Text: Mark 10:46-52Revised Standard Version (RSV)
The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus
46 And they came to Jericho; and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, Bartimae′us, a blind beggar, the son of Timae′us, was sitting by the roadside. 47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; rise, he is calling you.” 50 And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Master,[a] let me receive my sight.” 52 And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
I know that I have mentioned this to many of you before, but when I sit down to write the Sunday sermon, I try to keep the following three questions in mind:
First, the sermon needs to address what the text meant in its own day. “What did it mean to those who first heard it?”
Second, the sermon needs to relate that text to us today – “What does it mean to us here and now, two thousand years later and half a world away?” What connects Jerusalem, or Jericho, or Galilee to Oak Grove Township, Wisconsin, USA?
And third, it needs to help us answer the question: “What are we going to do about it?” Because, when all is said and done, our purpose here every Sunday is, not just to learn more about “the old, old story of Jesus and his love,” but also to determine how we are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and act on his behalf as his eyes, ears, hands, and feet in our own daily lives.
So, today we read again the story of blind Bartimaeus. But before we get to Bartimaeus himself, we need to talk for a moment about just where Bartimaeus was.
“And they came to Jericho…” This is actually pretty significant. If you refer to the map provided in today’s bulletin, you’ll see that Jericho is not very far from Jerusalem. Over the course of the summer, the lessons have tracked Jesus and his disciples in as they travelled in a big arc going northward into the regions of Tyre and Sidon, then over to the Decapolis (the “Ten Cities”), and now they’re coming back down toward Jerusalem, Ground Zero of the Christian story, where Jesus will be arrested, tried, convicted, crucified – and where he will be raised on the third day by the power of God. Time is getting short; the focus is getting sharper and sharper; and the tensions are rising.
Jericho has even a greater significance than just its closeness to Jerusalem, though – Jericho was and still is a symbol of victory for the Jewish people. Remember the old spiritual that goes: “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho / Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down.” When people heard this lesson read, immediately all the associations and ancestral memories of Jericho came immediately to mind. The battle of Jericho was that stunning victory when the People of Israel first crossed into the Promised Land to claim it for themselves. For these people, the battle of Jericho was Lexington, Concord, Yorktown, Saratoga, and Antietam all rolled into one. It was the beginning of the nation of Israel. So Jesus’ coming to Jericho was no accident – it foreshadowed the coming of a new, greater kingdom – the very Kingdom of God.
Then there’s Bartimaeus. There is a deliberate irony here: “Bartimaeus” means “son of honor” (“Bar” = “son of,” “Timaeus” = “honor”). So imagine the mental contrast that arose in the minds of the people who heard Mark’s words – and remember that Mark’s Gospel, as almost all other written works of the day, was meant to be read aloud. And, just in case the hearer misses it the first time, Mark repeats that Bartimaeus is “the son of Timaeus” and is “a blind beggar.” After all that, the point was impossible for them to miss.
But this led to the question: How could a blind man be a “son of honor”? In that day and age, if you had any kind of handicap, any kind of chronic illness, or even any kind of blemish, you were automatically assumed to be a sinner, defective, unclean, unworthy. Yet here Bartimaeus sits, the son of honor, in the very gate of the city where Israel began. Those first hearers of Mark’s Gospel must have stood or sat there, holding their collective breath, to find out just how this was going to turn out.
Note also that Mark makes sure we know that Bartimaeus called to Jesus with a loud voice – not just once, but twice, the second time being even louder than the first – and we can imagine, we can hope, that the person reading the Gospel to his audience would have shouted, too.
And all this is important, too, for several reasons. First, it’s important as the “set up,” you might say, for the miracle that is about to occur. Second, it’s important, because it puts us right alongside the people in that first crowd, outside the gates of Jericho, that historic place of victory. Third, it underscores the deep desire, even the desperation, of Bartimaeus, to be cured of his blindness: Jesus, that rabbi he’s heard so much about, that healer who casts out demons and makes lame people walk, that amazing man who even raises people from the dead, is just a few feet away from him. This is his one and maybe only chance, and he’s not going to let it pass him by.
And fourth, to address the second big question of “What does it mean for us today? – it lays out for us in no uncertain terms what can happen when people of faith act on that faith, despite calls for them to be “seen and not heard,” or to back down, or to just slink away into the night.S. Lewis once wrote, “God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.”
C. S. Lewis once wrote, “God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.”
Lewis might have had Bartimaeus in mind when he wrote those words. Perseverance does pay off. Jesus stops. He looks around. He asks who it is who’s shouting for him. And then he says, “Call him.”
The people who have been telling Bartimaeus to be quiet now change their tune and say to him, “Bartimaeus, this is your lucky day! Jesus wants to see you.” And they help Bartimaeus up, and they bring him to Jesus. And we know how the story ends. Jesus heals him.
