What do You Want?

What do you want? And when do you want it?  We want a win, and we want it now.  We want quick fixes and easy solutions.  We want the shiny new gadget that will take us to the moon and back in the blink of an eye.  We want the big red easy button that we can push whenever we want.  And most of life is like the poster on the wall at a photocopy store.  “If you want it fast and cheap, it won’t be good.  If you want it good and cheap it won’t be fast.  If you want it good and fast, it won’t be cheap.”  You choose!

Job and Bartimaeus knew that life wasn’t easy.  They knew what it meant to feel like they were blamed for the situations they found themselves in.  They knew that people disrespected them for the problems that they had, and they knew that there were no easy answers to the challenges that they faced.

Bartimaeus had people tell him to be quiet, to shut up, to stop bothering them.  They didn’t believe he had the right to bother other people, and certainly had no right to pester someone as important as Jesus.

Job had people tell him he deserved the tragedies and illnesses he experienced, he had earned all his troubles and trials.  He should just be quiet and accept his fate quietly, confess to God what he had done wrong, or even curse God so God would put him out of his misery.

Both these men were targeted with bad, arrogant theology that assumed that other people knew what was best for them more than they did themselves.  Other people knew what they should or should not be allowed to do.  Other people put controls on what they should think and how they should act.

Except those other people were wrong!  And not just a little bit wrong either, but spectacularly, arrogantly wrong.  So wrong that Job and Bart ended up with personal encounters with the holy that would forever change their lives.  Wow.

Too often we are the crowd who are focused on what we can get for ourselves, and we ignore the outsiders who also need to hear good news, or see signs of hope for their lives.  Too often we are like Job’s comforters, telling people how to think, what to think and what to do.  We assume we know the answers that will solve everyone else’s lives.  We get focussed on fixing, saving, advising and correcting other people.  We act like we know what they need to make their lives perfect, and we are blind to what they might really want and need.

And sometimes we are Job and Bartimaeus, wrestling with life experiences that hurt, that challenge, that feel like they will never end.  We face tragedy after tragedy and when we turn to the people we think will help, we are left high and dry.  We find ourselves wrestling with depression and mental illness and assume that there is nothing we can do to change it.  We struggle with the temptation to make life into a giant pity party, and to sit in our woes inviting sympathy.  We assume that somehow life is terrible and things never change.  If we are not careful, we can become a permanent victim, cynically seeing the world through pessimistic eyes that allow us to stay stuck in our apathy.  When we are caught in that broken record of negative thinking, it is hard to imagine a different future that might be better than the present.

The holy shows up and disrupts things.  The sacred experiences happen to Bartimaeus and Job despite the bad behavior of their friends and community.  Bartimaeus and Job are the ones who experience first-hand the healing that they so desperately wanted.  Job, after 42 chapters of complaining about how unfair life is and how mean God has been, changes his tune and says to everyone who will listen, “I have had a personal experience with the Holy that is so profound, so amazing and so immense that I am in wonder, and I am humbled.”  He’s like this one you tube video that tried to describe the number of galaxies in the universe. It used the metaphor of filling a swimming pool with cheerios to show how many galaxies there are - you’d need over 300 swimming pools and that’s just for the ones that the Hubble Telescope can see.  There’s even more that we can’t see.  That’s the kind of God experience Job had and of course it was humbling.

Experiences of the holy, whether it is Jesus helping us see the world in new ways, or Job discovering joy after tragedy, are rare and special.  Not everyone experiences them, but when they happen they have a way of showing up unexpectedly, even when we’ve given up hope.  One thing that helps us have that kind of experience is thinking of ourselves as disciples and learners, being humble and asking for God to be in our lives.  Job was a faithful man who regularly studied scripture, listened to the priests, went to temple and prayed to God unceasingly.  Bartimaeus was a Hebrew.  He knew scripture, and he called Jesus the Son of David, recognizing Jesus as a royal person, full of authority and power, with a unique connection of God.  His faith was deep.

Faith is more than a logical experience of the divine, or an easy answer button. We need both a logical and an emotional connection to the holy. On this Reformation Sunday, we remember Martin Luther’s inspired list of problems nailed to the church doors, John Knox’s reforming of the Scottish church, John Wesley’s logical Anglican faith turned upside down by the experience of his “strangely warmed heart”.  We remember liberation theologians challenging power systems, feminist theologians and queer theologians pushing our understanding of God.  And we pray to see our world with fresh new eyes as disciples of Christ.

