rings of sweat. His beard was enormous and wild. Bits of straw clung to his shaggy hair. He held a long, sturdy, wooden staff, the sign of a patriarch or a . . .
“Navi!” (prophet), my little boy said. His hands clapped with delight and chuckles swelled his small, empty belly.
Hearing my child, the prophet turned with a sharp look, taking in our skinny forms. “Shalom!” he greeted us, “Please, could I trouble you for some water?”
All the wadis had gone dry with drought, but within the walls of Zarephath, our deep well remained true. It was a simple thing to fulfill his request, but as I nodded and turned to do so, he stopped me.
“And please, a little bread with that? Surely, you have a little something to share with Yahweh’s messenger.”
I thought of the handful of flour and trickle of oil at the bottom of my jars, and the fear that clenched my heart held even tighter. Of all the people in Zarephath to ask for help, why choose us? Our poverty was obvious.
“Lechem?” (bread), my son said, pointing to the prophet.
I sighed. “You do not know what you ask, my friend. My cupboard is bare. We are headed home to eat our final few morsels and call it quits.”
But the prophet wouldn’t take my no for an answer. “Please!” he insisted, sounding both compassionate and authoritative, “Don’t be afraid. Make me a small loaf, bring it here; then, bake for yourself and the boy. Yahweh will bless you!”
It made no sense. Why would I ever consider such a thing at the expense of my child? Yet, my son seemed to have reached a different conclusion.
“Lechem, Ama! Lechem!” (Bread, Mama! Bread!). He stomped his feet, pointed at the prophet, and pulled me toward home.
It was against my better judgment. I stirred the coals from last night’s fire. I fed it with tufts of grass, which caught with a soft chuff. I carefully added our sticks and watched as tongues of flame leapt up. I scooped out most of the last of our meal, mixed it with water, and kneaded it into a smooth cake. I stretched it thin, rubbed it with the last of the oil and slapped it onto the baking stone, now so hot that it sizzled beneath the oiled dough. The fragrance of baking bread made our stomachs roar as the little loaf puffed and turned golden. With skilled fingers, I plucked an edge and flipped it over, revealing a well-browned bottom.
“What am I doing?” I asked my son. His cheeks had pinked with the fire’s warmth.
“Lechem, Ama! Lechem!” he repeated, pointing back to the city gate.
I wrapped the loaf in a cloth and slipped it into my basket. I filled a cup with water and stood swaying in the doorway, basket in one hand, cup in the other. “Stay or go?” I wondered. My son made the decision for me, stomping off on his short legs to the city gate where the prophet waited. I followed, questioning my every step.
I don’t know what I was expecting. A choir of angels? The peal of thunder? A heavenly affirmation? What I got when we found the prophet, waiting outside the gate, was a thank you. “Now, go and do the same thing for yourself,” the prophet instructed. He dismissed us with a nod, said his blessing, and began to devour his loaf with grimy hands.
I picked up my boy, balancing him on my hip as I walked slowly home. I had heard that Yahweh, the great God of Israel, is a generous god with unfailing love for the lost and the poor. Yet here we were, the widow, the orphan, and a stranger, clinging to life by our fingernails, preparing to eat our last bread before returning to our ancestors. Maybe my neighbors were right. Maybe the gods Baal and Asherah had cursed me. Maybe I deserved what was surely coming in the days ahead.
By now, we were home. I set my child down and pushed the door open. He walked over to the great flour jar, taller than he was, and patted it with both hands. “Lechem, Ama? Lechem?” He sounded hopeful.
“Yes, my love, bread.” I answered. I tied an apron on and pushed back my sleeves. I crossed the floor and pried the heavy clay top off the amphora.
Below, my son was stamping his feet. “Lechem, lechem, lechem!”
I was so shocked by what I saw within that I dropped the clay top. It hit the hard earthen floor with a dull thud and split in two. There, within the amphora, finely milled flour rose all the way to the top. I plunged my hands in, and felt the silky dryness slipping through my fingers.
My son had moved to the oil jar. Again, he placed his palms on the rounded sides. He patted with his small hands and sang in a tattoo rhythm, “Shemen zayit! Shemen zayit!” (Olive oil! Olive oil!).
I pried off the top and gasped. The oil jar was filled to the brim, the first pressing, fragrant, clear, and golden green. A few bubbles rose to the top and rested on the surface, as if freshly filled. My boy was laughing now, spinning with childish delight until he plopped down onto his bottom with a breathless thud.
