December 7, 2008:  REVEALING:  GROWING PERCEPTION
Mark 10:46-52; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church.

            My current book on tape is The Zookeeper’s Wife (by Diane Ackerman), a true story about life as part of the Polish underground in World War II.  It’s a story of heroism in the serious business of saving Jews one at a time from the Nazis’ “final solution,” just ordinary people doing extraordinary things, their ingenuity and courage simply extensions of who they are.  These are the kind of people who, in another time and place would have been checking the sales flyers from Fred Meyer this time of year.  Instead, they risked their lives, sacrificing security and their own means of sustenance, to act on a growing perception of their own power.  Acting not from religious motives, I wonder what the zookeeper and his wife saw in themselves that gave them the power to act as they did.

            Which, of course, brings up our Advent theme of “Revealing.”  The gospel of Mark reads as if Jesusdidn’t see himself and his mission in quite the religious sacrifice way the Church does today.  Mark’s Jesus has a “growing perception” of his mission and ministry, and Bartimaeus was part of that revealing.  So, what didBartimaeus see?  Certainly not the completion of God’s plan for salvation.  In Mark, there is no “birth of the Savior,” and even the resurrection is no “completion,” since the gospel ends without appearances by the Risen Lord, plus the disciples scatter in fear.  The “completion” of the gospel, for Mark, is us.  We are the ones who “complete” God’s work of salvation by living the Kingdom of God.  That is our power to act, what Bartimaeus sees.  The Kingdom right now, by doing it.

            At this point in Advent, however, we are still talking apocalypse, if you noticed the reading from 2 Peter.  This is end of the world stuff, but God taking his own sweet time about the ending.  While we live with pending-ending, our consolation is “the only way out is through,” hoping with all the faith we’ve got that the bad, old order is making way for the new.  One writer I ran across this week interpreted all these end-of-the-world texts, not as a prediction of what God was about to do, but as a promise that even if such disasters occur, God would still be there with the eternal word, presence and promise.  We read apocalypse as a violent time, but the God-who-comes is not the perpetrator of violence.  The God-who-comes is the one who saves us from the violence we do and experience.   It reminds me of The Zookeeper’s Wife—violent times with a growing perception of our need to act. 

            How we are to act, since we are the “culmination” of the gospel, is along the lines of God:  with presence and steadfast faithfulness.  This is what Gwen Shearer wrote in this issue of Springwater Currents.  Taking her title from the book she was reading, Gwen’s article is “How to Be an Adult.”  She outlines ordinary actions for ordinary humans to take in relation to one another:  attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, allowing.  You would be surprised at the heroic results of these very simple relationship strategies.  What wonderful advice for Advent, especially the portion of Advent when we are trying to figure out how to live with and through and into all this end-of-the-world stuff.  As I read 2 Peter, I told you the reason apocalypse is part of Advent is both bad and good news.  The bad news is, “The only way out is through.”  The good news is, “The old is making way for the new.”  Exactly how the Zookeeper’s Wife survived from 1939 to 1946, in the midst of the violence and privations of war, in the pressure cooker of committing the capital crime of assisting Jews.  That’s apocalyptic.  Did she ever say to herself, “The only way out is through”?  Did she have enough hope to say, “The old is making way for the new”?  Did she comfort herself with the words my mother used to encourage me, “Be the change you want to see”?  Certainly she must have had the apocalyptic frame of mind that knows, “Now is all we’ve got.”

            That’s why we need this part of Advent, apocalypse, all those aphorisms I just gave you, those words to live by.  “The only way out is through.”  “The old is making way for the new.”  “Be the change you want to see.”  “Now is all we’ve got.”  The human condition is such that none of us choose the world into which we are born.  Each new generation rails and rebels against this truth.  Eventually, as the result of maturity, each generation realizes, “We just have to do the best we can with what we’ve got.”  The world is in shreds; how do we work to restore it?  

            Apocalypse is what saves us from idolatry.  We get so confused sometimes.  Living and ministering as we do in a traditional (and perhaps dying) denomination, in our desperation to hang on to life, we sometimes forget that church is a means not the end.  The end is God’s Kingdom.  That’s why Jesus came.  Not to start a religion.  Jesus came to proclaim and bring God’s Kingdom.  Recently I read a prayer, “Lord, we prayed, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ and all we got was the Church!”  Isn’t that the truth!  Church is what we’ve got, Kingdom is what we live and work and hope for.  We need apocalypse and Advent and each other to remind ourselves, “Whenever we make the means into the end, we have created an idol.”   When we pray “thy kingdom come” we need to mean “my kingdom go.” Apocalypse.  As a congregation, this means wondering about and stating our mission.  Who are we and what are we doing here?  What is God calling us to?  As individuals, that means asking the same questions, but our answer needs to take into account power. 

            This is what I know about power:  real power comes from Beyond ourselves.  Given that God is infinite and, by virtue of our faith, we have access to that power, one might be tempted to think our power is also infinite.  But that isn’t the Jesus model.  As he neared the end of his life, in light of his growing perception regarding his mission, Jesus exercised power by letting it go. He set aside his personal agenda, set aside his need to be a success. Even when he agonized in the Garden before his arrest, he prayed, “If it’s possible, do this another way.  Nevertheless, your will be done.”  He gave up his power. Bartimaeus gave up the only tool a beggar has—his cloak—in order to be healed. This is what “Surrender” means in Melanie Weidner’s painting of Revealing.

            A person willingly giving up power can be either powerful or dangerous.  We are dangerous when we let go of power out of fear, when we are motivated by a conviction of scarcity and its twin, greed.  To let go of power in this way is to submit rather than to surrender.  We are powerful when we surrender to, when we trust that, the source of our power is the One Beyond Ourselves.  When we willingly set aside our useless beggar’s tools and name our need, relying on God, we are powerful.  Jesus’ power lay in his absolute and complete trust in God’s will.  Bartimaeus received healing, because he was willing to give up his old life. We are powerful.  Even you.  But a mature power, a growing perception of our power, requires surrender.  Thy Kingdom come.  Thy will be done.  Perhaps this is what God is Revealing to you this Advent.