Worship: Your Memory Aid

Sermon for Oct. 27, 2024
Mark 10:46-52

That may seem like an odd Gospel reading for a Sunday when we’re highlighting the spiritual practice of worship.  After all, in today’s reading, blind Bartimaeus isn’t even in a house of worship.  He isn’t praying in a synagogue or offering sacrifice in the temple.  Those are the kinds of places where worship happens, right?  But here’s Bartimaeus, on the side of the road yelling at Jesus, naming him as “Son of David” and crying for mercy.  What does that have to do with worship?

Well, maybe we should clarify what we mean when we talk about worship.  That word is often used as a noun – a thing churches do, the main product we offer.  And that can lead us to think about worship as a commodity:  How good is it?  How compelling is it?  How well does it meet my needs?  But worship isn’t about us, actually.  There’s an audience of One for this offering we make each week.  The object of worship is God, for whom we gather to give thanks and praise.  When we come here, we’re the ones providing a service, not the ones receiving it.

I think the reason why this Gospel reading makes sense for today is less about Bartimaeus’ actions and more about the object of his actions.  Bartimaeus may be blind, but he can clearly see Jesus’ identity.  He knows this is God’s anointed ruler passing by – the “Son of David” (Mark 10:47), the Messiah.  And that doesn’t mean simply a king; this is God’s viceroy on earth.  That’s how the ancient Israelites understood kingship:  They saw their king as God’s own son, God’s deputy; and it was through the king’s rule that God exercised divine sovereignty on earth.  So, when Bartimaeus calls Jesus “son of David,” Bartimaeus isn’t just naming him as Israel’s king.  Identifying Jesus as God’s Messiah, Bartimaeus is ascribing to him worth, dignity, honor, renown, and glory.  He’s worshiping.

And what happens as a result?  Two important responses, one of which may be easy to miss.  First, because the blind man sees God in the presence of Jesus the Messiah and trusts in God’s power that flows through him, Bartimaeus receives the healing he asks for when he says,  “Let me see again” (10:51).  But just as important, Bartimaeus’ life changes on an even deeper level in what happens next, when he follows Jesus “on the way” (10:52).  It’s not enough for Bartimaeus simply to give God honor, renown, and glory – to recognize God’s ultimate worth above all else.  Bartimaeus sees he has to take the next step, too, and make his life an act of worship by following Jesus on the way.

 In Bartimaeus’ day, there were many people and powers competing to be seen as the true object of worship.  You could see that in the conflict between Judaism and Rome, certainly, with the Romans worshiping their own gods and seeing their emperor as the divine Lord.  But the conflict over which god to worship went back centuries before that.

Traditionally in the ancient Near East, every people and nation had its own deity, the god who was understood to exercise power and authority over just that place.  That would have been how non-Israelites saw Yahweh – as the god of the Israelites, presumed to be roughly equivalent to the gods of the Egyptians and the Canaanites and every other nation.  But the people of Israel started making this crazy claim about Yahweh – that this wasn’t just their god but the God, overruling all the others.  Yahweh defeated the gods of the Egyptians by freeing the Israelites from bondage and delivering them through the Red Sea.  Yahweh defeated the gods of the Canaanites by empowering the Israelites to take that land from the people who lived there. 

And all through the history of the people of Israel, their huge challenge was to remember it was Yahweh and Yahweh alone who was the sovereign.  Monotheism was a deeply radical idea.  And to keep that radical idea burning in people’s hearts and minds, the people worshiped.  They offered appointed sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem.  They made several annual pilgrimages to the holy city.  They studied their scriptures and offered their prayers in synagogues in their hometowns.  Worship reminded them that they were different because their god was different.  Their god was the One God – and when they forgot, and worshiped the gods of the nations around them, they found life went badly.  They found their nation divided into competing kingdoms.  They found their power crumbling on the regional stage.  As they forgot which god deserved their honor, renown, and glory, they found themselves driven into exile, losing their nationhood completely.

I think one way of understanding Jesus’ mission is that he came to remind Yahweh’s people – who are all people – just who the object of worship must be.  That was true 2,000 years ago, and it’s true now.  Monotheism is just as radical a notion today as it was in the ancient world.  Now, today, Yahweh’s competitors are always before us.  They’re on your social media feed, and in the stock-market report, and in entertainment, and in what passes for public discourse.  And in this election season, rivals for your worship make a particularly blatant appeal.  The candidates say, “Only my way can save you, and if you’re not with me, you’re evil.”  In fact, for some candidates, the message becomes even more coarse:  “If you’re not with me, you’re not really human.”

In this moment, when the gods of power and self-interest make their strongest pitch, we need worship to help us remember two truths that will save us.  The first truth is this:  There is but one God – the One who made us, and who brought us back when we turned away, and who heals us, and who calls us to follow.  And the second truth is this:  We are the children of that God, made in Yahweh’s image; and our purpose is to grow into the fullness of that divine stature.  We are made by love, for love.  And following any power other than love warps us into lesser creatures than we’re made to be.

Worship is the most powerful way we remember who God is and who we are.  Even when we find ourselves blind beggars, sitting at the side of the road, shushed by the powers that surround us, worship helps us remember we have a voice.  And worship helps us remember that when we call out to the one God – ascribing honor, renown, and glory to the only One who deserves it – then God heals us and empowers us to help heal our world, too.

That’s a tall order, that kind of powerful, deep remembering.  How do we begin?  I think it starts by saying, “Thank you.”  It’s our most fundamental prayer, the heart of all true worship.  And it’s no accident that what we offer here each week is called Eucharist, which in Greek means “thanksgiving.”  We come here to worship not because God needs our thanks but because we need to offer it, over and over again, to remember who and whose we are.