I sat down next to my son, dizzy with hunger and mystery. Perhaps Baal and Asherah had cursed me. But Yahweh, the holy and almighty One of Israel, had blessed me. In an instant, the certainty of our death had changed to the promise of life. My heart felt funny, felt wild and free, felt like the cage that had bound it since the death of my husband had been sprung. I put my hands to my head to stop the world from spinning. As my son crawled into my lap, I laughed and cried until I felt empty and filled with a peace that I had not known since my husband’s death.
Perhaps it was the generosity of Yahweh that made me do it. When God is so good, how can you keep it to yourself? I picked up my son and went back to the city gate where we found the prophet dozing in the sun. Crumbs from my little loaf dotted his beard. A smear of oil had been wiped on the front of his tunic.
I put down my boy and he nudged the prophet’s sandal with his little bare foot. “Navi?” I asked.
He opened an expectant eye. “Call me Elijah.”
“Elijah, my son and I would like you to stay with us. Will you come?” The boy smiled. He reached out one hand to the prophet and with the other pointed home.
The prophet rose and brushed the crumbs from his beard. He balanced his staff against the city wall then reached down to pick up my son, who settled comfortably into his arms. The Prophet Elijah smiled, “We thought you would never ask.”
My church has a tradition of sharing testimonies on Reformation Sunday. It’s always a memorable and inspiring service. I don’t have a sermon to share with you today, but it seems only fitting on this day to ponder the privilege of reading scripture and invite us to a new way of engaging the Word.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
– Psalm 119:105
Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
– Matthew 4:4
“Taste (V & VI)”
– Christopher Smart, 1770
“O take the book from off the shelf,
And con it meekly on thy knees;
Best panegyric on itself,
And self-avouch’d to teach and please.
Respect, adore it heart and mind,
How greatly sweet, how sweetly grand,
Who reads the most, is most refin’d,
And polish’d by the Master’s hand.”
When was the last time you read your Bible? As Presbyterians, we believe the Bible is an important part of knowing God, but few of us have a regular practice of scripture reading.
We probably have some reasons for that. We may remember the antiquated language of the old King James translation, so we have a hard time finding meaning in all the Thees and Thous. We may feel that we don’t have time. Bible reading is on our “To Do” list, but it seems to always get bumped to the next day. For many of us, the cultural world of the Ancient Near East, as depicted in scripture, seems alien and confusing. We feel we need a Bible scholar to unravel the meaning for us. A few of us just want a Bible buddy, a fellow reader to keep us motivated. Does any of this ring true for you?
A great irony of our reluctance to engage scripture is that it is vital to our faith tradition. Churches born in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century fought for the ability to translate the Bible into the common language of the people. Armies waged war to read and interpret scripture in worship. People gave their lives so that we might even have home Bibles for family reading. Some of you, who were raised in Reformed or Presbyterian homes, may have childhood memories of family Bible reading on the Sabbath day. Many of us have inherited family Bibles that are well worn because they were well read. So how, in the words of the Hank Williams, Sr. country music standard, do we “get the dust off the Bible”?
I’d like to get us started by introducing a simple, reflective approach to Bible reading that taps into our natural gifts for imagination. Begin with a Psalm or Bible story. You could use one of the weekly lections that we print in the bulletin. A good starter reading could be the parable of the “Lost Sheep,” Luke 15:3-7:
“3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Allow about twenty minutes for your reflection. Take a moment to quiet your mind and set aside distractions.
Begin by reading the scripture slowly to yourself. Notice the cast of characters (the shepherd, the sheep, the flock, and the neighbors). Which character calls for your attention?
Read the passage again slowly. Now, imagine yourself as that character; put yourself in the story. What do you see (smell, taste, hear, touch)? How do you feel? How do you relate to the other characters? Allow the story to unfold in your imagination.
Next, slowly read the passage a third time. Consider, “How does this reading speak to me? What does it tell me about myself and about God?” You may want to capture your new awareness by keeping a journal to record your thoughts. You could even get creative and draw a picture or write a poem.
To complete your Bible reading, take a moment to thank God in prayer for your new awareness.
Like most things, developing a habit of scripture reading takes commitment, practice, and support. Make a daily date with your Bible and put it on your calendar. Try setting a goal of reading each day for a month. You’ll soon find that you are looking forward to those quiet moments with the “Holy Word.” And just in case you need some moral support, reach out to your resident Bible scholar – that’s me!
