“Don’t Give Up

“Don’t Give Up!”

Mark 10:46-52

October 25, 2009 + Reformation Sunday

Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ

400 Glenwood Drive

Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404

I have a confession to make: your preacher is mildly depressed. But, then, so are some of you. Frankly, who wouldn’t be given what’s going on in our nation and world these days?

Violence and terrorism continue to go on in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the Middle East, and dozens of other places in the world with the blood of the innocent and guilty mixed together in conflicts which seem irresolvable.

Nuclear weaponry is being developed in Iran, North Korea, and other locations which could mean death to millions, even the world itself.

In Africa thousands are driven from their villages, killed, or placed in squalid refugee camps where disease and starvation await many of them.

Here in the United States the economic depression has cost many their homes, their jobs, their futures while Wall Street, big banks, and big insurance companies are given billions of dollars to spend on salaries, bonuses and dividends.

In Chicago and other cities across the country, including Chattanooga, children are killing children with lethal weapons which are far too available.

All around us hate groups are growing and vicious rhetoric is spewed forth daily from right wing radicals on radio and television.

Our national political life is bitterly divided in such a way that little of positive good is able to be accomplished and our President is treated with contempt.

The list could go on and on. Every daily newspaper, every television news program, brings the revelation of some further tragedy in our world. No wonder many people don’t listen or watch anymore. They have been battered so much that they just don’t want to hear or see any more bad news.

As your preacher, I don’t have that luxury. As difficult as it may be I have to stay in touch with reality. But what am I supposed to do in the midst of such things?

Lately I have felt like Queequeg, the South Sea Island harpooner, in Melville’s “Moby Dick.” Queequeg and his fellows in the whale boat have been pursuing a whale. Suddenly a squall blows up. The waves and growing darkness make it impossible for them to see the other whale boats or their mother ship, the Pequod. The storm threatens to swamp the boat and drown them all. But let Melville tell the story:

“. . . after many failures Starbuck (the first mate) contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.” (Herman Melville, “Moby Dick,” p. 223)

Can you see why I might identify myself with Queequeg these days? My most important task as your preacher is to be a bearer of hope amidst the storms of life. I am called to proclaim the Gospel, the good news, that there is hope despite everything which would make us believe there is none. How do I do that without feeling like a hypocrite, without offering the false hope we hear in too many places?

Then, just when I need it most, the Holy Spirit provides today’s scripture lesson, the assigned Gospel reading for this morning, the story of blind Bartimaeus. What an incredible message of hope!

Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, whose very name means “Son of an Outcast,” is sitting by the road leading into Jericho. Somehow, somewhere he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is coming past him. He begins to shout. No, not just shout, but as we say down here in the South, he begins to holler, holler as loud as he can: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The people around him tell him to behave himself. Don’t annoy them or Jesus: “Shut up, you blind loser!”

But Bartimaeus keeps on hollering. What has he got to lose? Nothing. What has he got to gain? Everything. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And, marvel of marvel, Jesus not only hears him but asks that he be brought to him. With a bit of hypocrisy, the crowd now changes its tune: “Don’t be discouraged. Get up. He’s calling you.”

Throwing off his filthy, ragged cloak, Bartimaeus jumps to his feet and runs to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you,” asks Jesus? What a question! “He’s blind, Jesus. Can’t you see that? What do you think he wants?” But one of the great spiritual truths of life is this: it’s not enough to want something: we have to ask for it. We even have to be willing to holler for it, holler in pain and frustration. “What do I want you to do for me, Jesus? I want you to let me see again.”

At that moment, blind Bartimeaus reminds me of my Uncle Buel. He had seen as a child but when he was a young boy an accident destroyed his sight. I can only imagine him saying over and over in his adult life: “Let me see again.”

There’s an incredible longing when we once had something precious and then lose it. “Let me have back my spouse, my son, my daughter, my home, my job, my health. Let me have it back again.”

