You Won't Need the Coat!

Text:  Mark 10:46-52

Theme:  "You Won't Need the Coat"

21st Sunday after Pentecost/Reformation Sunday

October 28, 2012

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

⁴⁶ Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. ⁴⁷ When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

⁴⁸ Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

⁴⁹ Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” ⁵⁰ Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

⁵¹ “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

⁵² “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

 

The all-American humorist, Arnold Glasgow, once wrote:  "One of the tests of leadership is to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency."  If that be the case, then Martin Luther -- that towering figure in the Protestant Reformation -- was not much of a leader.  The problem, which had long since become an emergency, was in his head and in his heart.  Now, Luther was a believer -- with that there was no problem.  He was a child of the Roman Catholic Church.  He was reared and raised with its teachings.  There is a God.  God is holy.  And there are people of God; they are not holy.  God had the power -- the power to make you or break you, the power to grant you life or wipe you out.  From Saint Augustine, Luther learned about the power of God's love.  It could change a human being.  But did he, Luther, have enough of that love so that a change could be made?  Was there enough love in him to bridge the gap between his sin and the holiness of God?  Augustine and his studies in theology only took him so far.  Even Augustine couldn't set him free from the emergency in his soul. 

Could the church help?  Well, the pope had a basilica to build -- St. Peter's basilica in Rome.  That would require money.  They raised funds for the project by selling something called indulgences.  What was an indulgence?  It was a sheet of paper.  Let's say that your Great Aunt Sophie passed away.  According to Catholic teaching, her soul went to purgatory before she went to heaven.  There she was "purged" of any remaining sins that she neglected confess to the priest before she died.  When you bought an indulgence, according to Catholic teaching at the time, you lessened the time Great Aunt Sophie had to spend in purgatory.  I know, it all sounds so medieval to us.

Meanwhile, Luther -- still beset with an emergency in his soul -- smelled a rat.  God's love was many things, but one thing it was not:  it was not something that could be bought. A god that could be bought off was not much of a god at all.   Forgiveness was not a matter of dollars and cents; mercy, if it was truly to be mercy, did not have a price -- in terms of money. 

The sale of indulgences added insult to injury for Luther.  His personal anguish of soul was bad enough, but now his own church had started something that would make even the fund-raisers of today blush in embarrassment.  What to do?

Well, he could run away and hide.  He could do what a growing number of people are doing in our own country -- that is, not bothering to care anymore about spiritual matters or the church.  He could have lied to himself and denied that he ever really had any personal problems to begin with; he could have gone on, as a loyal son of the Catholic church, to PROMOTE the continuing sale of indulgences and then be part of the celebration when the new basilica was dedicated.

But that's not what Luther did. 

To borrow the language of today's Gospel reading, Luther -- like blind Bartimaeus -- threw off his coat.  He let it all hang out.  If there was mercy, it would not come from money.  If there was forgiveness, he could not earn it.  If there was love -- real love and not some phony baloney, it would have to be God's to give.  If there was to be trust, it would be in Christ alone.  If there was to be faith, it had to come from God as a gift.  Not from Augustine but from Habakkuk, Luther learned that "The just shall live by faith."  Not from the Roman Catholic Church of his day but from St. Paul did Luther learn that "By grace are you saved through faith -- and this is not from yourselves.  It is the gift of God.  It is not of works -- lest anyone should boast."  To the blind and befuddled eyes of his head and heart, the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ shined brightly.  Luther was set free; he would never be the same.

The rest, as they say, is history!  The reformation of the church spread -- through Germany and on to Geneva, Switzerland and John Calvin.  It made its way to Scotland.  A group of Christians eventually called "Presbyterians" sprung from this reformation, and here we are today as heirs of it all.

Reformation means change.  One of the phrases in our Presbyterian circles is this:  "reformed and always reforming."  That line was first coined, in 1674, by Jodocus van  Lodenstein, who was a significant figure in Dutch Reformed pietism -- which was a branch of the Reformation.  According to van Lodenstein and others, the Reformation, begun by Luther, changed the doctrine of the church, but the lives and practices of God's people always needed further reformation. 

Unfortunately, there are some in our circles who take this matter of change, of reformation, a bit too far.  They think that, as far as change is concerned, anything goes.  The whole idea is to be constantly changing -- like some sort of ecclesiastical chameleon.  Stick a moist finger in the wind, and see where it takes you.  Don't be bogged down by creeds and confessions.  Don't be stifled by polity and organizational structure.  All of that was fine way back when, but we live in a modern era where are all those old myths and superstitions have long since been disproved.  The church would be so much better if would be more like Entertainment Tonight or, well, "American Idol."  But do sprinkle in some happy Jesus Scriptures to give it a little spiritual flavor!

Perhaps the modern church would do well to hear the ENTIRE phrase from van Lodenstein:  "reformed and always reforming according to the Word of God."  Change is many things, but it is not throwing out the Word of God. In the Bible, we have it in its written form. In Baptism and the Eucharist, we have it in its sacramental form.   In Jesus Christ, we have it in the flesh!

Speaking of Jesus, our text picks up with Him in Jericho. He was about to leave town.  There, outside the city limits, all but ostracized by society, sat a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.  His survival depended on his voice which allowed him to beg for his daily provisions.  His ears allowed him to hear all the ruckus and to discover that Jesus was near. 

He didn't crawl into the fetal position and hide underneath his coat.  That coat was all he had.  It protected him from the elements; it covered him from the mocking and disdainful gaze of onlookers; it surrounded and safeguarded what food or money he could get from passersby.  Without that coat, he was exposed and doomed. 

Wrapped in that coat, he shouted at the top of his lungs:  "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me."  The crowd told him to shut up -- basically to go back to the rock that you crawled out from under.  You're not someone Jesus, the son of David, wants to bother with.

Not to be deterred by the popular crowd, Bartimaeus cries out again:  "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me."  He was a persistent little cuss, wasn't he?

Jesus said:  "Call him."  The popular crowd, fickle as ever, says:  "Cheer up!  He's calling you!"

Then something amazing happened.  It says he through aside his cloak.  He wouldn't be needing that anymore.  EVERYTHING that he previously depended on for his very survival as a blind man sitting on the side of the road he threw away.  That was act of faith even before he received his sight. 

He did receive his sight, and he followed Jesus -- on to the cross, to the empty tomb, and to the Kingdom Christ came to give him.  The coat was left in the dust.

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, if there is to be continuing reformation in the churches of the Reformation; if we -- like Luther, Calvin, and van Lodenstein -- seek godly change, then we must see ourselves as blind Bartimaeus, the beggar.

The world is telling us to shut up and then to cheer up.  How reliable is that?   But Jesus is calling -- even today.  The question is:  will we throw off our coat?

Martin Luther died in 1546.  Next to his deathbed were the last words he reportedly wrote.  They say:  "We are beggars; this is true."  He nailed it, for beggars live only by what they are given -- that is, by faith.  In other words, you won't need the coat.

Amen.