“Dust on the Bible”
— Written by Johnny and Walter Bailes
I went into a home one day just to see some friends of mine Of all their books and magazines, not a Bible could I find I asked them for the Bible when they brought it, what a shame For the dust was covered o’er it, not a fingerprint was plain
Dust on the Bible, dust on the Holy Word The words of all the prophets and the sayings of our Lord Of all the other books you’ll find, there’s none salvation holds Get the dust off the Bible and redeem your poor soul
Oh, you can read your magazines of love and tragic things But not one word of Bible verse, not a scripture do you know When it is the very truth and it’s contents good for you But it’s dust is covered o’er it And it’s sure to doom your poor soul
Oh, if you have a friend you’d like to help along life’s way Just tell him that the Good Book shows a mortal how to pray The best advice to give him that will make his burdens light Is to dust the family bible, trade the wrong way for the right
Why did she cross the road? She should have stayed in her little cage, shat upon by her sisters above her, shitting on her sisters below her.
God knows how she got out. God sees everything. God has his eye on the chicken, making her break like the convict headed for the river,
sloshing his way through the water to throw off the dogs, raising his arms to starlight to praise whatever isn’t locked in a cell.
He’ll make it to a farmhouse where kind people will feed him. They’ll bring green beans and bread, home-brewed hops. They’ll bring
the chicken the farmer found by the side of the road, dazed from being clipped by a pickup, whose delicate brain stem
he snapped with a twist, whose asshole his wife stuffed with rosemary and a lemon wedge. Everything has its fate,
but only God knows what that is. The spirit of the chicken will enter the convict. Sometimes, in his boxy apartment, listening to his neighbors above him,
annoying his neighbors below him, he’ll feel a terrible hunger and an overwhelming urge to jab his head at the television over and over.
In 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, ed. Billy Collins. New York: Random House, 2005.
The girl was so wild that they kept her in a cage. She bit and scratched, screamed and spit. They didn’t know what was wrong with her, but the Tewksbury State Poorhouse was the end of the line for the orphaned and the indigent. There was no place else to send her. She was eight-years-old. Her mother had died of tuberculosis. Her father, overwhelmed and unable to cope, had surrendered her and younger brother Jimmie to the state. Jimmie had died within months of their arrival at Tewksbury.
If it hadn’t been for the kindness of an elderly maid, Annie might have stayed in the cage. Seeing the little girl so cruelly confined, the older woman felt compassion. It didn’t seem right that a child should live like that, even if she was disturbed. The maid baked a little cake. She left it outside the cage, just within Annie’s reach. The suspicious child devoured the cake and a bond was forged between the little girl and the old woman.
With the calming influence of the maid, doctors examined Annie. They learned that she suffered from trachoma, an eye disease that had left her almost totally blind. All at once, Annie’s behavior made sense. She was a terrified, grieving eight-year-old, unable to cope with the death of her mother, the abandonment of her father, and the loss of her brother. The doctors treated Annie’s trachoma and operated on her eyes, restoring some of her vision.
We don’t know how Bartimaeus lost his vision. Perhaps it was gradual, the world dissolving bit by bit into shadows and darkness. Perhaps it was all at once – a blow to the head or a workplace accident that robbed him instantly of his sight. We don’t know how long Bartimaeus had sat roadside, earning his living in the only way left to a first century blind man: wrapped in his cloak and begging, depending upon the kindness of neighbors who might share a few alms.
We do know that Bartimaeus had heard of Jesus. Maybe, one day a leper had come through the Jericho gates, boasting of the healing he had known at the hands of the Lord. Perhaps disciples, who had once followed John the Baptist, had hurried past Bartimaeus on their way to Galilee, whispering that the Messiah had come at last. One day, news had come to Bartimaeus that Jesus had healed a blind man in Bethsaida. Jesus had spat into his hands, rubbed the blind man’s eyes, prayed powerfully, and the man had then seen everything clearly.
As the Passover drew near, a rumor came to Bartimaeus from pilgrims traveling down the Jordan Valley. Jesus was coming to Jericho. Jesus and his followers were going up to Jerusalem for the Passover. From his seat on the Jericho Road, Bartimaeus, who had long ago given up hope, began to imagine that his life could change if only Jesus would pass by.
We tend not to see them until they trouble us. Dressed all in black with big boots and a leather jacket, she shouts obscenities into her phone non-stop while her dog poops on our front lawn.
In Kinney Drug—or was that Stewarts, he stands in front of us in his grimy jeans with a mask pulled down below his nose. We look at our watch while he buys about a billion lottery tickets and some smokes.
She hasn’t left her house in years. Her son brings her the essentials and Meals-on-Wheels makes weekday deliveries. I hear she has cats—lots. Sometimes you see her scowling from the porch, turning away when you say, “Hi.”
He squats in a doorway with unkempt hair and a wild beard. He’s always having an argument in a garbled voice with someone who isn’t there. They’re everywhere.
She might have been legally blind, but Annie could see that the Tewksbury State Poorhouse was a one-way ticket to a life of poverty and misery. Occasionally, children left. Those who showed promising intelligence were sent away to school, but Annie was legally blind. Where was the promise in that? When the State Board of Charities sent a commission to investigate the awful conditions of the poorhouse, Annie saw her chance. She told the commission that she wanted to go to school.
