When I took my first preaching class in seminary, one of our main tasks for the quarter was to prepare and preach three sermons. The first two were preached in the classroom; the third could either be preached in the classroom or in an actual, real-life church service—in the wild, if you will.

I swallowed my OMG-this-feels-so-presumptuous anxieties and asked my pastor if I might complete my third assignment at our church. He said yes.

He assigned me a Bible passage to preach on. The text was Luke 8:1-15—a story Jesus tells about a farmer who scatters seed in four different kinds of soil. Initially, I was less than excited. Anyone who has been going to church for a while has probably heard a million sermons on this parable.

But I studied, and wrestled, and let the passage marinate. And I found myself struck by how powerful and amazing the seeds are. Unlike normal seeds, which are limited in quantity, this seed is unlimited. There is a never-ending source of it and planting it does not deplete its supply.

According to Jesus’ parable, God’s words are like that. God just keeps speaking. If God speaks to one person or group of people in one way, it does not deplete the supply of love from which God is able to speak to another person or group in a different way.

And, unlike normal seeds—which would often bear a crop of maybe fifteen-fold in a good year—this seed, when it hit good soil, bore a crop of up to one hundred-fold. That’s more than 6x the normal return on investment, for anyone who’s into that sort of thing. The power of God’s words to heal, transform, and bear fruit—fruit like love, generosity, kindness, patience, peace, and joy (Gal 5:22-3)—in our lives and our communities is very strong.

To explore these kinds of thoughts—and to perhaps help longtime churchgoers hear a familiar story with fresh ears—I spent a large chunk of the sermon speaking imaginatively from the perspective of a disciple. Not one of the twelve named apostles, but just a random anonymous member of the big, unruly group of people who were following Jesus around from town to town.

I gave a little background on what I meant when I used the word “disciple” in this context. I mentioned that the disciples were a group of learners who followed Jesus around, and that they included the twelve (male) apostles but were far from limited to them. These disciples included both men and women. I pointed out that Luke even names a few of Jesus’ female disciples in Luke 8:2-3, right before he tells the four soils story: Joanna, Susanna, and Mary Magdalene.

Then I got into the character of an Anonymous Disciple. I talked, in the first person, about what it was like for me to hear Jesus teach. I reflected on some of the reasons I decided to leave my hometown and follow this rabbi around the Judean countryside. I mentioned some of the things I really liked about his teaching so far, and some of the things I found difficult. 

I asked questions, still in character, about what Jesus’ story might mean. I pointed out the parts I found confusing. I talked about the reactions I saw as I looked around, and how these reactions changed as he went on with his story. I shared why I was one of the ones who surrounded Jesus afterward and pressed in on him, asking more questions, trying so hard to understand.

Once I wrapped up the sermon, our usual Q&A time began. A woman raised her hand and shared some thoughtful reflections on the Anonymous Disciple character. As she spoke, I noticed that she referred to the Anonymous Disciple as a “he” several times. I appreciated her reflections, but the pronouns caught me off guard. 

In my mind, the Anonymous Disciple was a woman. I’m a woman, after all. I didn’t try to lower my voice or act particularly masculine when I spoke in character. There was nothing particularly gendered, one way or the other, about the words I had spoken. I had even pointed out specifically that Jesus had both male and female disciples.

I almost felt like I was making a feminist statement, of sorts, by speaking so much of the sermon in the voice of a female disciple—that is, an anonymous disciple, who in my mind was female. But, despite all this, some portion of the congregation—including some women in the congregation—heard it as a male voice.

I don’t blame the woman who shared these reflections. But I do think it’s interesting. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, most of us who have been involved in (male-led) churches for a while have heard so many sermons about male Bible characters and hardly any about female Bible characters. As a result, most of us have come to associate important people in the Bible with maleness by default.

What does it do to us, when all the stories we hear preached from our pulpits are about men? Men are the protagonists. Men are the apostles. Men are the disciples. Men follow Jesus. Men make adult human choices about how to respond to Jesus. They grow in their understanding of Jesus. They say goofy things that make Jesus rebuke them. They are sent out to do the kinds of things Jesus is doing.

