Sermon Tone Analysis

For and Against

A few weeks back Yale publicly launched an ambitious, five-year capital campaign to raise $7 billion to help future generations of university faculty, students, and staff tackle the greatest challenges facing humankind.

The campaign is the largest and most comprehensive in Yale’s history.

It aims to bolster the university’s unique resources to improve the world, strengthen the bonds among members of the Yale community, and bolster Yale’s foundation for the future.

The campaign states, “Improving the human condition requires human intellect and emotion.”

I agree.

Yale has titled its capital campaign “For Humanity”.

The campaign acknowledges that much time can be spent highlighting what a person or group is against, so that Yale wants to make a stake about what it is for.

Yale is declaring, “We are for humanity.”

And I will say, as a member of humanity, to have Yale for me and us can help.

I’ll take it.

Also I am reminded of the words the Apostle Paul spoke nearly 2k years ago when he posed the (rhetorical) question:

There is something about God being “for me” (even when others are against me) that makes all of the difference for my life.

(There are times when God has been for me and I wasn’t for myself.

I have come to appreciate His grace and His mercy toward me.)

(Though) I have lived long enough, and known people, and heard voices of a diversity of people to know there are questions that come up.

Two questions come to mind:

People ask

“Is God for me?”

“Are you for me?”

Blind Bartimaeus is Healed

For and Against: choosing your spiritual legacy

(Let’s pray)

Our lives are interconnected.

To varying degrees, we impact and influence one another’s life and person.

With varying levels of significance, who I am and how I show up have consequences for the people and things around me.

With varying levels of significance, who you are and how you show up have consequences for the people and things around you.

The internet and Social media teach us how interconnected a campus or the world can be when and if we choose to engage.

If this COVID pandemic taught us nothing else, I suggest it taught us that we are indeed interconnected—locally, in our home, neighborhood, community; in our state; in our various countries; say, across the globe—and this interconnection is multidimensional—personal health, public health, and global health; economically; socially; politically; mentally; emotionally.

Our interconnection doesn’t end with people.

It includes nature and the environment at-large.

In the first months of the pandemic, I remember noticing and hearing speak about how the decrease in vehicle traffic, deceased sound (or noise), and nature could be heard louder and clearer.

Regions spoke about how smog dissipated, pollution leaving the air.

Not only did the air clear; many attested to the clarity of thought/thinking they now experienced because they were made to, essentially, sit still…fog of the mind dissipated.

Our interconnection doesn’t end with people and the environment.

There is a long standing relationship between people and God, between people and Jesus, between the natural and spiritual (light and darkness).

(There is a long standing relationship between people and God, between people and Jesus, between the natural and spiritual (light and darkness)).

In our opening text, we read about such interconnection.

A couple of things I recognize from the get go:

Numerous relationships (interpersonal connections) are at play, (near) simultaneously.

Q: what potential relationships do you see?

Jesus - God the Father

Jesus - Disciples

Jesus - Crowd?

Disciples - Crowd

Blind man - Road

Blind man - Crowd

Blind man - Disciples

Blind man - Jesus

Blind man - God

Crowd - Road

Sight - Blindness

Wealth - Poverty?

Jericho - ?

Unnamed dialogue…that reveals reputations and value systems.

Power dynamic

Wealth dynamic.

Socioeconomic

Privilege.

Challenges with access.

Each person in our text has multiple connections and with that, perhaps, multiple ways in which the person identifies (ie roles).

Stepping out of the text, for example, my connections are:

with my wife as her husband;

with my daughter as her father;

with my community as a neighbor;

with my colleagues as their co-worker.

I have these connections, and then I have my perception and understanding of these relationships/connections. ie

how I see myself as a husband;

how I see myself as a father; what is my understanding of myself as “father”;

how I see and understand myself as a neighbor;

what I know and see for myself as a co-worker.

You, similarly, have various connections and ways that you see and understand and navigate those relationships.

eg

a friend

a peer student to others in school

a student to your professors

a New Haven resident

a child to your parents

perhaps as a sibling

perhaps as a romantic significant other

Jesus, in our text, has several connections/relationships, and the connections are simultaneously active—with His disciples, the crowd who followed Him, Bartimaeus, God the Father.

Each person connected with Jesus potentially has a different understanding and knowledge of who is Jesus— knowledge and understanding drawn from different life experiences with Jesus; different hearsay or gossip or “legend” that circulates about Jesus; different when considering the historic and prophetic context…the immediate social, political, geographic, cultural context (happening in the moment).

Jesus can be simultaneously be serval things to many different people.

There are interconnected thoughts but no consensus.

Yet, if there is one idea that is gathering momentum, it is that Jesus is “a life changer.”

Jesus teaches with authority, preaches the Kingdom of God, and heals miraculously.

People take notice and are captivated.

Hence, Jesus’ disciples are with Him, crowds/multitudes follow Him, and blind Bartimaeus cries out to Him.

Q: now how did blind Bartimaeus know it was Jesus nearby?

Luke shares with us that Bartimaeus heard a multitude passing by and asked what it meant and was told Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.

(Luke 18:35-38)

Bartimaeus was blind but always looking for opportunity.

People communicated to Bartimaeus that the crowd that was passing by was because “Jesus of Nazareth” was passing by.

In using “Nazareth” to identify Jesus the people attached Jesus to His home town, which was not a spectacular town.

(A future disciple would even comment/ask, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”)

In naming Nazareth, perhaps people were referring/speaking to the strangeness of the person Jesus—that someone Who did quite spectacular things would come from a quite unspectacular place.

Bartimaeus saw his proximity to Jesus as his big moment.

Now, Bartimaeus, because he sat by the road begging, regularly takes advantage of many opportunities.

But this opportunity Bartimaeus saw differently.

The people said to Bartimaeus that it was “Jesus of Nazareth.”