As an illiterate fourteen-year-old, Annie was sent to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. There Annie found that her struggles would be greater than her visual impairment. Institutionalized from the age of eight, Annie lacked social skills, table manners, and appropriate hygiene. She alienated her fellow students, and her quick temper put her at odds with her teachers. Despite her difficulties, Annie was tremendously bright and hard working. She put her prodigious gifts to work and excelled. Six years later in 1887, Annie took top honors as valedictorian upon graduation from the Perkins Institute.
When Jesus and his friends passed Bartimaeus on the Jericho Road, the blind man knew that this was his big shot. Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and odds were good that he wasn’t coming back. If healing was going to happen, it had to be now. So, Bartimaeus began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Hey, you! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Bartimaeus made the biggest scene imaginable. It was embarrassing. The neighbors told him to pipe down, but the more they told him to stop, the more he yelled. Folks began to look away. They turned to one another and shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders as if to say, “Can you believe this, guy?” If the neighbors had had their way, Jesus wouldn’t have stopped. Instead, the good people of Jericho would have cheered Jesus on and sent him up to the Holy City where meaningful and important things were surely waiting.
We don’t know if it was the “Hey, you!” or the “Son of David” or the “Have mercy on me,” but I’m sure everyone was surprised when Jesus stopped. As Jesus called Bartimaeus over, the neighbors, who had been so anxious to silence Bartimaeus, had a change of heart. Suddenly, they were all help and smiles. “He’s calling you! ‘Atta boy! Get up there!” For his part, the blind man was so confident of his impending healing that he leapt up and left behind the tools of his trade. His cloak and begging bowl were forgotten on the roadside.
One day, we suddenly knew we were blind. We were volunteering at the Food Pantry when she came in with her dog in a stroller. We cried when we heard that her folks had put her out and her dog was sick and she couldn’t afford the vet bills.
One day, we had a flat tire and he pulled over to help us. He got out of his rusted-out pick-up, followed by the miasma of cigarette smoke and unwashed hair. While he helped change the tire, he told us how his grandparents raised him after his Dad ran out, and he never really learned to read, and he does odd jobs to make ends meet, and that’s ok.
One day, we saw the police and paramedics go in after the ambulance arrived without any siren. Later, we saw the stretcher come out with its quiet, shrouded contents. The EMTs talked to the cops while the cats cried piteously. Last spring, the house sold, but they say it was a nightmare to clean out.
One day, we read an article in the paper about mental illness. and we realized how impossible it is to find decent care for big-time disorders in the North Country. Folks just flail until they become a danger to themselves and others and the police get involved, which may get them off the streets for a couple of weeks, but healing never happens.
One day, we opened our eyes. One day, we knew that we had been blind to the hidden world of need all around us.
The head of the Perkins School helped Annie find a job after graduation. The Keller family of Tuscumbia, Alabama had written, looking for a governess who could help with their daughter Helen. A high fever at the age of eighteen months had robbed Helen of both vision and hearing. Helen was every bit as wild as Annie herself had once been. No one knew how reach the child, how to help her communicate with the outside world. Annie Sullivan went to Tuscumbia. With patience and persistence, she taught Helen Keller. Most of us may remember the powerful scene in the award-winning play and film The Miracle Worker when Annie signed “water” into Helen’s left hand while holding Helen’s right hand beneath the bright, wet flow gushing from a hand pump. Suddenly, a light turned on and Helen Keller, who would never see, finally saw what Annie was doing, and the world opened up for her.
We don’t know how Bartimaeus’ eyesight returned. It could have taken a few minutes, like a darkened theatre that slowly brightens as the audience rises to leave. It could have come back all at once—a bright, mind-blowing flash of sun and sky, landscape and people. It could have started with a bright point of light that grew until the whole world was illuminated like a kaleidoscope shining all about. Afterward, Bartimaeus, who was no longer blind, saw everything clearly. So clearly in fact, that when Jesus told him to “go,” he knew he had to come. He knew he had to follow Jesus, even if suffering and death awaited them in Jerusalem.
Maybe someday we’ll see what Jesus saw all those years ago on the Jericho Road. Maybe someday we’ll know what Annie Sullivan knew when she walked into the Keller home in Tuscumbia, Alabama. A hidden world of need is all around us—all the time. We can be blind, or we can choose to make a healing difference. Can we see? Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us. Amen.
Resources
Jarvis, Cynthia. “Pastoral Perspective on Mark 10:46-52” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Galloway, Lincoln E. “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 10:46-52” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 4. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Joann White 