Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 29, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
A great moment for Bartimaeus
I can get busy quick. Back from a trip, stuff to put away, grandkids to hang out with, stories to share with Margaret, church activities, and then there are the little business details that become big if I don’t get to them when they’re small. Buried in all that unopened mail, a month’s worth.
The most interesting of these is in a letter from our insurance company. An old fat term insurance policy expires next month. For the last twenty years it has cost $86.55 per month. Next month the auto withdrawal will increase to $2,061.14 monthly. And that’s just for the next year.
I made sure to cancel the withdrawal for next month.
Yes! A little thing that didn’t turn big!
Our lease is also ready to renew, with no increase for the next year. Will we stay? We aren’t quite sure. Mile and Jasper came for a sleepover Friday night. We all had a fine time. This apartment is near our church and near our family. But there might be a newer, cleaner version of this apartment somewhere out there nearby.
I think we will stay in Austin. Especially if we can leave for part of the summer. That didn’t happen this year, and those fifty-five 100+ degree days took their toll. On us and everyone around us. Urbana welcomes us “home” in the summertime.
If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset, for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in?
Every week we receive an update email from Rick Williams, a friend from church in Mahomet who works with C-U at Home. Their homeless shelter and other activities received $500 and $650 donations from two student groups last week, from the Penny Dreadful players and University High School.
Every February for a decade or more these folks have sponsored One Winter Night, when some of the rest of us put together cardboard shelters and spend the night outside, after soliciting donations from friends and family and co-workers to give to C-U at Home. Why not?
It’s great to have an option to say yes, or no, to that experience. Unlike Bartimaeus in Jericho, blind, but with at least a settled place to sit while begging. Then Jesus comes walking by. He cries out to Jesus, who doesn’t hear him at first, then calls for him to come. Bartimaeus drops his cloak and runs (blindly) through the crowd.
What if he can’t find that cloak when he returns? What if someone steals it?
What else has he to sleep in?
Well. Jesus took care of that. With one of his famously wise questions Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” And Bartimaeus asked for the WORLD.
RABBI, I WANT TO SEE!
He lost his spot to sit while begging, but I’ll bet he kept his cloak. The folks watching Jesus and Bartimaeus couldn’t help but thrust it back to him, and Bartimaeus, seeing its color for the first time, pulled it to his face and wept.
I love you, I love you, I love you, O Lord my strength! O Lord, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my shield and horn of salvation, my stronghold. Praised be the Lord. And now I am safe from my enemies.
(Exodus 22, Psalm 18, 1 Thessalonians 1, John 14, Matthew 22)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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