As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”
So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.”
Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.”
Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
- Mark 10:46-52
"Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly."
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet
You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die
+++
These lyrics were penned in 1911,
over one hundred years ago, and
just one year before this church
(Gethsemane in Cicero)
was founded.
They were written to the tune of an old Christian song
by a now
quite famous
American (Lutheran)
songwriter and activist
known to most by the name of Joe Hill.
+++
Having grown up in Sweden,
Joe left home in October
(around this time)
in the year 1902
in hopes that the United States
might have some opportunity to offer him and his brother who migrated with him.
When he arrived, however,
Joe found that the life of an immigrant-laborer
(even in this land of ‘promise’)
was not the dream it was hyped up to be.
Workers, he found,
had very few rights.
And they received even less pay.
Further, there was no guarantee
that one would have work next week,
let alone
tomorrow.
And so,
Joe,
like so many of the over 12 million people who migrated to the US
(and to places such as Chicago and Cicero)
from the 1870s into the 1920s,
found himself moving around the country,
from town to town and place to place.
Starting in New York
and spending some time in Cleveland,
he eventually made his way to California,
searching in every town along the way
for work--and for fiscally rewarding labor.
+++
Beyond Joe’s personal
and geographical journey
for a better life,
Joe also became convinced
that if he couldn’t find those just conditions he was looking for,
(a safe and rewarding place in which to work and to live),
well… then he’d have to help to create them.
As a result, Joe joined an up-and-coming union
that was largely made of people like him:
new migrants and poor workers
in search of a better life--
people who arrived in this land
and found, when they did,
that the dream they were promised
was turning out to be something of a nightmare.
At least for them.
And, so, it followed, this union was made up of people
who wanted something more,
who clung with stubbornness and hope and determination
to their dreams for a better life
for themselves
for their communities
and for their families.
It was not long before Joe moved beyond simple membership
and became an all-in leader and organizer in the organization,
both
in hopes of furthering the cause
and
in hopes of uniting these workers who,
beyond mistreatment,
underpayment,
and abuse,
were often (also) divided
due to their differences in language, race, and culture,
and pitted against each other by bosses and politicians and those in power,
being taught to view one another as enemies
or even as each other’s “competition”
rather than as potential allies in the struggle for a better life.
+++
From the outside, these “huddled masses”
were described by onlookers using biblical imagery.
They appeared to those who observed them “moving in”
as the incoherent and chaotic world of Genesis 11
after the fall of the Tower of Babel and the separating of tongues.
“Perhaps these folks could create something beautiful together,”
it was said by reporters at the time,
“but they seem to have no ability to unite,
and no ability even to communicate.
They frequent different churches and different schools,
and they seem even to detest one another’s foods.”
+++
If this was so,
if the world of exploited laborers
was something of a post-Babel dystopia,
Joe Hill,
this young,
often homeless worker-turned-union organizer,
could only be described (in contrast)
as bringing something of a Pentecost.
You see,
when the workers would unite and march
in places like Chicago and Spokane,
Philadelphia and California,
Nevada and New Mexico,
Poles and Swedes, African Americans and Mexicans,
Irish and Lithuanians,
Chinese, Indians, and Japanese Americans,
as well as Czechs and Italians and Germans (and more)…
[when the workers would come together],
the initial gathering would be,
to any of us,
(except maybe Gene, because he knows all of those languages)
what was described:
chaotic and cacophonous and pretty unintelligible.
Like that scrambled background noise that they play in the background of diner scenes in the sitcoms.
You might as well be listening to a vacuum cleaner.
And to add to the whirlwind,
in places such as Chicago and New York,
in places like this,
the Salvation Army
(at the urging and sometimes fiscal sponsorship of factory owners and other bosses)
were actively organizing themselves
against the unions, and against people like Joe Hill and his friends.
How so?
Well, when the workers in a town convened in one place to do their thing: to speak up and to demand better wages, better working conditions, and better rights (or rights at all),
the Salvation Army Band would often turn out, too.
