Saint Mark 10:46-53
Last year was a very big year for all things Reformation.
You would have been hard pressed to squeeze yourself into one of the numerous tours of the Luther lands in Germany. There were several books about Luther published. Even the Presbyterian church I attend in Chicago had me do a three week presentation on Luther’s life and works.
They also had a replica built of a church door like the one at the castle church in Wittenberg and invited people to place “post-it” notes about things they would like to see “reformed” in the church. This made the pastors on staff nervous for fear that someone would suggest that a good place to start would be to fire them all. Nobody in the congregation did.
The pastor of the Lutheran church Lowell and I worship at in Bellingham, Washington said that when the big day was finally over she was “all Reformationed out.”
Major anniversaries can do that to you. They can wear you out planning for them, reading about them, and then celebrating them when the day finally arrives. They can all get to be a little much.
Minor Anniversaries don’t effect us that way. The 501st anniversary of the Reformation will not raise very many eyebrows. We may sing great hymns, have a fine brass choir, celebrate with balloons and a special cake but I’ll bet you could have booked a trip to the Luther lands this year for half the price you would have paid last year.
I think that minor anniversaries may be more important than major anniversaries because they remind us that we have managed to keep being the church for another year.
Today’s Gospel tells us what the church needs to keep doing year after year, day after day.
The personification of the needs of the world comes to us in the form of a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.
Considering he is one of societies outcasts we know more about him that any other recipients of Jesus’ miracles.
We not only know his name but his father’s name and, considering his present condition, they may seem to be an oxymoron. “Bar means “son of” in Aramaic and timao means honor, so Bartimaecus means, “son of honor.”1
This “son of honor” is sitting by the side of the road begging. He is a person in need whom the crowd no longer sees. His blindness has made him an outcast who calls for help fall on deaf ears until Jesus comes along and listens.
The first thing the church offers to the world is a God who listens. Who stops and pays attention to our needs.
When Jesus stopped, you can bet that his disciples stopped and then the whole crowd stopped. Everybody stopped for this guy who they saw as a nobody from nowhere. They stopped because the man was shouting. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
You can imagine their reaction. Think of how you would feel if you were in a crowd of people and someone started yelling. I know that my first inclination would be to do what that crowd did. I’d try to get the guy to be quiet, to pipe down, or at least use his inside voice.
Jesus doesn’t do that. He stops. Jesus sees him for who he really is. The man is a son of honor who is in trouble. Jesus wants the crowd and us to see him that way too. So he gives them the task of bringing the man closer to Jesus.
That is the second job of the church. It is to, quite simply, bring people closer to Jesus. To hear Jesus say to the least, the lost, and the lonely, “What can I do for you?”
If you were here last week and have a very good memory you’ll remember that this is the same question Jesus asks of James and John when they asked him for the best seats in the house. They wanted to be seen and envied but they didn’t get what they wanted.
Bartimaeus just wants to see and maybe for the first time in his life be seen as a member of the community rather than an outcast. Bartamaus doesn’t want to be extraordinary he just wants to be ordinary. All he wants to do is just see. He doesn’t want to rule over others, he just wants to join them in their experience of a normal life.
Jesus has the crowd bring Bartimaeus closer so that they could, maybe for the first time in a long time, see him. Jesus was forcing them to pay some attention to the needs of this blind beggar.
There is a part Bartimaeus plays in this little drama as well. It is such a small part that we might miss it. Saint Mark tells us that: “Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.”2
That cloak was everything to Bartimaeus. It not only kept him warm but it was spread out to catch the coins of the occasional passersby who took pity on him. It was his only visible means of support.
That is the third job of the church and for the church in our day and it is a very tough task.
In Luther’s day the people were burdened by life in general - dirty streets, drafty homes, terrible sanitation. Life in the sixteenth, or even nineteenth century was barbaric compared to ours. So when the people heard of a new notion of God who was love and grace instead of offering more hardship and judgement is it any wonder they flocked to it.
