[Propertalk] Proper 25 b rcl

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's a draft from which I'll enter the editing process after a full day tomorrow.

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL PARISH OF ST. JAMES, LINCOLN CITY   THE TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
JOB 42:1-6, 10-17        		         PROPER 25 B RCL
HEBREWS 7:23-28		        25th OCTOBER, 2009
MARK 10:46-52	   	        PSALM 34:1-8, 19-22

	On Monday night I heard part of a piano recital on the radio. As recitals go, it was entrancing. The music was interesting, amusing, exciting – everything to hold one’s attention. The pianist was obviously in complete control, yet seemed open to however the Spirit might be leading him to interpret what the composer had chosen to set down. On any given day the interpretation could vary, of course, and the response of the audience must have made a difference. I say this from supposition, of course. The picture didn’t come across on the radio too well! Yet, in a sense it did. I knew the piece. I’d heard it before, several times, so I could follow along more closely and listen for the specific details this man was trying to bring out. You could actually hear the audience NOT make a sound. They were captivated too, and were totally absorbed in what they were witnessing.
	This was part of the final recitals of a music competition, so that added an edge to the performance. It must have given a spark to both performer and listener alike, and both lived up to their roles. 1
	The pianist was Nobuyuki Tsujii, 20 year old Japanese co-winner of the Van Cliburn competition held in Fort Worth, Texas, earlier this year. He’s been playing since he was two, apparently. I can’t remember for sure, but I suspect I was still pushing peas around a plate at aged two. However, maybe I was slightly more advanced!
	It’s incredible the way in which God blesses people with such unbelievable gifts – and no one has been left out. It’s simply a matter of trial and error, of testing one’s vocation – AND of never giving up until one finds something which satisfies and enriches God’s creation, even if the expression of our vocation may seem to bring with it some degree of frustration and even agony on the part of the holder of that dream. Every single one of us has a vocation – literally a “call” from God. It’s simply a matter of taking the time and directing our energy to finding what God may desire for, of, and from us. And if you feel you haven’t yet lighted upon a sure image of what God wants from you, please, PLEASE, don’t give up. There’s no age limit to the realisation of God’s humour and joy; there’s no physical, or emotional, or psychological, or spiritual reason why a vocation may not be answered at age two or age ninety-two. Even at the conclusion of what may have seemed a fairly satisfying career, one may still find one’s actual vocation yet awaiting.
	So, whoever you are this morning; whatever is going on in your life this morning; however you may FEEL about what’s going on in your life this morning – there IS a vocation for you, waiting, if you haven’t yet surrendered to the inspiration of the Spirit in your life as an individual, made in the delightful image of God. Indeed, perhaps one of the greatest leaps of faith any of us can make is to believe that God is absolutely determined to use every single human being, and has planned for the moment when we’ll let the Spirit break through into our lives to illumine and guide our hearts, our minds, our lips, our hands, and our feet.
	So there I was, last Monday evening, sitting, holding my breath, listening to that twenty-year old let God work through his mind, and his heart, and his hands as he re-presented what another had created – all to bring joy and renewal of life, indeed to bring a wonderful hope to those in the Texas concert hall and then to the radio audience all round the world.
	How wonderful it was to listen to God at work.
	And then there was that little – did I just say “LITTLE”? – that little comment by the radio announcer. Nobuyuki Tsujii was born blind.
	He’s not the first artist to have a wonderful way of showing God’s glory while blind. He won’t be the last. He’s yet another example of someone who’s faced up to incredible challenges and who rose above them, and still is totally engrossed and enthralled in showing the world how God continues to work in the world to bring hope, and encouragement. Tsujii is also demonstrating God helping people to hang on, no matter how desperate and dreadful the circumstances.
	So what’s the point in Bartimaeus’ healing? If even one or two – never mind hundreds or thousands – CANNOT receive the restoration of sight, or the reversal of deafness, or of a stroke; if THEY cannot find peace, but have to struggle with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s; if THEY have to live with some form of disability, or lack of confidence, or depression, or of fear because of economic conditions; if ANY of that has to be endured by people within our own small circle of friends and acquaintances, what on earth was in the Gospel writer’s mind as the story of that blind man was inserted into the account of Jesus’ ministry? What’s the point? It certainly sounds as if Jesus cared, as if Jesus had all sorts of power. And it showed up some of the community, as continues to happen, in a pretty uncompassionate, even mean state of mind. But WHY? DOES it happen today? SHOULD it happen today? Or is God just playing games?
