Oct 28, 2018                                 Open Our Eyes                                                                 

When the Israelites first came into the promised land, the land of milk and honey that God had promised to Abraham, they marched to the city of Jericho. Now Jericho was a mighty city, with great thick walls and iron gates, so that no invading army might overcome it. But when the Israelites arrived at Jericho, God told Joshua, that he would give Jericho into his hands and gave him instructions on how it would be taken.

Each day for 7 days, the Israelites were to form a procession and circle the city. The priests would lead the procession, carrying the ark of the covenant, and the people would follow. On the seventh day, the procession would circle the city 7 times, and when the procession was complete, the priests would blow on their horns, and the people would give a great shout, and the walls of the city would come tumbling down.

And sure enough, that is exactly what happened, the walls came tumbling down, the Israelites won their first great victory, and went on to conquer the promised land.

I was reminded of this story, because in this morning’s gospel lesson we find Jesus outside the city of Jericho, Jesus who has been preaching about a new promised land, the kingdom of heaven. Jesus who is about to conclude his ministry and begin his walk to the cross. And so, this morning we have one last miracle, the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus.

Now the commentaries I read this past week say that Bar means Son and Timaeus is a greek word for honorable. But interestingly enough, there is a arimaic word bartime, which means gentile or unclean one. My own thinking about this, is that Jesus, in his last act of healing, chooses to heal a gentile, because now that he has preached the gospel to the Jewish people, through his passion, the gospel message will now go forth to the new promised land – the land of the gentiles.

And so, when we get this gentile Bartimaeus, calling out to Jesus, Son of David, to heal him, we get this backlash from the Jewish people surrounding Jesus, telling Bartimaeus to stay quiet. But to his credit, Bartimaeus calls out all the more strongly, “Son of David have mercy on me!” And Jesus calls him, and announces that his faith, has made him well. In saying this, Jesus affirms that the faith of the Gentiles is valid and can lead to salvation.

Now in the past week, I have been reflecting upon the mission of the United Church of Christ. From the mission of the Congregational church to slaves, immigrants and indians, to the mission of the Evangelical German church to widows, orphans, and the handicapped, and even further the mission of both churches to dialogue with and understand people of other faith traditions.

Last year at this time, we had a number of speakers talk about the missions of this church. Our support of the food resource banak, our joint youth ministry, Crop Walk, the Open Door, Our Sharing Pantry, Good Samaritan Fund, providing space for girl scouts, boy scouts, and AA meetings. And our ministry goes further than that, pastoral care for the sick, the shut in, the hurting and lost, and providing fellowship and service opportunities in our community to those in need. In all of this, we are acting as disciples of Jesus Christ.

So where does this lead us to today? As always, the gospel message leads us to those whom the world considers unclean today. The poor, the stranger, the foreigner, those who practice other religions. Those who the world blames for all it’s problems, those who the world tells us that we should be afraid of, those who the world tells us are disposable or at least not worth our effort to help.

Now not all of these modern day “gentiles” have faith. But many of them do, they seek to be honorable people, to earn a living, to act justly, to show compassion for others in need. Indeed, there are a great many more of these faithful people, than the world would lead us to believe. And it is our calling, as disciples of Jesus Christ to go forth and minister to these “gentiles