Texts: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52
In a sense, there has only been one great religious issue within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. That issues is NOT whether or not God exists. That is a question for philosophers, perhaps, but not for religious thinkers and theologians. For a theologian to discuss whether or not there is a God would be as silly as a botanist wondering whether or not plants exist. The starting-point for us is shown very clearly in the Bible: In the beginning, God….For us, religion, theology, spirituality – call it what you will, they all mean the same thing – is about the human response to the reality of God.
Within our tradition the one great religious issue is this: who is acceptable to God? That underlies the question we come across in the New Testament in various places and in various forms. The rich young man asked Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? When Jesus spoke about the difficulties facing the rich, his disciples asked him, Who then can be saved?
In the Old Testament the emphasis is on the approachability to God. Who can come near to God, who can set foot on the holy mountain, who can enter the Temple , and so on. There was a great fear of getting too close. We think of the people huddled at the bottom of the mountain, and sending Moses up to find out what God wanted. The man who touched the ark of God in David’s time when it was being transported back to Jerusalem was struck down dead for his impertinence.
And this idea of the holiness of God and the danger of approaching too close is seen in Moses’ approach to the burning bush. He is instructed to take off his shoes as he is now on holy ground. The purity laws are also based on this same principle: people must be purified before they come into the worshipping community.
And in some ways all this is summed up in the attitude towards who can and who cannot be a priest. In the early tradition the position was somewhat complicated by the fact that the priesthood was to some extent a matter of inheritance. Only descendants of Aaron and Levi could be priests. But there was more to it than that. I think I have referred to this in the notes in today’s pewsheet. A priest had to be without physical defect – the lame and the blind, for example, could not be priests according to the Levitical code.
In short, there were tight restrictions on who could and who couldn’t be a priest, and even restrictions on who could and who could not participate in temple worship as members of the congregation. Those who were ritually ‘unclean’ could not attend Temple worship until they had undergone purification and become ‘clean’.
It’s against that sort of background that we can understand the full import of what Jeremiah is saying in our first rather brief lesson this morning. Poor old Jeremiah has gone down in history as the prophet of doom and gloom. He is remembered for the bad news he brought to his people, the news of imminent disaster at the hands of the Babylonians. We usually overlook the fact that, like most of the other prophets, he also proclaimed the good news. Disaster on a national scale was never going to be the final word. God was and is faithful to his covenant. He will one day restore his people, bring them back from exile. The bad news is in the foreground but it always has as a background the firm promise of redemption in the end.
Does this sound like a prophet of doom? Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. Make your praises heard,… Jeremiah looks beyond the agony of national defeat and exile, and sees a time coming when the people of God will be gathered together and brought home. And among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labour. In other words, people who represent, as it were, those with ‘defects’ and those who are ‘unclean’. All those barriers will be broken down – everyone will be in the great throng returning home.
Which is great news for Bartimaeus, to take just one example. He’s the blind beggar squatting on the side of the main thoroughfare out of Jericho . It’s a great position – that’s a busy road with a great deal of foot traffic. But, of course, he’s a nobody, he is defective, he’s a blind beggar, who should sit there out of peoples’ way and keep his mouth shut.
But somehow or other he’s heard about Jesus – heard about his power to heal. And so when someone tells him that this very same Jesus is now walking past him, he starts yelling out; and what he yells is highly significant. He calls Jesus ‘Son of David’. By doing so he identifies himself as a fellow Jew, one of God’s people, and identifies Jesus as the Messiah.
That’s two bonus points for Bartimaeus, but he hasn’t finished there. He asks Jesus to have mercy on him. That is the sinner’s prayer to God for forgiveness. No wonder people told him to shut up – it must have sounded like blasphemous babble to the crowd. But Jesus heard him and responded. He called the man. That’s the same word as used when he called his disciples. He calls the man to him. The man is acceptable to him. And Bartimaeus approaches, quickly, joyfully and with great confidence. He throws off his cloak, his covering, and jumps to his feet.
Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wants Jesus to do for him, and Bartimaeus immediately asks for the impossible: I want to see. How could his sight be restored? Humanly, this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.
Who is acceptable to God? It’s fashionable in some quarters today to dismiss all this as being part of our strange history. If we ask the question at all, we run the risk of being considered arrogant, or judgmental, or simply stupid. And yet this is an issue that still bothers the Church today. We Anglicans are still struggling to hold our world-wide communion together over the ordination of homosexual people; the Presbyterians in this country have finally made a decision on the issue and must now work through the consequences.
And this week came news from Sydney that their diocesan synod has once again affirmed that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood. – they say, on biblical grounds. Whether they ordain the blind, the lame, and other people with physical defects has not been reported, but consistency might suggest they should not.
Unless, of course, they have read and understood our second lesson, from the Letter to the Hebrews. This is not one of my favourite books, to be honest, but it does contain some absolute gems, and we have one of them today. Here again is verse 25: Therefore Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. I don’t think I really understood that verse until I came across this story with which I’ll end this morning.
A father took his small son to a fair-ground, where there were various rides and other attractions, for each of which a ticket was required. Dad bought some tickets, and told his son to look around and when he found something he wanted to go on, he should come back to Dad and get a ticket. This went on for a while; and then another little boy turned up and asked the Dad for a ticket. Dad refused, saying he didn’t know the boy so why should he give him a ticket.
The little boy’s face fell; “Your son promised you would if I asked you nicely.” The Dad thought about that for a moment, then gave the boy a ticket. After all, he wanted to honour his son’s promise.
That’s what this verse means. If anyone comes to the Father through the Son the Father will give that person the ticket of eternal life. It has nothing to do with the quality of the person – whether that person has or has not any physical defect or is or is not ‘unclean’ is any way. It is all to do with the Son.
That is the biblical message; and, with due respect to those who hold a different view, I strongly believe that it applies as much to the priesthood as to the congregation. Amen.
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