Has anyone ever told you to be quiet? I don’t mean like when you were back in school, and you were told off by a teacher. Has anyone ever told you to be quiet when you were getting too excited or into something? Maybe not in those exact words, but someone may have told you to calm down, settle, sit down, or just generally be less you. I certainly have said this, especially to my sister, who, God love her, is one of the loudest people I have ever met. Singing, shouting, even her walk seems to be loud. People have certainly said it to me, maybe not in words, but with a look, a tut, or just a general vibe of disinterest. Even our closest loved ones can do this. When I start telling my fiancé about an interesting fact that I have learned about trains, he pats me on the shoulder as if to say, ‘Yes dear.’
Sometimes even if we don’t tell someone to be quiet, we are definitely thinking it. A baby crying on a red-eye flight, a bad busker on public transport, a co-worker chewing too loudly at lunch. It may seem that we are constantly either trying to shield ourselves from extra noise or trying not to bother other people with our noise. I think particularly as a woman, I always try and take up as little physical and auditory space as possible. Don’t put your head above the parapet, calm down, be quiet.
However, our story today centres around someone who refused to be quiet, even when strangers were rebuking him. Bartimaeus is a man already considered to be an outcast in society as a disabled beggar. People already would have physically and psychologically looked down on him when walking down the road. When he hears that Jesus is leaving the city, he shouts and screams for him. He doesn’t know if Jesus is anywhere near where he is sitting, he doesn’t know if he will hear, and crucially, he doesn’t care what anyone else will think. He is excited, he wants to be healed, and he will take whatever chance he will get. When he’s called up by Jesus and the crowd tell him, he throws off his cloak. It’s quite a dramatic moment, one that you can picture, he is literally jumping out of his seat for the chance to be near Jesus.
Moving away from Bartimaeus, what are the bystanders doing? Are they helping this man get to whom he seeks? Not at first. They shh him, tell him off, probably glare at him and offer tuts. They are essentially telling him to not rock the boat, to stick to societal norms, stay quiet. They think that they need to protect Jesus from the riffraff of the streets. They might think that if he sees this seemingly crazy man screaming at him, that he won’t come back to their town, that he will think less of the whole community as a result. But of course, that’s not how Jesus rolls. Jesus wants to hear the joy of his people. He wants to hear the excitement of someone springing up just to be near him and have the chance of a miracle healing. When Jesus calls for the man, the crowd suddenly change their minds. The man is no longer a burden. ‘Take heart’, they say, ‘Get up!’. They are now encouraging him to be with Jesus, rewarding him for his shouts. They now see that this is what Jesus wants, this is how he wants his followers to behave in his presence. When he is healed, Jesus tells Bartimaeus that it is his faith that has healed him. I don’t think he means just believing in God, but also in the way that he is expressing his faith.
I wonder, if I was in that situation, whether I would be like Bartimaeus or like the crowd. Of course, I’d like to think that I would be like Bartimaeus, yelling, jumping around, completely oblivious to those around me, letting nothing stop me from getting to Jesus. However, I have to admit that there is a part of me that thinks that I would be like the bystanders, staring, tutting, asking someone to be quiet, because shouting and screaming is just not what we do, it’s not polite, it’s not right. Maybe it is a British thing, and the stereotypes are true about the stiff upper lip and over-polite nature. Even without my cultural baggage, I do think that I would be like the crowd. I like to follow rules, both prescribed and implicit. I like societal expectations of behaviour, and when someone breaks them, it puts me on edge. That, however, is just my opinion, it does not make me right, and it certainly should not be how everyone sees the world. I wish I could lose my inhibitions and lighten up, I think I would be happier.
When I have preached before, I have rarely taken any notice of the prescribed Psalm for the day. In the Church of England, it is much less common to use them in a service. However, today’s passage is so pertinent to the gospel message, that it seems impossible to ignore. Psalm 126 is telling us that it is not just acceptable to be filled with laughter and songs of joy, but that it is also very good. That our mouth would be filled with laughter and our tongues with joy. Does that sound like a command to keep polite and quiet? This psalm makes me think of the hymn based on Isiah 55:12. You shall go out with joy, the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. I love this hymn, not least because when we sang it at school, we were allowed to sing it faster and faster on each repetition, and clap as loud as we wanted. But this hymn which is going round and around my head as I am writing this sermon, is an expression of pure joy in the love of God, and his work. And notice why I said I liked this hymn, because it was one of the few times at school when we were allowed to sing it fast and loud, to clap as much as we wanted. We did not have to curtail our enthusiasm, and that brought us endless amounts of joy. Think of a time when you were allowed to make all the noise you wanted. Imagine going back to being a kid and being free to sign and shout and dance and clap without anyone holding you back. Think of the joy you would feel. Think about applying that joy and enthusiasm to singing and shouting and yelling about God.
The message of this sermon is not that God grants you permission to be as loud and obnoxious as you like in all situations. I think that I am still allowed to be annoyed at my sister when she insists on singing, sorry, screaming Taylor Swift at 8 o’clock in the morning. However, we need to be careful that we are not dimming peoples’ lights unnecessarily. There is a difference between being genuinely annoyed at superfluous noise, and telling someone to be anything else but their pure self. But, this is also a message that you should remember for yourself. Don’t let people tell you that you are ‘too much’, especially when it comes to your love of God, the Church, and Jesus. If you find being loud uncomfortable, as I do, take it one step at a time. Have faith in this story showing us that being loud and proud in ourselves is the right way to live. After all, it is our faith that heals us.