What are you thirsty for?

I got a phone call Wednesday from an organization that works for the United Church and provides support for ministry personnel.  The nice gentleman on the other end of the line asked me how I was doing, and I said ‘a little stressed, wish the Covid would go away.’ He then proceeded to send me four e-mails, one on managing my weight, one on parenting my kids through school, one on stress, and one on a new app that would help me with whatever I was struggling with.

The new app turned out to be a series of links to Ted Talks and breathing exercises.  Nothing I couldn’t have found for myself.  Every celebrity has their YouTube channel and you can listen to advice from psychologists and psychotherapists on topics from how to have better boundaries to how to deal with a bully at work.

There is a lot of information, advice, data, research and study available that we never had before.  There are con artists and false news fearmongers on it as well.  Just like real life, we have always had good leaders and crime bosses in every time, even when Jesus was alive.  The temple authorities have watched Jesus come into town on a donkey, with cheering crowds making a huge fuss over him, then he came into the Temple itself.  The first day he showed up, Jesus disrupted the economic system by having a temper tantrum and throwing furniture around instead of being respectful and humble and awed by the sanctified building he stood in.  So of course, they would go up to him and ask him who he thought he was, and what gave him the right to do what he did?

They were not looking for information, for a diploma, or a certificate.  They were looking for sheepishness, embarrassment, possibly an apology, and preferably a quick departure.  

What they got was not any of what they wanted or said they wanted, instead they got authority.  That must have really shocked them.  Sadly it was not convincing enough for they were ultimately the ones who organized the kangaroo court that led to his state execution.

The people wandering in the wilderness struggled to survive in a new land; they were city slickers living in tents and cooking on open fires instead of cozy homes that they had abandoned to follow a dream. They were not sure what they were thirsty for.  Some wanted a return to old ways, to job security and a roof over their heads, decent food and access to clean drinking water on a regular basis.  To some authority that would tell them what to do and where to be every single day of their lives.  They thirsted for certainty, security and predictability.

Some wanted constant reassurance that they were doing the right thing, sticking it out in the desert, gathering their manna and quail each day, scrounging for wood for their fires, learning how to sew tents, getting used to a new reality where they were on the move every day, keeping a watch on the kids so they stayed away from snakes and scorpions, and taking care of their elders.

Some thirsted for the promised land that they had never seen, and only knew from stories of their great great grandparents, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Rachel and Leah, Joseph and his many brothers.  The land of milk and honey, a place of freedom to raise their families without the threat of infanticide and genocide, a place where they could farm or tend herds instead of making clay bricks for the Pharaoh’s pyramids.

Some wanted a new life right away and got angry at Moses for not providing it upon demand.  They wanted to feel strong so that they would never again have to endure the violence of slavery.  They didn’t realize that they were in danger of becoming as violent as their oppressors in their need for order.

And then there were the leaders, Moses, his brother Aaron and his sister Myriam, struggling to lead, feeling attacked and threatened, wondering if they were leading the people in circles, wondering what God was doing and why the people couldn’t simply be happy to be free!

Moses wanted to complain but God wanted him to remember the authority that he had.  The staff was a reminder of all the things Moses had done in front of the Pharaoh to free his people.  It was the tool God used to help Moses understand that he had the power to liberate, to challenge the authoritarian regime in Egypt.  A simple stick such as anyone might use for a walk in the bush or to lean on while looking after herds of sheep.  No fancy carvings, no gold decorations or embedded jewels like the Pharaoh and his ornate shepherd’s crook that would never be practical for working with a stubborn flock.

A simple and useful stick that reminded Moses of who he worked for and how he had been called.  The stick that had somehow been transformed in the presence of the burning bush into a symbol of God’s liberating power.  The stick that reminded him of the authority he had and who he was accountable to!

What are you thirsty for? Who do you give authority to?  Many today are following authoritarians who promise safety and freedom from dangerous foes, falling for stories of danger and conspiracy.  Many listen to the loudest voices and the angriest leaders to find the security they long for.  

We as followers of Jesus are called to follow the voice of love that provides living waters in the midst of the desert of fear, common sense amidst the chaos, the still small voice that we need to hear when we thirst for hope.  The voice of freedom and justice for all, the voice of authority rather than the voice of authoritarianism, the voice of sense and compassion that leads us to a promised land more beautiful than we can possibly imagine.  May we find that voice in our journey through our wilderness time.  Amen.