Mark 10:46-52

 

 

Bartimaeus was in good spirits.  The road that went by Jericho was a main road to Jerusalem and it was a great place to encounter rich travelers going from the city to other cities of the north and east.  And, with Passover coming, all the pilgrims passing on their way to Jerusalem would be remembering the reasons to be thankful and sharing a bit more.  So he was guaranteed to have successful begging.

 

He took his accustomed begging place on the road, a few yards from the city gates, among all the other beggars.  “Alms for the blind,” he called out, every time he heard the passing of feet.  Bartimaeus was not shy.  He had learned long ago that he must be loud and forceful if he was to stay alive, loud enough to get attention, forceful enough to get results.  But sometimes he was so loud and forceful that people would tell him to pipe down—he was disturbing their peace.  He should, after all, know his place—simply and forgettably, a blind beggar. 

 

Shortly after noon, Bartimaeus could hear that a large crowd was coming out of the city, turning towards Jerusalem.  “Who’s this?” he asked.  “It’s Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth, a wonder worker on his way to Jerusalem for the Passover,” he was told.

 

“Jesus!  Jesus!  Son of David!” he began to yell.  “Jesus!  Jesus!  Have mercy on me!”

 

“Be quiet, you fool!  Not everyone is going to give you money.”

 

But Bartimaeus was not easily discouraged.  “Jesus!  Jesus!  Over here!  Have mercy on me!”

 

Suddenly the noise of the crowd was hushed and Bartimaeus heard someone walking towards him.  “Come with me,” a voice said out of the darkness.  “He’s calling you.”  And, without hesitation, Bartimaeus threw off his begging cloak and approached Jesus.

 

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.

 

It was on the tip of Bartimaeus’ tongue to ask for the usual—“Alms for the blind.”  But something stopped him.  Something in this man’s voice told him that here was an opportunity beyond all the charity he could ever receive.

 

And so he spoke what he had never dared speak.  He had no experience of hope fulfilled. He had only known his own personal limitations and the limitations of the world that saw only his blindness.  He had no knowledge of how to live without begging, without blindness.  The thought terrified him even while it was his wildest dream.

 

But, in this moment, in this Presence, he had no choice.  He knew, without a doubt, that to ask for anything but his wildest dream would be to miss forever something precious, something wondrous, something that he could not understand.  And so, those expecting him to be who he had always been, those expecting only the expected, were dumbfounded when he answered, “Rabbi, let me see again.”

 

And Jesus, without pausing, said simply, “Go; your faith has made you well.”  And, with these words, Bartimaeus’ world exploded in a cascade of colour and images.  And, without even thinking about it, he left his begging cup, his begging cloak, his place in the begging line and ran after Jesus.

 

When Jesus told Bartimaeus that his faith had made him well, I don’t think he was referring to the fact that Bartimaeus believed something about Jesus’ identity as God’s Messiah.  I don’t think he was saying that Bartimaeus believed that Jesus held the secret to eternal life.  I don’t even think that it was that Bartimaeus thought that Jesus could cure him.

 

When Jesus told Bartimaeus that his faith had made him well, I think Jesus was rejoicing in the fact that Bartimaeus saw in Jesus someone who could do the impossible, who could go beyond what Bartimaeus could imagine, who didn’t deal in “shoulds” but in “why nots.”  Bartimaeus was someone, in Jesus’ eyes, who had the courage to lay it all on the line, to risk being laughed at, ostracized, plunged into despair.

 

Bartimaeus risked asking for what would change his life completely, what would leave him without props or livelihood (such as it was), what would find him having to develop totally new ways of relating to others—and to himself.  Jesus saw that Bartimaeus didn’t stop at the little stuff but went the whole way.  Everyone, maybe even Jesus, thought that Bartimaeus would ask for money.  But he asked, instead, for the best he could imagine—not a band-aid but a cure.

 

“What do you want me to do for you?”  Isn’t that what Jesus asks each of us, daily—as individuals and as a faith community?  And how do weanswer?  What do we want Jesus to do for us?  Even more, what do we expectthat Jesus, that God, can do for us?

Do we, we who may not be physically blind but blind in so many other ways, have as much courage, as much trust as Bartimaeus?  I sometimes wonder if we do.  I wonder if we’re reluctantto ask God for the big things, for the miracles, for the transformation that we and the world need.

