Oct 25, 2009 – Reformation Sunday
Mark 10:46-52
Vision to Follow
Reformation Sunday – Lectionary 30
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg. The theses, or statements, sought greater clarity around the issue of indulgences, little slips of paper that were being sold by the church guaranteeing the forgiveness of sins.
Luther didn’t think such a guarantee needed to be sold. He thought, rather, that God’s grace and mercy are free gifts God gives to everyone, even sinners. Especially sinners!
See, Luther had had a moment of clarity into God’s grace. That is all. And it changed everything. It changed him. It changed his friends. And it changed the church. In a real way, the reformation of the church and the reformation of individual lives is always about being more and more clear about God’s grace and how it works.
Luther simply thought that in his time the truth about God’s grace had become obscured. That the truth about God’s free, generous, over-abundant, available-to-everyone love was no longer as clear as it could be. And he was nothing if not persistent in his attempt to clarify the issue and to follow wherever that might lead.
Reformation – being re-formed by God – is always about moving from where we are into greater clarity about God’s amazing grace and where that will lead us.
This is what happens to Bartimaeus, right? In this story, Baritmaeus wants to be this rabbi Jesus’s disciple. He’s sitting by the side of the road. He’s blind, and he’s a beggar. In the eyes of his neighbours, he’s a nobody.
Perhaps in the eyes of those neighbours he’s committed some great sin that Has led to his blindness, for he says, “Let me see again,” to Jesus. In any case, Jesus doesn’t seem to think he’s an unsuitable candidate for discipleship, As unlikely as he may look.
See, in that time, rabbis gathered disciples around them not just to help them come to know what the rabbi knows. But rather, and ultimately, to help them come to do what the rabbi himself does.
Jesus has been telling his disciples that their work as his disciples is to follow him, that is, to do as he does: feed the hungry, forgive the sinner, include the excluded, heal the sick.
But how can Bartimaeus do that? His society is keeping him down. So what does Jesus do? He heals him so that he can follow Jesus better. Now he not only has great insight into who Jesus is. He is also able to do what Jesus does.
Jesus heals him so that he can get up from the side of the road where society has confined him and do as his rabbi does. Jesus looks at this unlikely candidate for discipleship and thinks, He can do this. He wants to follow. He wants to be my disciple. He can do this. So, he raises him up.
That’s what the text says in Greek: same word as for resurrection: he raises him up. He graciously, freely, mercifully raises him from the dust by the side of the road, So that he can lead a new life of following Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, To the cross. He leaves behind his old life, symbolized by his begging cloak, into which people might toss coins for him.
He is now leaving behind his only means of providing for himself. And he is trusting God alone for his sustenance as he follows Jesus. Because his job now as a disciple of Jesus is to do as Jesus does.
He’s been freely, graciously healed and called so that he can now do as his Rabbi, his teacher does. He is re-shaped, re-made, raised up, re-formed so that he can now do as Jesus does.
But, as always, re-formation involves a leaving behind and a moving forward into a new life. What might this look like in the church?
Deacon story
God/Jesus as the really persistent one: Bartimaeus the only one healed in Mark’s Gospel who follows Jesus. God is calling you. God is pouring out his grace on you. Will you be re-shaped, re-formed so that you can do as the teacher does?
Blind Bartimaeus sits by the road, unable to go anywhere besides walk the well-traveled path he knows to and from the place where he sleeps to the place where he begs. It is difficult for him to move beyond the places he is already familiar with. He hears that Jesus is about to pass him by and he thinks, “Here is one who can help me.”
Sitting on the ground, wrapped in his cloak that he uses to catch his coins, this symbol of his old life and his dependence on others, he decides his moment has come. It is the moment to act. “Jesus, son of David,” he says, “Have mercy on me.” He calls out to the Son of David: he recognizes in Jesus the Messiah who has come to bring healing and wholeness, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberation to the captives.