Again, marvel of marvels, Bartimaeus gets back what he lost. “Go,” says Jesus, “Your faith has made you whole.” Immediately – immediately, one of Mark’s favorite words to describe what happens when Jesus is around – immediately Bartimaeus regains his sight. So what does he do then? Run home to have a party? Go through town to tell his friends what has happened? No, he decides to follow Jesus and become a disciple. Mark says, “He followed him. (Jesus) on the way.” “On the way.” Powerful words for a New Testament audience. The earliest Christians were not called Christians; they were called “followers of the way.” In other words, Bartimaeus becomes a Christian. He follows Jesus from Jericho to Jerusalem and is a first-hand witness of the world-changing events of Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter. He who was blind now sees what life, real life, is all about.

That is what I need to do, too. I need to regain my sight. I need to see with the eyes of faith, not the eyes of cynicism and despair. Like Queequeg in the midst of the storm, I need to continue holding up the lantern of hope in a dark world. Actually, I should tell you the end of that story: the Pequod finds Queequeg and the other sailors in the boat. They are not lost. They are found.

I watched a haunting movie recently, “The Shipping News.” It’s another story about the sea. In the movie one of the members of an isolated community in Newfoundland is told that his only son has been lost at sea when his fishing boat went down. After seven days the search will have to be called off. There is no hope that the young man can be found. “I know where he is,” says the father. “I will find him.” And, marvel of marvels, he does find his son, clinging to a bit of refuse, barely alive after more than seven days adrift in the bitterly cold waters of the North Atlantic.

Don’t give up! Hold on! Help is on the way. In the midst of everything that would cause us to give us, we must keep on keeping on. Don’t give up on yourself. Don’t give up on other people. Don’t give up on the world. Most of all, don’t give up on God. I believe the challenge for believing people in our time is to practice the persistence of faith. Don’t give up!

I had a dear friend years ago, Eric Bascom. Eric and I served together on the staff of Grace Methodist Church when I was a seminarian in Rochester, New York. Eric was an elderly Congregational minister from New Hampshire. When he finally retired he and Elida went back to live in a home built by a Revolutionary War veteran on the top of one of the White Mountains where you could see for miles over Vermont and into New York. The house was in bad shape so during my summer vacation I tried to help Eric put the house back to rights again. One of the tasks Eric set me to doing was building a front porch out of some large granite blocks in the front yard. New Hampshiremen don’t waste money buying wood when stone is free and available!

Eric handed me a stone chisel and a hammer and told me to cut the granite slabs into proper shape. I couldn’t believe he expected me to do such a crazy thing. How could I cut those blocks with a chisel and hammer? Eric explained: “Don’t hit the block with hard strokes. Find the seam in the granite and keep tapping, on the chisel with the hammer. The granite will divide.” I really didn’t believe him but, after all, he was my friend and I had to trust that he knew more than I did. So I sat there, tapping, tapping, tapping. It seemed like it went on for several minutes. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the rock divided just as Eric said it would. The key was not to give up.

I’ve been mostly talking about myself this morning. Where are you today? Are you depressed and discouraged? Are you ready to give up and walk away? Then this message is meant for you. Don’t give up! In the face of everything that would say that life is hopeless, useless, doomed, don’t give up. Keep hollering and keep hammering. Hope and help are on the way. Hang on for a little longer and you will be amazed at what will happen.

Do you remember this old hymn in our Pilgrim Hymnal?

“God is working His purpose out as year succeeds to year; God is working His purpose out, and the time is drawing near; Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be, when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God As the waters cover the sea.”

And do you remember the promise of this other old hymn?

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.”

So take heart; get up; God is calling you.

I close this message in the tradition of the Black Church. When I say “Don’t give up!” I want you to respond “I won’t give up!” And don’t say it with quiet dignity! I want us to holler it out with persistent faith.

So here we go . . .

“Don’t give up!” (“I won’t give up!”)

“Don‘t give up!” (“I won’t give up!”)

And, thank God, God will never give up on us.

Amen.