I wonder if maybe we don’t ask for the big thing because we don’t know what the big thing is.  We see so many needs for ourselves, our friends and families, the world, that we don’t know what is most important.  And so we ask for the general, the distant, the wide-spread.  The issue may not be one of indifference but one of focus.  Bartimaeus’ life had one focus—his blindness.  He had only one issue.  We have many issues and so we don’t know where to turn first.  We don’t know the bigthing to ask because there are too many big things.

Or perhaps we don’t ask for the big thing because we don’t really believe God will or can answer.  We give lip service to God’s power, to the belief that good is stronger than evil, to the faith that God can do the impossible.  But we don’t test it out, really.  We ask for only what wethink is possible.  We don’t believe in miracles any more.  We believe that only what we know or can envision is possible.

There’s a story about a Sunday School teacher asking a little boy, after reading the story of Bartimaeus, “What would you have asked Jesus for, if you had been blind?”  And the boy replied, “I would have asked for a nice dog to lead me around.”  We want to be reasonable in our requests lest God think us…what?...greedy?...selfish?  We don’t seem to understand that, by asking for a nice dog to lead us around, we are limitingGod.

Or maybe we don’t ask because we’ve asked before and haven’t received what we asked for.  And so we give up asking.  God doesn’t answer my prayers, anyway, so what’s the point.  And people can say all the clichés they want about God’s answer being “No,” or windows opening when doors close, or asking for the wrong thing or whatever.  Our experience is that we asked God and God didn’t answer.  So we go on to believe that God doesn’t or won’t answer.  That God doesn’t care about us anyway.  It’s an experience that so many of us can relate to.  And the truth is, not getting what we ask for is always a possibility—even when we ask for the impossible.

Or maybe we don’t ask, especially if it’s a personal request, because we believe that it’s selfish to ask for ourselves or our families or friends or church or community or country because there is so much need in the world.  Surely God has better things to do than to answer my paltry prayers.  And again we limit God.  Perhaps the prayer we are making will provide something that will help us or our families or friends, or our church or our communities to better serve those who dohave greater needs.  Bartimaeus regained his sight; and he followed Jesus.  Without that answer to his prayer, he would have remained a blind beggar sitting by the road.

But perhaps the primary reason, even if we don’t admit it, that we don’t ask for the big things is that we do have trust that God can answer and we’re afraid that God will answer.  You know the old saying: Be careful what you pray for, you might get it.  Perhaps we want to remain a blind beggar sitting by the road.

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I remember a friend of mine who had given a great deal of time and effort to opposing the build-up and maintenance of nuclear arms during the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.  When the Berlin wall came down at the end of the 80’s and the Cold War was deemed officially over, she found herself in limbo, almost in despair.  She said, “I should have been rejoicing but all I could feel was a sense of loss—loss of purpose.”

And so we learn to cope.  We define ourselves, our communities, our world and even our church by what is wrong.  We are used to it.  We know how to live in this situation—it’s familiar.  And something new holds risks that we cannot face.  It’s easier and safer to stay with what we know rather than venture forth into new life, new sight, new visions.  It’s easier and safer to live a half-life rather than ask for wholeness.

It’s hard to ask for the big things, for our own version of Bartimaeus’ request.  Most of us find it easier to stay in the dark.  It feels safer and, in many ways, like less work.  It’s hard to walk down unfamiliar roads, to live with wholeness that demands so much of us.  It’s hard to live a healed and abundant life.  We’ve learned so well to live with scarcity.  Oh, not necessarily material scarcity, but spiritual, emotional scarcity and the reduction of dreams to mere ideas.  Our vision is often clouded by the fear of what seeing and being that vision will mean.  Comfort, even if it is a bleak, difficult comfort, is familiar at least.

Now I must put a caveat in here.  Before I start to sound like a televangelist who tells someone that if they want a BMW car, they just need to ask God for a BMW car.  Nor do I want to say that we bear no responsibility for working with God when we ask for the big thing.  We cannot expect God to remove our addictions if we mean to continue our addictive behaviour.  God will help but we have to be willing.  God is not a magic worker.  God does not wave a magic wand over us and poof! we’ve got whatever we ask for.  Even Bartimaeus had to get up and move to Jesus, had to put some effort into his own request.

Bartimaeus didget up and move to Jesus.  He was ready to be healed and ready to receive his sight.  How ready are we?  If Jesus were to stand in front of us and ask that incredible question, “What do you want me to do for you?” what would we answer?  Would we have enough trust in ourselves and in God to ask to be made whole?  Would we have enough courage to ask for healing and abundance for ourselves and for our world?

For the truth is, God is asking, has been for a long time, What do you want me to do for you?