The Thing About Crowds

Sermon for Sunday, October 25

Luke 18:35-43

There’s something about a crowd that gets your attention. One thing we do, in coming to church on Sunday morning, we witness to our shared desire to be near Jesus. One of the things that got us out of bed this morning, into our clothes and our cars, is the hope that we might get close to Jesus here. There’s a witness in our gathering. There is a witness in our coming together.

7 months ago, we had to stop meeting for a couple of weeks. We were just learning what it meant to live in a global pandemic, and out of love for our neighbors, we decided to find a new way to worship. Two weeks later, we started our drive-in services. For about two months, from Palm Sunday to Pentecost, we met completely  in the parking lot, listening to the sermon and a song over the radio. Other churches have met online or outside. Christians all over the world have discovered that finding new ways to worship are worth it, because we want to be near Jesus in some way. We are willing to do whatever it takes to come together around Jesus. The world watched us come together in our parking lot. They saw that coming to church was important enough to us that we didn’t take an easy excuse to stay home. With all the churches online, it was estimated that more people heard the gospel on Easter Sunday than any Easter ever before. Our coming together in all circumstances is a witness to a watching world.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus was walking across Galilee and Samaria, heading for Jerusalem. People wanted to be near him then too. In the gospel passage this morning, Jesus is less than 20 miles from Jerusalem. He’s going into Jericho, and he’s got people all around him. The crowd around Jesus attracts the attention of a blind man, begging on the side of the road.

Blindness was and is common in the Middle East. One of the biggest challenges of blindness in the ancient world was that people without sight were considered totally dependent. Often, in a world that couldn’t accommodate disability, people with disabilities had to beg for a living. So it was normal and expected for this man to be begging by the side of the road. He must have gotten excited by the crowd gathering. Maybe someone rich was coming into town. Even if he could just beg a few coins off a few people, it might mean the difference between being hungry and filling his belly for a few nights this week.

So he asks, what’s going on? Why is this crowd coming in? And somebody tells him, “Jesus of Nazareth is coming through.” That’s what gets him excited. Instead of working the crowd, he decides to cry out for the guy at the center of everything. The crowd in this story does two wonderful things. They draw the blind man’s attention to Jesus, and they tell him who Jesus is. This is what we are supposed to do! We are supposed to provoke people’s attention and proclaim Jesus to them. We are supposed to attract and explain.

Church used to be like that. When folks found out where the Christians were, they would show up. Do y’all remember? Occasionally it still happens. Once in a while people come to us with their needs. But often-times we see that as a bad thing. As “those in front” we sternly order them to be quiet. Why does the crowd around Jesus try to silence the blind man who is crying out to Jesus? He’s not following their rules. They don’t think they can handle his needs. He’s not important enough to cause such a fuss. So in addition to provoking his attention and proclaiming Jesus, they also try to prevent this man from getting to the Lord he so desperately needs.

Do we ever do that? You bet we do. I was recently talking to a black woman who visited another church in the area and the pastor (who isn’t there anymore) said from the pulpit, “black people have their own churches, I’d encourage you to try there.” I trust none of us would say or do that. But we do it with expressive people, with people who dress differently than is our norm, with folks who have needs that we’ve never met before. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable at a different church?”

So I encourage us, before we complain about our loss of privilege and prestige in the world, to reflect on how we have created the problem. Have we been guilty of driving people away from Jesus? Have we tried to silence their cries? Because we can’t help everyone, have we sometimes failed to help anyone? And in fact, it turns out that this man isn’t even asking for Jesus’s money. Jesus asks him, “what is it you want?” And he says, “Lord, let me see again.”

Thus the blind man says two things: first, Jesus is Lord! This is a confession that we all need to make. Jesus is the master. Jesus is the King. Jesus is the only hope we have of building the Kingdom. Second, the man is saying that he believes that Jesus has the power to heal his eyes. And Jesus says, again, “your faith has saved you.”

Those at the front had tried to prevent him from coming to Jesus. I think it’s because they made some faulty assumptions. These are assumptions we make all the time. They assumed that this blind man was coming to Jesus for money, but what he wanted was a miracle. They assumed this man wasn’t important, but to Jesus he was. When we make these assumptions, we miss out on miracles. We miss the miracle of relationship. We turn people into projects.

There’s a story about a pastor who decided he wanted to reach the local drunk. This man had squandered everything he had on booze. The pastor wanted the man to come to church, but the drunk didn’t have good enough clothes to come. So the pastor asked the deacons to chip in and buy him nicer clothes. The pastor went to the drunk’s house and gave him a brand new three-piece suit, tailored exactly to his measurements. The pastor said, “now I hope you’ll wear this to church on Sunday.” And the man assured him that he would. Sunday came and the pastor watched the vestibule door as the congregation was gathering, but the drunk never showed up. Frustrated, the pastor went home and ate his Sunday lunch. Monday morning he went back to the man’s house and asked him why he didn’t go to church after all, assuming he’d gotten too drunk on Saturday night. “I did go to church, preacher.” “You did? I didn’t see you...” “Oh, the suit you got me was too nice for your church, so I went to the Presbyterian church down the road. It was very nice!”

People don’t need our rules and our money and our stuff. First and foremost they need our Jesus and the relationships he calls us too. Are we bringing people to Jesus? Or are we sternly ordering them to be silent? When we bring people to Jesus, all sorts of remarkable things happen. The blind receive their sight, the outcast finds community, we feed the hungry, we clothe the naked, we accept the unwelcome. And when we see that, we the crowd, who have provoked their attention, and proclaimed this Jesus, instead of preventing them from getting to him, walk away praising God. Who is God calling us to relationship with today? Are we inviting them in or driving them away? Can we put a sign out front that says, “you are welcome here”? Will we trust that Jesus, not us, can meet any need that comes along?