Antidote to the “Girls Gone Wild” Effect
Mark 10: 46-52 The Story of Blind Bartimeaus
This morning I want to tell you the story from the Bible rather than read it to you. But before I tell you the story of Blind Bartimeaus which is found in Mark’s gospel…a little background to help you better understand it. In the time in which Jesus lived it was known that cleanliness and illness were related. It was common knowledge then, as it is now, that one had a better chance of not getting sick if hands and eating utensils were kept clean. But, in that time, they also had a similar understanding about disabilities. Not knowing what we know today, they believed you could also catch blindness or lameness in the same way that you could catch a cold. So distance was kept between those who were well and those who were blind. To support themselves those who blind were permitted to beg alongside the road if they did so quietly and wore a beggars cloak which had a hood which also covered most of their face so that those who passed by and those who offered a few coins could do so without looking into “blind eyes” and maybe catching the blindness or becoming contagious and infecting one’s children. So, with that background, here is the story. Tell the story of Blind Bartimeaus – Mark 10: 46-52 While the story can push our thinking in a number of different directions what I want to focus on is the name. Bartimeaus. All of you…or at least most of you…know a little Hebrew. The word “bar.” As in Bar Mitzvah. Bar means “son of” Do you get it? No one in that community knew the name of that blind beggar. He was only known as Bar Timeaus…the “son of Timeaus” Not only was he faceless, he was nameless… Even in the community where he had probably lived his entire life. And, now the sermon… The headline on the cover of Newsweek this past week provided just the sermon title I was looking for. The Girls Gone Wild Effect. The cover, along with the lead article, focused on the impact that Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan and other young, wealthy celebrities are having on teenage girls and the concern that is raising for parents. While very real, we also know that our concern limited just to girls. Any of us who take parenting or grand-parenting seriously worry about our children and our grandchildren.
1
In the face of all that we know is “out there”, we worry about… How to protect them…. How to teach them… How to help them learn to make good decisions. And, how to nurture values in them…values that counter-balance the public perception…the Girls Gone Wild effect…that tells us and tells them that it is all about ME. There are no easy answers and parenting is always hard work. And, my professional bias is that raising healthy, thoughtful, spiritually aware children requires more than just good parenting. At, least it did in my family. I believe it requires all of the strong, healthy, thoughtful, spiritually aware adults that we can place around our children, and experiences that expand our children’s world beyond the world of ME…ME…ME. And, that is where Newsweek’s headline and the Bible and the work of this congregation intersect. I began to understand this… And to find words to describe it… A number of years ago as I was getting ready to lead a Midnight Run. And somehow in getting ready for that Midnight Run, I remembered or reread the story of Blind Bartimeaus and suddenly realized just how true that story was. For years I had gone on Midnight Runs. I had handed out sandwiches to those who were hungry, offered cups of coffee to those who were cold, scrounged through bins of clothes to find just the right shirt AND not paid that much attention to the names of those I was there to help. Humanity pressed around me all wanting a pair of jeans, but not human beings. I was protected by the anonymity. But now, caught off guard by the Bible, I decide that on future Midnight Runs I would introduce myself and ask their names. The names of the men and women, the sons and the daughters who I had previously passed by and overlooked. And what is true of Midnight Runs is true of so much else that we do. It is true of those for whom we will provide emergency shelter in our Fellowship Hall in a couple of weeks. It is true of the families with whom we will work in Nicaragua next week. It is true of the families for whom we help to build homes when we work with Habitat for Humanity or Buchanan Neighbors United. There is Bruce and Peter and Lynda and Bubby and Jose and Enrique and Victor and Guadalupe. You get the idea. So where does all this connect with Newsweek and the Girls Gone Wild Effect? Here. I am not the only one who has learned the lesson of Blind Bartimeaus. Sarah Burpee and Phil Reville who spoke last week learned the lesson, as well. The middle school students who helped at the food pantry this past week learned the lesson. Those who will go to Nicaragua this next week will learn the lesson. And on and on and on and on.
2
When the world out there has a name… The person in a different group from yours at school; The check out person at the grocery store; Someone who is a member of the immigrant community; A family in a developing country; Someone who sleeps in a cardboard box on the steps of a church across the street from the Trump Tower; When the world out there has a name… And you know them, even just a bit… It is harder to pretend that the world in just about ME. And the moment we quit pretending, we move just a bit closer towards that which God desires for us and for all.
Paul Alcorn
Bedford Presbyterian Church
Bedford, NY
February 11, 2007
3