Blessed to be a Blessing 2

Mark chapter 10 has been our companion all through October, and as I’ve remarked several times, it collects some of the most challenging examples of Jesus’ call to discipleship. I mean, think of the stories we’ve heard just the past 2 weeks. Jesus has been pointing to his own total self-giving, inviting people to trust in him rather than in their own presuppositions about how life works – and so far he has been met with incomprehension or flat refusal.
 
2 weeks ago, the so-called rich young ruler, a man who had all sorts of spiritual assets and social assets and financial assets, was heartbroken to learn that it was impossible for him to follow Jesus while continuing to rely on those. People try to treat Jesus like that a lot – as if he were not worth trusting yourself to, but something to be tacked on top of the resources you really trust in. When Jesus told him it doesn’t work that way, he walked out on Jesus’ call.
 
Then last week, we saw the disciples make a similar mistake: we saw them approach Jesus based on the idea that Jesus’ total self-giving was not the heart of the story, but a prelude to getting the kind of assets the rich young ruler trusted in: power, money, authority, “glory.” They thought that Jesus was going to come into his own not as a self-giving, self-emptying God, but as the kind of God the world imagines, and they wanted to make sure to get their share of all the things that kind of God would want you to trust in.
 
So Jesus said to them “What do you want me to do for you?” And once more, now to his own disciples, he has to explain (as he still does to us, over and over) that it doesn’t work that way. Self-giving and servanthood is at the heart of how God does things. Trusting God is not an add-on to trusting the world. It’s a permanent lifestyle. God doesn’t do things through collecting glory, but by giving it away. He doesn’t do things by keeping blessing, but by being a blessing to others. That’s the call. That’s God’s style.

Today, we get the capper to this challenging chapter 10 of Mark. The Gospel writers are so artful in the way they collect these episodes of Jesus’ life. We’ve seen people who are insiders, spiritually privileged, turn out to be unable to accept Jesus’ call, unable to imagine trusting him as he does things his way – but rather than conclude with one more, Mark finishes instead with a very striking contrast, brilliantly presented.
 
Today, we meet Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is the last in line for Jesus’ call in Mark 10, and he deals with it very differently – the polar opposite of what the rich young ruler and the disciples did. Look at the text. How is he described? Where is he? Is he a person of privilege? Religious and reliable? No, he’s poverty-stricken, panhandling on the side of the road. He is also blind. Both of those things, in the Jewish culture of that day, would have implied to a reader that Bartimaeus was not blessed and did not enjoy God’s favor. Of course we no longer think that way now about people who are differently abled, thank God – though I have met folks, unfortunately, who still think that way about people who panhandle. So Bartimaeus, this man who by his very being seems the opposite of somebody who might receive Jesus’ call to discipleship, is sitting by the road, begging.

He’s not there because he’s looking for God; he’s just trying to support himself. But he overhears news that Jesus is passing by. He didn’t plan for this, he didn’t maneuver himself to the front, he just hears Jesus is there; and he knows enough about who Jesus is to start begging for something far more important than money: mercy. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.
 
Since everyone thinks they know Bartimaeus is the wrong kind of person to approach a religious leader, they try to shush him.  How does the text say they do that? “Sternly,” it says. They “ordered him.” They feel free to treat him that way because he has no status, he has no resources, he has no blessing. He’s in line waiting for a sack lunch. Be quiet and let the important people meet the rabbi, for goodness sake.
 
But Jesus – this shouldn’t surprise us given how often he’s been thwarting expectations in Mark 10 -- has a very different reaction. He stops in his tracks at this cry for mercy. He recognizes something. And then – I said the Gospel writers were artful – the action suddenly gives us one verb, over and over. Do you see it? “Jesus said, CALL him here. They CALLED the blind man. Take heart, he is CALLING you.” Call, call, call. This whole chapter has been about failed calls from Jesus, and Mark doesn’t want us to miss that we’re about to see a successful one. Take heart, he is calling you. He is calling you. This is it, Bartimaeus!
 
All the religious insiders, all the people whose backgrounds would make you think they were blessed by God and likely to respond, couldn’t hear the call. They had too much to trust in already to be able to receive the generous mercy Jesus wanted to give.  But Bartimaeus hears the call, and unlike all the rest of them, what does he do?  He throws off his cloak and springs to his feet. His cloak – it may be his only possession, it may be the container he lays out on the ground to collect money and provide for himself, it may even stand for any way we try to cover up our needs. Whatever we are meant to associate with this prized possession, I’ll tell you one thing, he knows he’ll never see it again, a blind man in a big crowd like this one. But as soon as he hears Jesus’ call he throws the cloak off, wholeheartedly lets it go – the complete opposite of the rich young ruler who "grieved" even to imagine doing such a thing.
 
And then – I said the Gospel writers were artful – Jesus asks Bartimaeus a question. And it turns out to be, verbatim, a question we’ve heard before. “What do you want me to do for you?” We heard that last week, didn’t we? Jesus addressed those exact words to his disciples, and they said what they wanted -- to sit next to him, enthroned, when all this idealism about self-giving and servanthood finally came to an end and Jesus collected the real worldly money and authority that surely God wanted someone important like him to have. “What do you want me to do for you?” More stuff, more power, more prestige, please, said the disciples.
 
Bartimaeus: Same question! What do you want me to do for you? “My teacher,” says Bartimaeus, “let me see again.” Heal me, please. Meet me with mercy right at the point where I can’t help myself. Do for me what’s impossible without God. He doesn’t want a better reputation in the community, he doesn’t want worldly security, he doesn’t want money, he doesn’t want to pretend he’s doing fine. He wants wholeness.  And as Jesus heals him, Mark crowns the story with one elegant clause – it says “and he followed him on the way.” The rich young ruler refused to follow, the disciples refused the way. But this panhandler suddenly becomes God’s model of the ideal response to Jesus Christ. He reverses the rest of the chapter: Bartimaeus does hear the call, Bartimaeus does respond withholding nothing, and Bartimaeus does follow in the way.
 
So it is possible. The whole sad series of people who already trust something else too much to trust Jesus, and thus miss God’s efforts to give them more than they ever imagined – himself -- is redeemed in the person of this panhandler Bartimaeus. He’s the only healed person in Mark whose name is given, and scholars think that’s because he was known personally to the community Mark was writing to. It’s like a footnote.
 
In other words, Mark is saying to his listeners, You want to know this really happened? You want to know it’s possible, actually to put all your trust in Jesus and stop being enslaved to stuff that will inevitably let you down anyway? You want to know people really can let go and be set free? Ask Bartimaeus, he’ll tell you. Oh yes, he’s still around, forty years later. You bet. He’s right here. Still following in the way. Still grateful that God did the impossible. Still full of joy. Still in love with undeserved mercy. Go talk to Bartimaeus, Mark is saying; he’ll tell you all about it. He’s still here, still giving, still serving, still blessed and still being a blessing. Actually, I think he’s the chair of the Stewardship team.