Women do appear in the text of the Bible, but they hardly take up any space in most sermons. And when Bible women do get some airtime, if you were to hear many (male) preachers talk, these women exist primarily as objects. The subject is the man, and the issue is how he treats a woman. A male preacher might say, Look how Jesus showed grace toward a prostitute. Wow, isn’t he merciful. Let’s be merciful too. Or, he might preach, See how Jesus took pity on a woman and healed her daughter. We, too, should be agents of healing in our world. Or, perhaps, Listen to Jesus talk about how men shouldn’t look at women lustfully. We, too, ought to be sexually pure in our thoughts and actions.

By default, the preacher and hearers are both assumed to be men. We are taught to identify with Jesus, not with the women in these stories. We are taught to hear Jesus talking to men, about women.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for men hearing that they should follow Jesus’ example in honoring women. The world would be a much better place for everybody if more men actually interacted with women like Jesus did.

But it isn’t enough. It assumes a male perspective and uses women as object lessons to teach men how to be more holy. It perpetuates (usually white) men’s tendency to see themselves as protagonists of a movie, while the rest of us are accessories, bit actors, assistants, or extras—or, sometimes, in the case of women, distractions and temptations. Villains, really, but minor ones.

Can we learn—in our pulpits and our Bible studies, our small groups and our personal Bible reading—to really see women in scripture? What would it look like to stop ignoring them? And can we learn to see them not as object lessons for men but as full humans—people who learn from and follow Jesus, just like their male counterparts? Can we see them as active participants with Jesus in the kingdom of God? Can we see them in the gospel stories among Jesus’ many unnamed disciples—learners who were learning so that one day they could teach?

I want to see and honor these female disciples—the women who show up, however quietly, in just about every story about Jesus. They are there. We are there.

Nobody really benefits from a masculinist reading of scripture. But this is the way it’s been done—so often, for so long. Women need to hear scripture preached in ways that affirm our presence and importance; men need to hear this too, lest they miss the strong, equal partners we could be. People of all genders need to hear and know that women matter.

This might feel uncomfortable for some men; it might feel like they stand to lose something from a more balanced reading of scripture. But valuing women more does not need to mean that we value men less. 

Remember the seeds: God’s words are so powerful and abundant that a farmer can strew them carelessly all over a field; likewise, freedom and power and full humanness is not diminished for one group when attained by another. There is more than enough to go around. Abundantly. One hundred-fold. 

Don’t worry about what you’ll eat. Don’t worry about what you’ll drink. Don’t worry about what you’ll wear. These are easy things to say—when you have enough to eat, when you have enough to drink, when you have enough to wear.

But many people in Jesus’ day—people living in poverty under the oppressive occupying force of the Roman empire—did not have enough to eat, or drink, or wear. And neither do many people—in the U.S. and around the world—today.

What do Jesus’ words mean, in light of this? Are they insensitive to the poor? Are they spoken a little too easily?

I don’t think Jesus is speaking from some high and mighty privileged place, here. He, too, was poor. He was born in a barn. He was homeless as an adult, traveling around the countryside preaching and healing and staying with those who would take him in—with people of peace (see Luke 10:5-7), kind strangers who quickly became friends. Jesus isn’t just theorizing and philosophizing and theologizing from some ivory tower, removed from the real world. 

Instead, Jesus goes around meeting people’s real material needs—their needs for food, water, clothing. He does other things too, of course—like healing people on many levels, teaching wise and true things about God, and rebuilding broken relationships and communities—but these other things aren’t in conflict with his attention to people’s basic physical needs. It all goes together. 

Take food, for example. Jesus doesn’t just tell people not to worry about what they will eat. He also miraculously feeds a crowd of five thousand men and who-knows-how-many women and children, using only five loaves of bread and two fish (Matt 14:13-21). Later, he feeds a different crowd of four thousand men, plus women and children, using just seven loaves and a few small fish (Matt 15:29-38). 