Now things are more difficult for the church. People like us think they have it pretty good. They have two cars in the garage and a nice house in a nice place. They may be worried about what is going on in the world and would like to live in quieter, more peaceful times, but the economy is good and chances are very high that we will survive all of this as we have survived much worse in the past.
Their cloaks are fitting just fine, thank you very much, and their schedules are so packed that they just don’t have an hour to give up to read or watch television much less to get up, get out of bed, get dressed, and get to church to get a little Jesus.
Bartimaeus may have been blind but he was notblind to his needs.
Today it is just the other way around. People can see but think their needs will be met by a big breakfast, a long coffee and the paper at the local Starbucks, a walk in the park, another hour at the health club, or just watching the Sunday morning gabfests on television.
Dr. Eugene Peterson, who recently passed away, and who was the man who gave us the excellent paraphrase of Scripture called The Message that I quote from often, would tell people who think church is just another something on their to-do lists, what they are missing out on. In leaving his job as a professor of Greek and Hebrew for a job as a pastor he said:
“In the church everything was going every which way all the time — dying, being born, divorces, kids running away. I suddenly realized that this is where I really got a sense of being involved and not just sitting on the sidelines as a spectator but being in the game.”3
The final job for the church is the biggest gift Jesus gave Bartimaeus. He gave him his sight but he also got him back in the game. He was restored to his community. He was restored to his rightful position as a “son of honor,” a child of God. He was given a new life.
That’s what the church offers to people when they come and follow Jesus.
Bartimaeus’ story doesn’t end there. His story never ends.
“‘On your way,’ said Jesus. ‘Your faith has saved and healed you.’ In that very instant he recovered his sight and followed Jesus down the road.”
We almost never get a name for anybody who was healed by Jesus. They get their healing, receive what they need, and fade back into the anonymous faces of the crowd. We never get to know who they are, or their family, or anything about them.
Bartamaeus is different. We not only know his name but we know his family of origin. Why? Because he followed Jesus down the road. He went with him on the way.
Dr. William H. Willimon suggest that the reason Bartamaeus’ name was remembered was because “even as the story was being told in the early church, Bartimaeus was there.” He followed.
“Healing? Yes. It happened to one of us. You know old Bartimaeus?”
“Bartimaeus, Sunday school superintendent over at Rock Creek Church?”
“Yep. He was one.”
“One who was healed? One who Jesus touched and cured?
“Yep.”4Every time someone throws off their cloak of self-sufficiency and follows Jesus there is a reformation. Every time someone leaves the pressures of the world and follows Jesus there is a reformation. Every time someone sees themself as a child of honor rather than one of the world’s outcasts there is a reformation. Every time someone, any one, any where is following Jesus there is a reformation.
So we celebrate this day not only the 501st Anniversary of that Reformation started by Martin Luther but we celebrate this day the continuing reformation in all of our lives started by Jesus Christ when he said, “Follow me!”
Maybe if we see Reformation not as a once a year event but something that is continuing this day and every day we’ll never be all reformationed out.
Don’t you think? Thanks for listening.
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1. Richard Donovan, "What Do You Want Me To Do For You?" Sermon Writer: Making Preaching More of a Joy! 22, no. 10 (October 9, 2018): , October 9, 2018, accessed October 26, 2018, https://www.sermonwriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-10-28-Proper25B.doc.
2. St. Mark 10:50. (NIV) [NIV= The New International Version ]
3. Emily McFarlane Miller, "Ministry Matters,” Eugene Peterson, Author of The Message and Pastor to Other Pastors, Dies at Age 85", October 23, 2018, , accessed October 26, 2018, https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9307/eugene-peterson-author-of-the-message-and-pastor-to-other-pastors-dies-at-age-85.
4. St. Mark 10:52. (MSG) [MSG=The Message]
5. William H. Willimon, "Faith to Follow," Pulpit Resource, B, 43, no. 4 (October 25, 2015), p. 19.
Sermon preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church
Aurora
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