A Sermon by John Brierly McCall, D. Min.
Mark 10:46-52 – Jesus heals the blind beggar Bartimaeus
I suspect you’ve been thinking about the local and national elections coming up in just ten days. It’s looking as though literally every vote will count in the selection of our President because the race is so close. The winner will be lucky to get 51% of the vote. Those are winning numbers in politics. A 55% popular vote is called a landslide! Remember Casey Stengel who said his job was to keep the people who didn’t like him from talking to the people who hadn’t made up their minds!
Endless ads trash one candidate and tell us the other will give us our heart’s desire. We can have a growing economy, lower taxes, bigger military budget, less pollution, bigger houses, better schools. Smoke and mirrors. I’m ready for a return to John F. Kennedy’s challenge to ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country.
We want our candidates to tell us we’re exceptional, that we’re entitled to everything we have and more. We’re encouraged to think of ourselves as self-made, owing nothing to anyone. Jesus shows us a different way. He told his listeners “to whom much has been given, of them much will be required…” [Luke 12:48]
More than that, he pointed us to one of the most important discoveries in life – gratitude; the readiness to look deeper and deeper to the place where we can see that all we are and all we have is a gift from God – often times through others’ own generosity.
Late in life, the great humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer, wrote:
When I look back upon my early days I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or for what they were to me. At the same time I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh.
[Albert Schweitzer, An Anthology, edited by Charles Joy, 1947, p. 87]
No matter who we are or what we do; whether we succeed in grand ways or just barely manage to get out of bed in the morning, we’ve received blessing upon blessing from God’s hands.
Last week on Commitment Sunday, most of us came forward and placed our pledge cards in the basket here at the front. This is still a powerful symbol of the people of our church standing together, coming forward together, giving together, for the common good.
In this common act we remind ourselves and one another that we’re in this together. What we do, what we value, whom we worship, how we live, and what we give, matters not only to us, but to our fellow members, to God and to the world.
More importantly, the faith reminds us that we’re clearly returning to God and others a portion of what God has given to us. As we often sing when we bring the offering forward: “We give thee but thine own. Whate’er the gift may be, all that we have is thine alone; a trust, O Lord, from thee.” The most generous gifts are measured by the spirit behind them. If you’ve let God’s goodness transform you, and have found gratitude in your heart, then you know how good it feels to give generously.
C. S. Lewis once said, “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I’m afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.” Why? Because when we give more than we can spare we’re giving from the deepest place in our hearts – the place of promise and hope and faith.
The Gospel today tells us just such a story. Jesus invited a man to name his deepest longing, his greatest desire. What would you answer Jesus if he asked: “What do you want me to do for you?” That’s the kind of question dreams are made of.
- the genie in the bottle says: “Your wish is my command.”
- Regis Philbin says: “Who wants to be a millionaire?” and
- Jesus says whatever your heart longs for will be yours. Quite honestly, A big part of coming to church, reading scripture, praying, trying to live a Christian life comes from our hope that the Spirit will fill in the empty places. “Jesus, here’s what I want you to do…”
But did you notice that this story follows right on the heels of one of the most embarrassing episodes in the whole Bible? Just before this healing of Bartimaeus, Mark tells us that Jesus was walking along behind the two disciples James and John, and that they were posturing to get box seats in heaven when the kingdom came. “What do you want me to do for you,” Jesus said to them. “Grant that one of us can sit at your right hand and one at your left.” Jesus told them they were asking the impossible.
So they were walking near the gates of the city of Jericho – considered the oldest continuously inhabited spot on earth, and the lowest in elevation at nearly 300 feet below sea level. Near the gate was a beggar, known to everyone as Bartimaeus, meaning son of Timaeus. All he could do was to sit in darkness, listening to the crowds go by and occasionally calling out for pity. A few might have offered tiny coins or a stale crust of bread. Most people tried to ignore him as they hurried by. Cruel fate that he was born blind, they thought. Must have been his parents sinned; too bad he had to pay the price.
On this particular day the disciples tried to ignore him too but Bartimaeus could hear the shouts and feel the electricity in the air. He knew who was passing by and cried out: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus was moved, and answered, “What do you want me to do for you?” And Bartimaeus said: “I want to see again.”
Just a few minutes earlier he had refused his own disciples’ request for a blessing. Why do you suppose? What truth is lying here just under the surface? The difference, I think is that James and John wanted Jesus to give them the power of position, while Bartimaeus wanted the joy of being able to see and to follow.
We have many accounts of Jesus talking about deafness and blindness. Sometimes it was literal but more often it was metaphorical – more blindness of the heart than of the eye; more deafness of the soul than of the ear.
So the Gospel tells us that Bartimaeus got his wish because Jesus could see what was in his heart and knew what this man would do with this miracle. “Go,” said Jesus. “Your faith has made you well.”
He didn’t say: “Come, follow,” but rather “go;” go to the village, embrace your new life, build relationships, labor with your back, heart, hands, count your blessings. And remember that all this happened because God is so good.
Bartimaeus got up… and followed Jesus. The very next verse takes us to the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem. Within the week Jesus would be driven to the cross. And you know that Bartimaeus was somewhere in the crowd.
Jesus answered his deepest longing with the blessing of restored sight. Because of that same faith Bartimaeus joined the host of those whose lives had been changed.
And aren’t we, as the church, the company of those who say: “Jesus, now what do you want me to do for you?” That’s the question that comes from a grateful heart.
We all know or have known the longing to have Jesus do something for us, to guide us or heal us or love us in some particular way. But then he calls us to go further with him: to spread his Good News, to counsel his people, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. That kind of spirit wells up from gratitude. Only a grateful heart is ready to give back to the world.
As pastor and teacher Howard Thurman once wrote:
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who come alive.
That’s what Jesus saw in Bartimaeus. That’s what he knew about this man who leapt to his feet and threw off his cloak and ran to the Rabbi on the dusty Jerusalem road.
Like Bartimaeus, in response to so much God has already done for us through the life of Jesus, now is the time to ask what Jesus wants us to do for him. We’ve all heard the televangelists preach – if we believe in him he’ll give us anything we ask. God came to us in Jesus to heal us and to set us right, to be sure – but also to give us the courage to go into the world as Christ’s disciples and to live it.
The Christian life has to be about more than happiness, or contentment, or satisfaction. It’s much more than congratulating God for choosing such hard-working disciples.
Finally, being Christian comes down to the essential question of whether I’m ready to stop living just for myself and live for my God, whom I best know through Jesus.
This creating and sustaining God has opened so many eyes and ears both to the intense suffering and the immense beauty of the world. Let’s pray that all our giving will come from the deep wellspring of gratitude that’s rooted in our faith and in our life together.