Or do we? Let’s read the end of the lesson again: “And Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ And the blind man said to him, ‘Master, let me receive my sight.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Go your way; your faith has made you well.’ And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.”
“Your faith has made you well.”
You see, it’s all about faith.
Just what is “faith,” anyway? Just the other day, I had a very good conversation with one of our members about faith. She asked me, “Just what is ‘faith,’ anyway? How do I know I have it? How do I know I’m doing it right?”
That’s a question that’s really for all of us. I’ll bet we have all asked that question from time to time. It’s not the kind of question that we answer just once, and then forget about it. It’s a question that comes back, again and again, and needs to be answered, again and again, in new ways that help us in new situations. My understanding of faith is much different today than it was a year ago. And it will be different a year from now.
And this is by no means a recent or new question. Christian people, just like us, have been asking this question for two thousand years. The letter to the Hebrews, in Chapter 11, verse 1, has this to say about faith: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Faith is not an object. It’s not something we can buy, or earn. It’s not something we can measure. It’s not something we can hold in our hands. We can only hold it in our hearts as the gift from God that it is.
Faith is more like a state of being. We know it in its effects. We know we have faith by doing faithful things. We see the effects of these acts. And, by seeing and doing faithful things, our faith grows. Like that famous snowball rolling down a mountainside that becomes an avalanche, our faith may start small but, with each faithful deed to do, it gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for” – that is to say, the substance of things that do not yet exist. As we’ve heard before, we – you and I – live in that peculiar realm of God which is both Now and also at the same time Not Yet. God’s Kingdom is both here and yet to come. We pray for that Kingdom every week, don’t we? – “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” – we hope for that Kingdom. But we also see evidence of that Kingdom breaking into our world all around us. Sometimes we have to look very hard. But it’s there. It’s also here, right here. Right now.
It’s all about faith. Bartimaeus had faith enough to ignore those people who wanted him to be quiet in order to see Jesus. Bartimaeus had a faith, a hope, a confidence, in Jesus that was big enough to be healed of a life-long disability.
People of faith throughout history have done some pretty remarkable and even astonishing things. People of faith have even literally changed the world we live in. Think of Martin Luther, for example, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mother Theresa. Closer to home, I think of all those people who have gone before us and whose names we’re about to read – heroes and heroines of the faith who have followed Jesus through thick and thin their whole lives long and who remain for us today a shining example.
We are the next link in that long, long chain. Every one of us here today has that same capacity that they had to change the world, to do and dare great things for God through his Son Jesus Christ.
And now we come to the question: “What are we going to do about it?”
At the luncheon following Elaine Huber’s funeral, I was asked, “How do you like it here at St. John’s?” My unequivocal answer was, “I love it. They are great people, all of them.” That, to me, is absolutely, categorically true.
But my point in saying that is not to “gild the lily,” because I am not the first person who’s remarked on how warm, and friendly, and loving all of you are – so I’m utterly perplexed that St. John’s is so small – in numbers (but most definitely not in heart and faith).
I think it’s hard for many of us in this day and age to “stand up and be counted” as followers of Jesus. We know that we’re not saints, and we sometimes feel awkward or even embarrassed about talking to other people about faith. We don’t believe we even know the right words. So we listen to that inner voice, like the voice of that crowd in Jericho telling Bartimaeus to “be quiet,” and we, too, clam up.
Well, it’s really not about talking. It’s about doing. It’s about being.
There is a quote that you’ve probably heard that’s attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, which goes something like this: “Preach unceasingly. If necessary, use words.” Unfortunately, he never said that – nonetheless, that is a sentiment we can take to heart – people pay far more attention to what we do than to what we say. Showing kindness goes a lot farther toward ushering in the Kingdom of God than just saying “Be kind.”
And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (or maybe the modern equivalent, a “scratched CD”), this is something we can all do.
How might we start? Let me urge you all once again to invite a friend to church some Sunday. I’ll bet we all know people who either don’t go to church or don’t go very often. Ask them to come here with you. It doesn’t hurt to ask, it doesn’t cost a penny, and the worst they can do is say “No.”
Or invite them to the German Dinner. That will give them and you the chance to visit out here and enjoy the best German food this side of the Rhine – and maybe, just maybe, once they have set foot here, they’ll do it again. It could happen!
In short, sisters and Brothers – let us, today and every day, live and act as Bartimaeus did and certainly as Jesus did, living that faith that, though small as a mustard seed, moves mountains; that faith that heals the blind; that faith that sustains us in our troubles and makes our times of joy even greater; that faith that keeps our eyes fixed on the Kingdom of God, which is both here and on its way!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.