Mark 10: 32-52
March 8, 202

I remember a classroom discussion I had with one of my professors at the seminary. I won’t say who, but he’s well-known to this congregation.

The handful of Lutheran students were standing around the altar in the seminary chapel. We were discussing communion and how our branch of the Lutheranism welcomes all to the table … what is known as open communion … while other branches place restrictions on who can receive communion and who cannot … who’s invited and who’s not.

I told him about challenges when it comes to my son, Jay.

Being autistic, texture and taste are things that can ramp up his level of anxiety.

As well, there is the challenge of doing an unfamiliar task or going to an unfamiliar place … so Donna and I have to get him used to taking communion and it’s done in baby steps.

Then, I told the professor that I also want Jay to understand the significance of communion before he takes it.

At which point, this professor … this pastor … looks me dead in the eye and says, “Who are you to get between your son and God.”

It’s a question that I think we need to ask ourselves just as we should ask or challenge others when the need arises.

“Who are you to get between someone and God.”

Today, Jesus makes a brief pitstop in Jericho … about 30-35 kilometres from Jerusalem. But apparently, despite the city being the site of some important biblical events, there isn’t any mention of Jesus or the twelve doing anything significant while they’re there. So, they leave town almost as soon as they arrive.

Still, a crowd follows Jesus as the group leaves Jericho.

At the side of the road, Bartimaeus is begging … his cloak likely spread out on the ground in front of him.

He can’t see the crowd, but he can hear them … he can’t see Jesus … but Bartimaeus knows he’s present.

In his darkness, he calls to Jesus … he even identifies him as the Son of David … which is a pretty bold thing to do … and pleads for mercy.

The crowd and the disciples try to silence Bartimaeus. But he’ll have none of it.

In fact, he screams even louder … “Son of David, have mercy on me.”

I wonder what was going through the crowd’s and the disciples’ minds at that time.

Why were they trying to keep the blind man away from Jesus?

Was it because he wasn’t the right kind of person? After all, he was a beggar … a less-than-desirable person.

Maybe the people didn’t like the thought that if he gains Jesus’ attention, they would be diminished … that they would lose something familiar to them … or perhaps they took comfort in the fact that there was someone else worse off than themselves and they didn’t want to muck up the status quo.

Maybe they just wondered why this beggar won’t just shut up.

But Bartimaeus has a faith that talks back.

Jesus stops … he tells the crowd to call Bartimaeus forward … to stop getting in the way.

After all, who were they to get between the man and Jesus?

Once Bartimaeus is before Jesus, he is asked the same question that was asked of James and John:

“What do you want me to do for you?”

It’s a question that exposes our true nature.

 “What do you want me to do for you?”

Where James and John asked for greater glory … to be ahead of the other ten … Bartimaeus replies:

“Let me see again.”

It’s an answer that carries a bit more depth than it seems at first glance.

“Let me see again.”

It isn’t about gaining sight … it’s about
re-gaining sight.

“Let me see AGAIN.”

Bartimaeus doesn’t have a lot going for him … in fact, if there was a lowest rung on the community ladder … he would be somewhere below it by a good measure.

He is blind … which makes him unclean by ritual standards; he is a beggar … which means he is looked down upon by respectable society; and he is Greek … the son of Bar-Timaeus … which was not a popular thing to be in a Jewish community … even if he didn’t have the other two strikes against him.

As one commentator puts it, Bartimaeus is the marginalized of the marginalized.

Bartimaeus’ request implies that he had lost his sight somewhere along the way … that perhaps he had lost faith … and with it … his ability to see the world and its needs … to see it from the perspective of someone who serves.

It’s a perspective that Bartimaeus regains when Jesus tells him that his faith has healed him. He has been restored through his faith and through this restoration he has been transformed.

Transformation … either the potential for transformation or actual transformation … is a thread woven through Mark’s story. Transformation is offered through each of Jesus’ actions or words in today’s passage.

Think about it for a moment …

James and John recognized that change was possible … but their ambitions got the better of them.

The crowd that tried to silence Bartimaeus and keep him in his place at the side of the road … listened to Jesus’ words and were transformed by what they heard.

They called Bartimaeus and brought him to Jesus.

What we think of as a healing story, is really a discipleship story. It’s a story of the transforming nature of the call to discipleship.

Theologian Lincoln Galloway once wrote;

“To those who have always known honour, power, affluence, and prestige, this image reminds us of the transforming effect of the gospel to call forth a life of renunciation and dramatic change.”

After he regained his sight, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way to the cross in Jerusalem. He was no longer sitting on the side of the road … he was walking on it … ready to serve when called upon.

Bartimaeus is now an active participant in the life of the world.

Imagine the loss … imagine the lost opportunities … the lost ministry, if the crowd and the disciples had been successful in keeping Bartimaeus away from Jesus and keeping him living a life on the margins of the margins.

Jesus would not let the crowd and the disciples limit his ministry or limit whomever wanted to come to him.

Through his insistence … through his refusal to have his faith quieted … Bartimaeus did what Jesus called for people to do.

Last week, we heard Jesus’ instructions to the rich man … to give up his possessions … to give up everything for the betterment of others. The rich man couldn’t do it … so he walked away in grief.

This week, the blind man tossed away what was likely his sole possession … his cloak.

For the blind man, this wasn’t just a piece of clothing … the cloak represented his livelihood … his identity.

By throwing away his only possession, Bartimaeus was throwing away his old life and with it, the limits placed on him by the world’s perceptions and expectations.

Through his actions, Bartimaeus showed that he understood, probably better than the disciples themselves, what promise was held by following Jesus … the promise of a new life.

A new life informed by brokenness … one that offers wholeness … that through grace calls for service.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor during the early half of the last century.

An opponent of the Nazi regime, Bonhoeffer decided against remaining in the safety of the U.S., where he was teaching, and returned to Germany.

He believed that if he was to preach against cheap grace … if he was to truly shepherd, then he had to be with the people. During the war, he worked to defeat the Nazis and led an underground church.

After the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned. Just two weeks before the Allies captured the prison, Bonhoeffer was stripped naked and hung.

In an essay on Psalm 119 composed in prison, Bonhoeffer wrote about Jesus’ healing of the blind men in Mark’s gospel.

He wrote:

“…whomever thinks he can see, even though he is blind, cannot be helped anymore, but will perish in his blindness. It is a gift of grace to recognize one’s own blindness to God’s word and to be able to pray for opened eyes.”

Bartimaeus’ faith opened his eyes, just as faith holds the promise to open our eyes, as well

So, as we move with Jesus toward the cross and resurrection during the Lenten season, we should reflect on if we are like those in the crowd.

Do we place things between people and God … do we truly invite others in … fully and completely share love with the stranger and with one another and call them to do likewise?

Do we place something between ourselves and God … emotions, perspectives, expectations or other barriers that keep us from seeing and going?

Do we place limits on the ministry?

During the Lenten journey, we have the opportunity to consider our actions … our call to discipleship … our faith … and … perhaps … realign them more closely to our call to serve … a call that requires us to recognize when our eyes are closed and pray that they will be opened.

May it ever be so.

AMEN