Hush! (A brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

My first 40-hour a week job was at the Citizens Bank & Trust Company in my hometown of Paducah, Kentucky. The bank was, at ten stories, the tallest building in town; it was located at 4th and Broadway, just four blocks from the riverfront and right in the heart of downtown. How I came to have that job can wait until another time. It is its own story. Like most office jobs in those days, I wore a coat and tie each time I reported to work. If you would like some help picturing this, Google "Images" for the 1960's or maybe watch an episode of "Mad Men" (before you finish exploring, make sure you check out telephones).

My first position was in the Bookkeeping Department. Mostly we filed checks (actual pieces of paper signed by the account owner and already used to pay for something) and answered customer inquiries over the telephone. Actually a pretty nice job. But the timing was, well, interesting. CB&T had just converted from sending customer account statement at month end, only, to a "continuous" approach (which meant a pro rata portion of account statements were mailed out each working day of the month). The short of it is that our customers were VERY confused for a couple months . . . and the phones rang "off the hook." There was just one hitch: we had one more phone in Bookkeeping than there were Bookkeepers to answer them.

So, yes, we were sometimes faced with the dilemma of the extra phone ringing when everyone was already fielding a customer call. And on those occasions, one of the Bookkeepers, a nice woman named Dorcas, would place her hand over the "mouthpiece" of the telephone "handset" she was holding (so the customer would not hear) and call out "Hush!"

The ringing telephone would stop ringing. Every time.

We were all in awe of Dorcas. She was the only person I ever met who could, successfully, tell a telephone to be quiet.

In this week's Lectionary selections there is an interesting story about a blind man who would NOT be hushed. In the Mark 10 passage we find Jesus on his way out of Jericho when he hears someone calling his name. Picture it: Jesus and his entourage have finished up a round of spreading the good news. Their group probably includes several important locals, pressing for just a few more comments, asking some last minute questions, seeking one last audience with the man who, they thought, might become their king.

And here's the blind beggar, someone almost certainly to be overlooked in such a situation. The crowd is big enough, and noisy enough, that Bartimaeus has to shout in hopes of getting Jesus' attention. And what does he get for his efforts? "Many sternly ordered him to be quiet."

Not to be deterred, he calls out to Jesus even more loudly!

I doubt you will be surprised to learn that Jesus ignored those who were trying to prevent the blind man from "bothering" him. Instead, Jesus not only invited the man to approach, but when the man said his desire was to have his sight restored, Jesus granted that request.

So, if you find there are people telling you, for any reason, that you can't talk to God; if there are voices sternly ordering you to be quiet when you need to have a conversation with God, whether those voices are surrounding you or are inside your own head: shout them down!

If you want to talk to God, then talk to God. Don't let anyone hush you up.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

Proper 25 (30) (October 28, 2012)
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22)
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52

Join us if you can on Friday morning. As is our practice, we will be at Cafe Cappuccino (downtown Waco, on 6th near the Courthouse) at 8:00 to discuss this week's scripture passages and to scarf down some great food.

None of us is very good at being hushed up, so the discussion is pretty lively :-)

Enjoy the week!

Steve

Blink

"Blink" (a brief Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

I found myself chuckling while reading John Chapter 9, one of this week's Lectionary passages.

Now, if you did what I think you did, you jumped out and read the passage ... and are no doubt wondering if I have lost my mind. How could it be, you might be pondering, that I would think a story about a blind man is humorous? What could possibly be funny about a man who was born blind? A story about a man who, now an adult, has spent his entire life in actual darkness; how is that funny? What's so humorous about a man who was ostracized all of those years because it was commonly believed people with disabilities had brought the situation upon themselves? You're right. There is nothing funny about any of that.

What IS funny to me is how everyone ELSE acts after Jesus restores the man's sight (Jesus rubs mud in his eyes and sends him off to wash in Siloam's fountain). And the reason I find it funny is this: Several decades ago, I married into a family that includes several people with visual challenges. Over the years they have been gracious enough to teach me this key lesson: blind people are just like everyone else; they just also have a visual challenge to deal with. I know blind people who would, upon reading this story in John Chapter 9, be chuckling and shaking their heads; identifying with their fellow "blink". They would readily recognize the words and actions of the sighted people in this story as similar treatment to which they have been subjected.

When blind people socialize, it is common to share stories about the stupid things sighted people do and say upon encountering people who are visually challenged. For example: asking if the blind person knows sign language. The only reason a blind person would need to know sign language is if they were also deaf (like Helen Keller). Among the more vexing is a person who acts as if the blind person cannot speak for himself, and/or, similarly, referencing them in the third person as if they were not actually present.

I was lucky to be present on some occasions when Uncle JQ (a wonderful man who was both blind and a hilarious raconteur) told this tale of a cross-country airplane trip. The stewardess (they weren't called "flight attendant" until later) came by to take orders for alcoholic beverages. JQ was in the center seat. After taking orders of the two men seated to either side of him, she asked the man sitting on JQ's left, someone JQ did not know and had never even spoken with, if JQ would like some juice. To which JQ replied (and he would already be cackling with joy at this point as he related the tale to us), "No, I would NOT like a juice. *I* would like a scotch on the rocks!"

Something like that is happening in verses 8-33. The people are talking about the formerly blind man as if he is not present. They are debating whether THIS man is the same man who used to sit out here and beg. Back and forth, back and forth. And the entire time, the man keeps saying, "I am the man!" But no one is listening.

After the local folk finally decide to hear him, they switch to interrogating him about the process of his miracle. Isn't that just like people? Standing before them is a miracle; and instead of rejoicing that the man's sight has been restored, they want to pick the thing to pieces. Finally, after squeezing all the details out of him, they ask him to point them to where Jesus is. In other words, "If you're so special that someone restored your sight, point him out!" The scripture records the man replying, "I don't know." But you can bet he was thinking something like, "Hello-o! Blind guy! How could I tell you where he is? *I* didn't see him!"

Later, when the Pharisees are grilling him about the miracle (and not believing what they are hearing), they turn to his parents(!) for confirmation, as if he were a child. Imagine being these parents and having to say, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age.(!) He will speak for himself."

The final chuckle, which has everything to do with lack of vision and nothing to do with lack of sight, comes when the former blind man says, astonished, "You (the religious leaders of Israel) do not know where he (Jesus) comes from, and yet he opened my eyes!" Blind people have learned through experience that sighted people will often say and do some pretty asinine things to and around blind people. They've also learned that, sometimes, you just gotta laugh about it.

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This week's passages are all about vision, light and dark, seeing correctly. I especially liked Ist Samuel 6:7 and Ephesians 5:8-10.

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fourth Sunday in Lent (April 3, 2011)
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41