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Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
October 29, 2006 Sermon by The Rev. Bill Van Oss, Rector
Readings       

Some of you know that 125 years ago this past Saturday, on October 21, 1881, the Vestry of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church made the decision to found St. Luke’s Hospital. The story goes that the vestry men – and there were only men on vestries at that time – were inspired or motivated or “pushed” by a group of women of the church.

There was a typhoid fever epidemic going on, and some men had died, unattended, in the basement of a local hotel. Hearing this news, I imagine these church women got together and said; “We’ve got to do something.” No one should ever die alone and unattended in a basement, no one. “We’ve got to do something to prevent this from happening again.” And St. Luke’s Hospital was born, on the upper floor of a blacksmith’s shop. The injured and ill would be cared for, and comforted and healed, and those who would die would die with care and dignity. And that’s been going on ever since, for 125 years, all because some church women said, “We’ve got to do something.”

Now, I don’t know for sure, but I would imagine that those women prayed. This was a huge undertaking, a great risk, they likely asked for God’s guidance and help. And they also probably consulted with city officials and local authorities. They might have studied local plans and talked to elected officials. They probably talked to people in other churches and communities who had established a local “cottage” hospital to get advice.

But at the end of the day they acted. At the end of the day, they agreed, “We’ve got to do something,” and they did it. And they became a part of a long line of believers in Jesus Christ who acted – who followed His example. An example spelled out, once again, in today’s Gospel.

Bartimaeus is blind, and no one is doing anything. They just leave him sitting there by the side of the road. They won’t lend a hand to guide him, or give him a shoulder to lean on. They even shush him when he calls out, “Shhh, be quiet”. They can’t hear his cries for mercy. But Jesus hears him, and his cries for mercy make Jesus stop dead in His tracks, and he calls Bartimaeus over. “What do you want me to do for you?”, Jesus asks. Jesus doesn’t give him a sermon or a speech. Jesus doesn’t create a task force or hand the problem off to someone else, or say, “I’ll get back to you on that, I’m right in the middle of something.” Jesus doesn’t take a survey, or even say a prayer for the blind man.

Jesus stops dead in his tracks and asks, “what do you want me to do for you?,” right here, right now.


It’s exactly the same question he asked the disciples, James and John, in the Gospel last week, “What do you want me to do for you?” And you remember James and John’s answer: They said, “We want positions of privilege. We want to be up on top. We want seats of greatness in your Glory, Lord.”

And Jesus said to them, “You just don’t get it. You don’t understand discipleship.”

But Bartimaeus’ answer to the question is very different. Bartimaeus answers, “I want to see again. I want to be able to leave this life of begging behind. I’m stuck on this roadside, Lord” Bartimaeus says. “I’m stuck here with my beggars cloak and my blindness. Let me see again, so that I might follow you.” And Jesus sees his faith.

Unlike the rich young man who clung to his many possessions, blind Bartimaeus throws away his single and most vital possession, his beggar’s cloak, the cloth he would have laid on the road in front of him to collect money from those who passed by. He threw off his cloak and likely the money that was one it because of his faith that the Son of David would restore his sight and change his life.

A tremendous risk, not unlike the risk a group of Episcopalians here at St. Paul’s Church took back in 1881. They needed deep faith and willingness to cast aside the doubt and criticism that bold visions always face.

“Start a hospital? Are you nuts? Where will you get the money? Who will staff it? Who’ll be in charge? Have you seen our budget lately?”

We can cling to doubt and fear and negativity like a beggar clings to his cloak, can’t we? When we are called to have faith – faith in a God who stands before us and asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” And we say, “We’d like to start a hospital, so no one will have to die alone and unattended in this town again.”

And God says, “Go, have faith and build. Do it. Do good. Do this in memory of me. Live love”, one person at a time.

I’m wearing this button today. It says, 0.7%, “What one can do.” It refers to the United Nations “Millennium Development Goals”, or MDGs. 8 goals that, if realized, would end extreme global poverty in my lifetime.

Our National Church and our Diocese are firmly behind these goals and I am as well. Not just because the video we saw yesterday showed a picture of a dark-haired, brown-skinned, brown-eyed little girl standing in a garbage dump who looked exactly like my daughter. But because we can do this. We can do great things, as believers in Jesus – for Jesus was a “doer” whose example inspires us, disciples, to be “doers” and we stand in a long line of disciples who have done great things.

Now let us go and do likewise. Let us do great things – in Jesus name, Amen.
      
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