Online Sermons
21st Sunday in Pentecost (proper 25): October 25, Martha Rogers
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsWhenever I'm out and about in the fall, I try to I take the back roads, the rural roads, so that I can enjoy the fields and openness of rural Iowa. I love being back in Iowa. Lately, I’ve been noticing more and more windmill farms. They grow them big out here! I don’t know if they’ve always been there or that I’m just noticing them. These big windmills fascinate me. Here are these huge, lurking machines spinning together in almost a ballet fashion. Their blades rotating at the same time, in the same direction, looking like it is an effortless dance. Once I even imagined that those monstrous, machines were having a conversation with the wind. The wind would talk and the movements of the blades were the answers.
It reminded me of talking with God.
I can’t see God, but I know God is present and propels my life.What I don’t see is the wind that makes those big blades move. But I know that the wind is there if the blades are rotating. I have to trust that something strong and steady is moving those giant arms. Strong and steady. Even if I can’t see it.
Using windmills for the production of energy is an act of faith. We can’t see the wind, we can’t predict the wind, we can’t harness the wind, but we have faith that the winds will come and turn the blades to make an energy that sustains our life. We have belief and trust and loyalty to the invisible wind.
And because of those beliefs and because of that level of trust and the loyalty to act on it, energy is produced. We don’t have to see the wind to believe the windmills will work.
That is the exact definition of faith.
Belief and trust in and loyalty to God.
In something that we can’t see, yet we know to be there.
"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks the blind man, who answers: “You can make me see. I want to see again” And so it happens. Jesus tells him: “Go, YOUR FAITH has made you well”. Sight was then restored and Bartimaeus joins the crowd of disciples following Jesus.
Your faith has made you well.
Who did the healing here?
Jesus didn’t touch the man, Jesus didn’t pray for the blind man. Jesus was there to recognize the faith that made Bartimaeus jump up. Jesus was there to recognize the faith that made Bartimaeus cry out. Jesus knew his level of belief and trust and loyalty. Your faith, Jesus proclaims, has made you well.
That is a major challenge to me in life.
I want to believe.
I want to live like I really believe and trust and am loyal.
Yet, too often, I am also blinded in this world. I think it is the same for many of us. I repeatedly pray: “Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief.” I am blinded to whom it is that sustains my life, my being, my breathing. We are blinded to what would build even more trust and loyalty and belief in God. And even in our blindness, we know that God is present in our lives.We know that God is with us, yet in our prayers we ask God to come to us. We pray that God will take care of this or that, often contradicting the fact that we know that God already is present in each and every situation, waiting to redeem our misjudgments and faults. If we could only see that. If we could only see.
It would take a practicing faith to be able to see God. It takes practice t o trust that our lives are being energized by something we can’t see, but yet know is there. We have to try to be loyal enough to rely on that divine strength--to be sustained by this invisible energy. To be in the dance, in the conversation with God takes practicing … which means we have to take an active role in our faith journeys. They don't happen by themselves.
That’s a pretty daring thought today, this practicing, this being in the dance, in the conversation with God. With Jesus.
He asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Imagine Jesus asking that very same question to you: “What do you want me to do for you?”
What do you want me to do for you?
I don’t know how you would answer, or if you could even find the words to answer Jesus. Because if we are bold enough to answer Jesus, we would have to have the faith to risk what his response to us demands: new sight, new life, letting go of the things that bind and blind us—our values, our attitudes, our opinions and so many other parts of us. Yet, our faith, too, can produce miracles if we dare to answer Jesus when he asks: "What do you want me to do for you," fully trusting that our life is sustained, is energized, is propelled with the breath of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus does ask: "What do you want me to do for you."
Listen to his response: It is YOUR FAITH, your trust, your loyalty, your belief, your trying, your practicing, that will make you well — body, mind or spirit.
It is YOUR FAITH, not his.
If we could only see.
Amen.