We can theorize all we want—and people definitely do—about the significance of these numbers. We can speculate as to why a very similar miracle story is told twice in the gospel texts. And some of these theories might be true. 

But could it also just be that Jesus wanted to take care of both crowds’ needs? The need arose for food, so he provided. Later, the need arose again, so he provided again. Who knows how many other times he did this, often in smaller-scale and less dramatic ways, throughout his ministry? (Not to mention the various miraculous catches of fish, as in Luke 5:1-11 and John 21:1-14.)

These are the things I think about when I hear Jesus telling people not to worry about what they might eat. He doesn’t just say “don’t worry”; he actually provides in practical ways for people’s needs.

Likewise, with drink. I think of the wedding at Cana, when the party ran out of wine, and Jesus (however reluctantly at first) changed several large water jugs into fancy-tasting wine so that the party could continue and the hosts wouldn’t be embarrassed by not having enough (John 2:1-12). 

I don’t often hear people ask this question: Why didn’t these wedding hosts have enough wine? Maybe we assume it was poor planning, or that their guests drank more than could have been reasonably expected. 

I wonder, though, if really the hosts were simply short on money. They wanted to provide enough drink for their guests but weren’t able to. Maybe they hoped people wouldn’t drink much and their secret wouldn’t be revealed. Maybe they could only afford a smaller wedding celebration, but so many friends and relatives and neighbors wanted to celebrate that it overwhelmed the reality of what they could provide. 

Regardless, they didn’t have enough. And Jesus didn’t just tell them not to worry about it. He provided what they didn’t have.

When it comes to clothing, then, I think of John the Baptist’s teaching: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same” (Luke 3:11, NIV). Jesus’ teachings and actions continue in the same vein as John the Baptist’s throughout the gospel stories. 

I get the feeling that Jesus didn’t personally have a ton of extra clothing to give away. But he did encourage people to share their resources with one another. He didn’t just tell people not to worry about clothing; he told them to share what they have, so that everyone might be adequately clothed. 

We see all of this lived out tangibly among the first communities of Christians (Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-37). The believers had everything in common. People sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. No one claimed any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Because of all this sharing, empowered by God’s grace, there were no needy persons among them. No one was lacking for food, drink, or clothing, because everyone shared. This is the work of the Spirit of God. This is the community Jesus inspired—the community Jesus birthed—through his teaching, healing, leading, and unlikely-friendship-building. 

Jesus doesn’t tell people not to worry and leave it there. There’s no guilt for worrying, no shame, no judgment, no condemnation. Just grace, provision, miracles, healing, sharing, community-building, peace. Just needs being taken care of—both directly from God, and, perhaps just as miraculously, through the generosity of fellow humans.

This is what we will eat. This is what we will drink. This is why we don’t need to worry. This is the kind of community Jesus builds.

46 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 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.” 50 So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 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.” 52 Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Bartimaeus cries out. He is blind and his deep desire is to see again. And yet the heart of this story goes beyond physical blindness. Bartimaeus’ encounter with Jesus is a conversion experience, an experience of transformation—and not just for Bartimaeus, but for the whole community, the whole large crowd that surrounds Jesus and follows him on the road. And they all need it.

Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus on a long shot. He runs to Jesus with a request no one else has been able to answer. And what follows is a moment of healing. So much is revealed about who Jesus is and the kind of transformation he can bring to a community. At the end of it all, Bartimaeus finds Jesus so compelling that he drops whatever else he might have been planning to do that day—or for the next several days, at least—to follow him.

I think about this story, and I think about the time we’re living in. In some sense, we’re living in a time of collective transformation, a time of collective awakening. We can relate to this passage not just as individuals in need of various kinds of healing from Jesus, but also as whole communities, going through a time of collective upheaval, together.

These last few years in the U.S. have been a time of racial reckoning. Many of us are being awakened to realities that have always been there but that we have not understood that we have not been able or willing to engage with. Realities like deeply ingrained racism and white supremacy, patriarchy and misogyny, historical and ongoing violence against indigenous peoples, and lack of concern for the environment—which impacts us all, and disproportionately impacts people of color and the materially poor. There is a lot that is being revealed, a lot that we are awakening to—sometimes for the first time entirely; sometimes in new ways.