And when they did,
the Salvation Army Band
would literally attempt to play
so enthusiastically
and so loudly
and to blow on their horns so hard
and bang their drums with such strength
that they would drown out the voices of the workers,
whatever languages they were protesting in.
Said again: the Salvation Army would literally play Christian songs (Church songs! Faith songs! Jesus songs! Songs about heaven!)
with as much gusto as they could muster
in an attempt to cover up the voices and the dreams
of the exploited and the oppressed.
They played loud songs about heaven when faced with dreams for a better life here and now.
+++
Said one more time:
People who believed themselves to be Christian disciples
sought to hush the cries of the exploited.
To shut them up. And to shut them out.
And Yet, these workers would not be silenced.
In fact, what was meant to divide them,
these protestors re-purposed and recrafted as a tool to unite.
Quite famously,
Joe Hill, himself,
would take the melodies of the Salvation Army songs.
He’d then create new lyrics to go with the melodies.
One example is the one I read at the start of this sermon today.
In that one
Joe Hill, using the melody of the song
“In the Sweet By and By,”
wrote lyrics that
both
poked fun at the Salvation Army
(who the workers referred to at the Starvation Army)
and
warned that if a church used the idea of heaven
as an excuse to not feed the hungry now,
then
they were probably not actually Christians.
And if they used their voice to silence others,
then these “Christians” certainly knew nothing of the Jesus of the Gospels.
+++
Although the workers did not all speak the same language at the time,
they nonetheless learned to sing with one voice.
These melodies
that were used for evil against them:
to suppress and to silence them,
they took for themselves and used for good.
They became a tool for the amplification of their voices
and the uplifting of their spirits
on their path to a better life.
+++
+++
This phenomenon, of well-meaning disciples
who do just the opposite of what Jesus would want,
is not new to the church.
In fact, it’s here in full effect already in the bible
and in the first century, as we see it recorded in the gospels.
In Mark 15, (for example) it is the disciples who first seek to silence the Canaanite woman
even as she presents herself on the street,
even as she desperately demands
her daughter’s healing and health.
Even as they can see that she’s in pain.
Three times in the gospels, the disciples’ first instinct
when children arrive
(the children being arguably the most vulnerable group of people in the society of Jesus’ day)
was to send them away!
Jesus (according to the judgment they made)
should not be bothered with the youth.
And, of course, today:
Bartimaeus cries out in the streets.
And, yet again, the ever-faithful disciples respond
(perhaps not surprisingly)
with hushing and shushing.
Seeking silence rather than salvation.
“They sternly ordered Bartimaeus to be quiet,” says the text.
That is: they told Bartimaeus to shut up.
+++
However, the time of silencing was over:
“They ordered him to be quiet,” says the text. But when they did, “he cried out even more loudly.”
He cried out,
knowing
that any real savior
(and any religious movement)
worth its salt,
is bound to hear the cries of the oppressed,
and of the orphan,
and of the stranger,
and of the widow (as the scriptures would have it).
And of the worker
and of the migrant who is mistreated.
He cried out knowing that any savior worth their word,
upon hearing these cries,
must respond with compassion and love.
+++
Despite the attempts of those Jesus loved
to drown out Bartimeus’s cries,
Jesus responds.
He heals him.
And he restores him.
And he grants him a new life.
And it is good.
+++
I don’t know what the Salvation Army band members from 1911 would say if they were here today.
Perhaps some of them were our relatives. Who knows?
And I also don’t know what the disciples would say if they were here in our presence.
Did the band finally realize they were on the wrong side of history? Or, at the end of the day, did they perceive themselves as, “just doing their job?”
Did the disciples look back and realize that they were working against Jesus’ saving mission when they tried to keep people away from the savior? Or were they still convinced, when they recalled this story around the table, that Jesus’ really needed better boundaries, and that they were in the right and actually helping all along?
I don’t know.
+++
But I do know that it’s probably worth us asking as the church:
Who have we silenced? Intentionally or unintentionally?
Who have we played over
in the streets
and even in our midst?
And who is God calling us to accompany and to amplify?
Who is God calling us to join in voice and in song?
+++
AMEN.
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