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Our Gospel lesson comes to us from Mark,
chapter 10, verses 46-52.
They came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.
When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And the disciples called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”
So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.”
Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.”
Immediately, Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed him on the way.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Heavy Words Not Lightly Thrown
Mark 10:46-52
What do you want me to do for you?
What do you want me to do for you?
In the film Traffic, Michael Douglas plays Robert Wakefield, a prominent federal judge who is appointed to serve as the national Drug Czar to combat drug trafficking. He is both enraged and politically embarrassed when he realizes that his own daughter, Caroline, has fallen into the clutches of drug addiction.
Father and daughter become estranged, totally alienated, after repeated confrontations. What do you want me to do for you he screams. There’s nothing you can do for me she shrieks.
She flees from home and in her misery and hopelessness, as she becomes so besieged by drugs; she ends up on the streets.
The father, in utter desperation, finally stops, stands still and prays for God’s mercy, realizing that his love for his daughter is greater than his anger.
So he goes after her in the depths of urban hell, even though she is so wasted that she can no longer call for help, and he finds her, throws out her latest customer and with a heart full of God’s mercy, embraces his glassy eyed daughter and weeps over her.
At the end of the film, we see a father and daughter working together to battle her disease and we witness the birth of hope for both of them.*
“Jesus, have mercy on me! Have mercy on me!”
In today’s text, the call for mercy is a shout and a scream; heavy words not lightly thrown. We meet Bartimaeus, in desperate need. Here’s a man who subsists in the roadside gutter; a sightless man dependent on others to show him the way; a blind beggar who in the midst of poverty has kept his ears open for the sounds of hope. And his hope is found in Jesus, who he dares to believe can offer him a miracle.
“Jesus, do something for me.”
Wendell Berry suggests that “to treat life as less than a miracle is to give up on it.”** Well today, enthusiastically, unreservedly, rebelliously, Bartimaeus refuses to give up on life. This Bartimaeus will not be silenced, will not meekly behave, will not politely stick out his cup and jiggle his change. He has the audacity to call attention to himself; to howl and holler and wail his way into the Kingdom. Unceremoniously he flies out of the gutter, heaves off the cloak of his beggar life, and grabs the guts and the grace of the Christian life.***
“What do you want me to do for you?”
“Let me see.”
If we are to fully understand this passage then we have to look at the text that’s come immediately before this one. We meet Jesus and the disciples on the road to Jerusalem. He takes them aside and confides, “See Jerusalem, that’s where I’ll be handed over. Up ahead is the betrayal and affliction. We’re headed to my execution and my resurrection.
But James and John can’t see.
Here they are having a serious conversation. Jesus is a dead man walking; the cross is looming large, they are only days away from the crucifixion and it’s a rather serious conversation. You’d think the disciples would respond with some kind of mercy.
But no, they can’t see.
You’d think the disciples would surround Jesus with their collective care.
But no, they can’t see beyond themselves.
Instead they whisper, “Jesus, Jesus, What about us? Focus on us.”
“What do you want me to do for you,” Jesus asks.
“We want box seats in the Kingdom of Heaven; we want seats to your right and left.”
“Box seats in the Kingdom? That’s not something I can do. Box seats are not mine to give.”
When we look with new eyes to where this text is placed in Mark, we realize in this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus is surrounded by those who can not or will not see.
“What do you want me to do for you?”
“We want to be right there in your glory.”
He’s surrounded by those who can not see – until Bartimaeus.
“What do you want me to do for you Bartimaeus?”
“Let me see.”
Then take heart, get up, Jesus is calling you.
Tom Long tells the story of one woman who heard the call. Her name is Grace Thomas. Several years ago she was buried at the First Baptist Church cemetery in Decatur, Georgia. You’ve probably never heard of Grace Thomas. She was the child of a streetcar conductor from Birmingham, Alabama. She married and moved to Atlanta where she raised a family, worked as a secretary at the state capital and attended law school at night.
When she finally graduated from law school, she astonished her family by saying, “I’m not going to practice law. I’ve decided to run for political office.”
They said, “Mother, what office?”
Expecting her to say school board or library trustees, she said, “I’m going to run for governor of Georgia -- the highest office in the state.”
In 1962 she ran for governor of Georgia. The civil rights movement was in full bloom and the stakes were high. She traveled around the state with a message of progress and racial harmony. She received death threats and traveled with her family to protect her.
One day, she went to give a campaign speech in the little town of Louisville, Georgia. The town square in Louisville is not a Civil War monument or a county courthouse, it’s an old slave market where human beings were bought and sold. She decided to give her speech under the canopy of that slave market. She addressed a crowd of farmers and merchants and she pointed at the slave market and said, “This, thank God, has passed and the new has come. Open your eyes. It’s time to join hands, all races together.”
Somebody in the crowd shouted at her, “Are you a communist?”
“No!” she said.
“Then where did you get these darned crazy ideas?”
She thought about it for a minute. And then she pointed at the steeple of the First Baptist Church and she said, “I got them over there in Sunday School!”****
Grace Thomas looked and saw the church.
She remembered where she heard the voice of Jesus and where she was given new eyes to see. She also learned that to follow Jesus on the way is to ask him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
As we follow Jesus on the way with new sight we too are called to ask our Lord, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Thanks be to God.
Endnotes
* Duncan Maysilles. Commentary of the Grace in Traffic. www.textweek.com/movies/grace.
** Wendell Berry. Life is a Miracle: an Essay Against Modern Superstition. Counterpoint Press, 2001.
*** Susan Andrews. Sermon: "How Eager Are You?" Mark 10:46-52, Day 1, A division of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, Georgia. October 26, 2003.
**** Thomas G. Long. Sermon: “Where You Never Expected To Be.” The Chicago Sunday Evening Club/30 Good Minutes, Program #5004. Chicago, IL, October 22, 2006.
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