I think about Mark 10:46-52 and I wonder: Where is God in this awakening? What would it mean to see Jesus as the one who heals and transforms, today as he did on the road out of Jericho? What difference does it make in our collective awakening to know that there’s a loving God in the picture?

Bartimaeus’ cry to Jesus is a cry for mercy. He shouts out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” He repeats this twice. He cries it out even more loudly when other people order him sternly to be quiet. He keeps shouting out, “Have mercy on me.”

Jesus’ posture toward Bartimaeus, then, is full of mercy. His words, his actions—and his whole being as it relates to Bartimaeus—are all a gift of mercy. I wonder if our collective awakening, too, is God’s gift of mercy to us.

For those of us who are being transformed by new-to-us revelations of long-present realities, this awakening journey is surely God’s mercy to us. It isn’t good for us to be unaware of actual history, ignorant of present realities of oppression, oblivious to marginalized people’s experiences. Some of these things might make us uncomfortable when we are made aware of them. But we need to be made aware. It’s part of our healing, our transformation, our wholeness.

And, just as surely, this collective awakening is God’s mercy toward those who have been oppressed and marginalized. As some people become more aware, others are no longer ignored. As privileged people learn how much they don’t know, the realities of those who live on the underside of power structures start to be known more broadly—sometimes for the first time. Their needs become recognized—and also their gifts. Their full humanity becomes recognized. And, in that recognition, there is a possibility for change. There is a possibility for justice.

SIGN: RED LETTER CHRISTIAN PLEDGE 

Bartimaeus cries out, “have mercy on me!”—and Jesus does. Jesus stops and calls to him. Or, more precisely, Jesus asks his followers to call to him, and they do so. They tell him, “take heart.” Or in alternate translations, “take courage,” or “do not be afraid.”

Transformation does indeed call for courage. It may be a gift God gives, but it’s also a process we choose to keep digging into. And in this difficult journey, we need communities full of people who can say to one another—as the crowd did, after some prompting from Jesus—take heart. Take courage. Don’t be afraid. God is calling to you, inviting you into something good. We’re in this together. And God is with us.

Bartimaeus knew he needed mercy from Jesus. We too need mercy, in our collective awakening. Some people know things others don’t know yet. It might be easy to compare and to judge. But we all need mercy on this journey. We need mercy from God, and we need mercy from one another. We need the kind of mercy that finds us where we are, invites us into transformation, and does it all in love.

In another gospel story, in John 9, Jesus encounters a different blind person. His disciples ask him, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answers, “No one sinned.” In other words: It isn’t his fault, or his parents’ fault. It’s no one’s fault.

That’s a powerful statement. No one sinned. I wonder if our collective time of awakening could be seen in a similar way. Perhaps the things we aren’t aware of—as long as we’re not willfully choosing to remain in blissful ignorance—aren’t always our fault. Often, it’s the air we have breathed for a long time. Our need for awakening isn’t something to be ashamed of.

This is good news—because when we’re ashamed of something, we try to hide it. We try to cover it up in different ways and keep people from seeing it. We might bluster around trying to prove how woke we are. We might engage in a kind of performative allyship that’s more about our own image than actually trying to live in solidarity with the marginalized.

But our need for revelation is nothing to be ashamed of, or to hide. We are all in need of God’s mercy and healing. If awakening is a gift from God, it isn’t something we get to brag about, or have to try to prove, or try to one-up others with. It’s a transformative journey we’re all on together. We may need transformation in different degrees, and in different ways—but we all need transformation, and we’re all being transformed. And we all need one other for that, in community.

When we see God in our time of collective awakening, we see that God’s revelations are God’s grace to us—God’s gift, God’s mercy. God frees us from shame about our unawareness, so we are free to stop trying to hide it. God invites us, in this collective awakening, to be a community full of mercy to one another, knowing we’re all on a journey together. God invites us to be a community where we help one another “take heart” and “take courage” when the journey is difficult. May God form our churches into these kinds of communities.