What God Gives is Enough: 24 October, 2021
The lessons for the day include a resounding note of humility. Alongside the biblical witness, great literature has attested to the persistent temptation of humans to arrogance. Haughty pride tempts us humans as no other sin tempts. Story after story highlights the many painful results of human arrogance and the humbling that makes life so much more rightly proportioned and postured. . . . The high priests of Hebrews and the disciples in the gospel of Mark wrestle mightily with human arrogance and discover God’s humbling ways. The humility God gives is to welcome what is given as enough; the humility of God is to be glad to be a human with all our limits and finiteness. –– H. Gregory Waldrop
Mark 10:46–52
Blind Bartimaeus humbly, persistently approaches Jesus, calling out for mercy. Bartimaeus overcomes the arrogance of the disciples who thought they knew best. Then Bartimaeus threw off his cloak—his primary tool for begging revenue—in sure and certain hope that Jesus could heal his sight. In the persistent calling out and the throwing off of the cloak, Bartimaeus finds his healing. In the middle of his limited abilities, Bartimaeus finds just what is needed for healing.
In the Indiana Jones movie, which traces his father’s and his own quest for the Holy Grail, Jones is faced with an impossible moment. He looks across a wide chasm to the cave wherein lies the Holy Grail and its holy drink that will heal his dying father. The clue he has been given encourages him to step out on faith. When he makes a giant step into the chasm he realizes that a small bridge has been across the chasm all along but was hidden by a mysterious camouflage, revealed only as Jones stepped out onto the bridge itself.
Being humbly human means to live by stepping out in faith so as to discover the hidden life God has so carefully prepared. John Wesley often counseled his followers who were dissatisfied with quietist and enthusiast strategies to count on discovering God in the middle of one’s faithfulness, in the middle of the many means of grace God provides graciously. The great Scottish theologian N. H. G. Robinson often lectured, “Salvation is no less a gift if we open our arms / lives wide to receive it.” God’s great, gracious gift requires our humble faithfulness through which our lives welcome Jesus and his ways ever deeper into our hearts. –– H. Gregory Waldrop
Hebrews 7:23–28
Priests and high priests serve in Hebrews as symbols for God’s great work of reconciliation and connectedness. Jesus does what is given him to do masterfully. Jesus’ faithfulness to the tasks given him brought about salvation. Jesus serves as a strong example of the humility that does not overreach or undervalue. Jesus hit the mark fully—human and divine— thus his sacrificial work accomplishes everything. –– H. Gregory Waldrop
Jeremiah 31:7–9
Jeremiah describes the returnees as a mixed group consisting of the lame and the blind as well as those with child and those pregnant who were waiting to give birth. In essence the returnees would be those who carry the witness of exile in their bodies as witnesses of the punishment they underwent. –– Ricky A. Woods
H. Gregory Waldrop was baptized in Mayfield, Kentucky, in 1954 and ordained in Atwood, Tennessee in 1981. He is a retired United Methodist pastor who most recently served Fountain Avenue United Methodist Church in Paducah, Kentucky.
Ricky A. Woods, formerly the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Senior Mentor at United Theological Seminary in Trotwood, Ohio, continues to serve as the senior minister of First Baptist Church–West in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Homily Service 42, no. 4 (2009): 76–88.