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Cathedral Eucharist Sermon by The Dean
25 October 2009
Gospel Reading: Mark 10:46-52

A friend of mine is in the States at the moment. He is an investor with some business interests there and has been at a conference in New York. He sent me an email during the week in which he commented:

“The US still has a lot of financial grief to come according to projections provided by speakers at the conference. About 10 million homes have been taken over by banks and there is expectation that there are even more than that to go the same way. Over 200 banks are expected to fail next year.”

I found myself thinking that I was glad we have been told the recession is at an end here in New Zealand. OK, perhaps I say that a little tongue in cheek. Of course it was better to see GDP grow by 0.1% in the second quarter of the year than to contract by it, and I am all for doing what we can to talk confidence up and encourage the kind of investment that will enable growth.

But even the most optimistic among us would have to call it a fragile start. Bridgestone employees might find it cold comfort as they spend Labour Weekend wondering about their future. While the economy measured by GDP show signs of growth, unemployment sadly shows the same signs with anticipation of many thousands of jobs yet to go before a turn around in the job market begins.

Rod Oram, one of our Lay Canons and a business and economic commentator, reports that New Zealand is the 3rd most indebted nation in the developed world, coming behind Iceland and Hungary. Our banks are unlikely to go bust as so many have done in America, but Rod expects they have some big hits to face especially in housing and dairy with debts that will need to be written off.

I am not raising these issues to talk things down and raise the gloom levels. Nor am I about to outline my own economic plan for recovery or suggest that there is one of our political parties that has got the right plan. That’s for you to determine. But I do want to continue to think about the church’s mission in a time of recession. How do times of hardship speak to us as Christian people? How do we speak back?

This account from Mark’s gospel of the healing of blind Bartimaeus has some things to say to us about that. There is actually a lot going on here in the way that Mark places this incident in his narrative. Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, the place which has become his focus since the moment a couple of chapters ago when Peter on behalf of the disciples made the declaration that Jesus is the Messiah. From that time on Jesus‘ journey is towards this city of his destiny in death and resurrection, and his concern for his disciples is that they will understand this.

But they do not. They are convinced of coming triumph and no matter how many times Jesus explains it to them they do not see it. Their failure to see is contrasted with two blind people that Jesus heals – one at Bethsaida right at the start of that whole section, and then at the end of it as they approach Jerusalem, with Bartimaeus.

In between time the disciples argue about greatness, they lack the power to cast out a demon, they seek places of importance in the kingdom. All of these things demonstrate their failure to see what the mission of Jesus is really about and how it is to be worked out. So we might want to first ask the question: do we understand that the church has a mission in relation to times of recession? The answer is perhaps not as obvious at it may sound, for like the disciples, when there are tough times to face, we can easily become concerned with our own affairs, our own power, our own security, and not hear the call of Christ to follow him to places where people suffer and where we may even suffer ourselves. We may not see what it is that Jesus calls us to.

The second thing to consider is whether we will hear the voices of those who cry for compassion to be shown to them. As Jesus and the disciples passed through Jericho, Bartimaeus was crying out, but everyone was trying to prevent him from being heard. Perhaps they recognised Jesus’ procession as being a sacred moment, not to be disturbed by a blind beggar. Perhaps they perceived Jesus to be too important to be so distracted as he gets close to the holy city and what they anticipate as an approaching triumph. Whatever the case they try not to hear the cries of someone in desperate need.

The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services has published its September vulnerability report, identifying the people and areas of greatest need. It notes the financial pressure on people, the trebling of those on the unemployment benefit in the year to June, the increased demand in services from welfare agencies such as the City Mission, the growing unaffordability of housing. The report notes the emerging new vulnerable sector of high and middle income families trying to service mortgages on dramatically reduced incomes, many of whom are ineligible for Work and Income support. There are also growing numbers of older people approaching food banks for the first time - mortified at having to seek assistance. These are the contemporary voices of Bartimaeus, crying out for compassion. Who will hear them?

Well, Jesus heard Bartimaeus and would not be protected from him or diverted from him. He stopped and he showed Bartimaeus the compassion which he sought. He allowed him to see. We should certainly see it as an expression of the nature of God as loving compassion and in that sense an example to God’s people. But consider what Bartimaeus’ economic situation must have been. If you could not work in that society, you were totally dependent on what others provided for you, or you starved. Hence Bartimaeus’ position as a beggar. Did he have a family to support? We don’t know. But whatever the case, Jesus’ healing of him not only restores him physically, it also liberates him economically and gives him a chance to participate more fully in the wealth of his community.

All sorts of people at present find themselves struggling to do that in our communities, and like blind Bartimaeus, for many it is due to reasons beyond their control. Where might the church’s mission be in seeking to bring some liberation to those situations? No, we cannot solve all that ourselves. But perhaps our influence on social policy will go some way towards doing so. Perhaps the use of our own resources as an organisation might go someway towards doing so, as we participate in projects that give people a chance to regain an economic foothold. Perhaps the actions of each one of us towards a struggling person who cries out for compassion might go someway towards doing so.

Jesus not only sets the example through his own life, but his abiding presence in our midst continues to call us away from our own concerns as a church, the things that capture us as they captured the disciples, and to look and listen beyond ourselves to see the ways in which we can respond. Jesus continues to call us on a Way that engages with suffering and with struggle. That’s the call to be on the road with him to Jerusalem. We cannot simply abrogate the responsibility for these things to politicians and economists. The task belongs to the whole community. We can build a just and compassionate society together as we each use what we have responsibly for the good of all, and especially for those whose cries are very real.