And while those who would wish to keep him in his place shout him down, Bartimaeus shows his faith, his trust in Jesus, by persisting in shouting out to Jesus. And Jesus hears him. And Jesus calls him to himself.
And then Jesus asks him the million dollar question:“What is it you want me to do for you?” The exact same question he asked the disciples last week, the disciples who answered in a way that makes us embarrassed for them, who said they wanted glory and status and honour.
And so we are waiting with great anticipation to hear how Bartimaeus will answer. What will he say, we wonder? He clearly already has keen insight into who Jesus is: the Son of David! Not even his disciples seem to see this very clearly. But Bartimaeus does.
And now we hear him give an answer that Jesus seems to love. He says, “Let me see again.” Four little words: Let me see again. Although he already has keener insight into Jesus than the disciples, he wants even more clarity, even more vision.
So Jesus raises him up from the ground and grants his wish immediately. And why does Bartimaeus want this clarity of vision? So he can follow Jesus on the way he is going. So he can leave his old life behind, and enter into a new life with Jesus. So he can go, with Jesus, to the cross, for in the next sentence, that’s where they go. He wants to be healed so he can follow Jesus to the cross.
Jesus in his mercy raises Bartimaeus up and grants him greater clarity. Jesus enables Bartimaeus to leave behind all that is getting in the way of giving himself wholly and totally to Jesus and his ministry of love. We are reminded, right, of the rich young man who came to Jesus a few weeks ago and who couldn’t leave behind his wealth, his old life to follow Jesus.
There is much that would conspire to leave us sitting in the dust by the side of the road. There is much that would hold us back from giving our lives and surrendering our wills to Jesus. There are illnesses of various kinds that would do this.
There is blindness to the full truth about Jesus and about what God is accomplishing through him: the merciful restoration and reformation of this world and of every plant, animal, rock, tree and human being in it.
Blindness to the immense and overflowing mercy of God that knows exactly what it is like to nailed to the cross, to be subjected to scorn, to know grief and despair.
Blindness to the sheer loving grace of God that Jesus reveals to us.
Deafness to what God is calling you to be and do in Christ.
These are illnesses of self-will rather than God’s will. Illnesses of greed and acquisitiveness. Illnesses of apathy and disregard. Blindness to the plight of so many homeless and hungry poor. Blindness to the fact that we are all brothers and sisters to one another.
We, individually, need reformation: we need to be re-formed. And, as a church, as a congregation, we continually need reformation: we need to be reformed.
Help us to see, Lord. Help us to see how much we need you and your grace. Help us to see more clearly how much you wish to heal us of all that holds us back from giving ourselves to you. Help us to see more clearly how much your will wishes to live in us. Help us to be people of vision and clarity about your loving mission. Raise us up and heal us so that we can follow.
Do not pass us by. Do not leave us on the road. In your mercy, turn to us. Re-make us. Re-form us. Give us your clarity of vision and your resoluteness of purpose. Help us to cast off our cloaks of blindness, the Old Adams and Eves who cannot and do not want to see what you are up to.
Feed us with yourself. Plant yourself so deeply inside us that you become our new selves. Re-make us in your image alone. Re-form us into you. Raise us up from sitting by the side of the road so we can journey with you to the cross. So that can be light for those who sit in darkness there.
Music for those sit in silence.
Company for those who eat alone.
Friends for the friendless.
Joy to the joyless.
Bread for the hungry and drink for the thirsty.
Live in us. Help us to hear that you are calling us to yourself, Lord. Help us, Lord, to always be people who persist like Bartimaeus in wanting greater clarity into who you are and greater insight into what you are doing in the world.
Help us, Lord, to truly be people of the reformation, people of grace who recognize the need to be always re-formed into your image, so that we can be a church who follows you on the way to cross where you lead us to the poor ones, the hungry ones, the broken ones.
Help us to answer wisely the question, “What do you want me to do for you?” Help us to throw off our cloaks of darkness and follow you in the way of light. Amen
~ Pastor Michael Kurtz
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