	Back off a bit further in time and ask yourself how comfortable you felt while you listened to the end of the first reading. Lazarus, and Jesus, oh, and the son of the widow with whom Elisha stayed for a while – other than these, I don’t know of folk who’ve either been brought back from the dead, or had the dead restored to them. What was the writer of the parable of Job getting at, then, when he came to talk not only about the restoration of every last one of Job’s family, but also of the way in which Job was described as being infinitely better off at the end of his troubles than he was even at the height of his farming and social activities?
	What does this say to us, what does this MEAN for us right now, in the midst of all the daily tussles and decisions with which we have to deal? IS God toying with us, being abetted by some malicious writers who might seem to delight in rubbing our noses in everything that we face?
	Perhaps the key to understanding what was happening in both the Job and Gospel stories comes from the significance of clothes. In Job’s case he dons typical mourning garments and acts somewhat stoically, albeit as if his life was grinding to a miserable end. By the time we come to the conclusion of today’s verses, though, the picture that I get in my mind is somewhat like that of Jesus’ tale about the wayward son who’s welcomed back into the household by his incredibly generous father. The mourning clothes are exchanged for wonderful robes; the food becomes lavish; and so on. In order to get there, though, Job DOES have to assume a garment that irritates his skin ferociously. He has to cast off whatever it was that he took so much for granted previously.
	And the son of Timaeus? What did he do? As soon as he heard that Jesus was eager to see him and talk to him he threw off his cloak, to be clothed in grace by Jesus.
	In order to see Jesus, it seems, in order to experience God’s grace, we have to cast off whatever it is that may appear to offer us security, a little comfort, maybe even some degree of prestige.
	Too often we cling to those things we’ve manufactured ourselves. We may even think we deserve them all. Possibly Job felt that way about everything he’d amassed – the fancy house, the healthy animals, the family that seemed so stable, yet seemed to disintegrate when pressure was applied.
	Just what Timaeus’ son had done to warrant that cloak, we can’t tell. It WOULD provide cover from the cold weather, of course, and it was the tail end of winter or the beginning of spring when this episode took place. Nevertheless, he seemed to recognise, instinctively, that he had to surrender everything before he could find renewal and peace. Paradoxically, he had to give away the thing that he seemed to cling most tightly around him in order once again to be brought back into the visible congregation of the faithful, and re-admitted to full membership of God’s people.
	The fact that this man was on the fringes of society seems to exemplify the way that Jesus heard the pleas of those at risk, perhaps more clearly than some other cries. Maybe this was what helped Timaeus’ son recognise that Jesus had the power and had the will to bring about re-formation.
	For whatever reason he did it, though, the blind man may have thrown off the one thing that was actually robbing him of his sight. In order to experience God’s grace, he may have somehow been brought to the insight that he needed to fling away, with abandon, what could have been his most valuable possession.
	So what does this say to us this morning? What do we think is the one thing with which we could never part? What does this say about our personal economic, or political, or religious judgement? What does this say with regard to those who try to wield power over others, or wrest it away from them, or not allow anyone else to share in it?
	We have to take the enormous risk of casting off what we may think offers us security, in order to gain that immeasurable gift.
	Remember the credit card commercial? The one that talks about all the material treasures in life, putting a monetary value on each, and then names something and says, “priceless”? Bar Timaeus showed that there’s only one thing that IS priceless, and that’s the vision, the insight that’s grace-filled by God. 
 	Even so, I DO like the suggestion – “Mind-blowing realization that our daily lives both intertwine with and enable a shadow-world built on oil, illicit drugs, and clandestine diplomacy-by-violence: Priceless.” 2 I’ll bet even Jesus would laugh at THAT one, after He shook His head in agreement!
	Think back to the story of Nobuyuki Tsujii. Born blind, he didn’t seek sight. He sought Insight. He learned by listening to his teacher play the music until it was so ingrained in his mind that it became a part of him. What he did then was to make the music his own, to fashion it so that it was faithful both to the desire of the creator and to the inspiration he himself had been given. Maybe the cloak Nobuyuki Tsujii set aside was the desire to see, recognising that the vision to receive inspired so that he himself could inspire others was the grace-filled gift which God was offering him.
	What might happen if we here learned to have vision?
	It’s not so much a matter of whether we can see this net in front of us – as important as that it. The real question is whether or not we have the VISION to perceive the net, to recognise what it represents – and to realise what we can do about it.
	Give us vision, Lord!

NOTES:
 	Van Cliburn International Piano Competition 2009: Winning performances from the renowned competition, held every four years in Texas. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 in C sharp minor. Nobuyuki Tsujii (piano)  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n6vdr
2	The end of MasterCard's "priceless" campaign. - By Seth Stevenson ... www.slate.com/id/2137884/




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Robert P. Morrison
The Episcopal Parish of St James,
PO Box 789
Lincoln City, Oregon, 97367

541-994-2426 (Church)