Worship - 27th October 2024

I wonder how many people wrestle with suffering, difficulty, or challenges of some sort, or who seek the counsel of a priest, and go directly to God. Based on my own experience and that of my colleagues, a surprising number do not. Interestingly, the default scriptural recommendation for those who are suffering in some way is the Book of Job, in which Job eventually confronts God with questions about why this is happening to him, demanding an answer—which, by the way, he doesn't really receive. God reminds him who laid the foundation of the earth, and it wasn’t Job or us.

Yet, quite often, we are disinclined to demand answers in prayer, for example, from the one who laid the foundation of the earth. A good question to ask ourselves is: How did God respond when we spoke to Him? This might lead us to admit that we haven’t actually said anything to God. Why not? Is it because we're afraid we might receive an answer we won’t like?

There’s an old modern parable about the flood story that’s been used in several books and articles for about 50 years. A man is trapped on the roof of his house during a flood, praying for God to save him. A neighbor in a rowing boat comes along, then a rescue team in a motorboat, and finally a helicopter. But each time, the man turns them down, saying,

“No, thank you. God will save me.” Eventually, the man drowns and meets God, asking, “Why wasn’t I saved?” God replies, “I sent you a rowing boat, a motorboat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?”

The point of the story is that sometimes divine help or guidance comes through what may look like quite ordinary means, and we should be open to receiving it. So maybe the answer to a prayer for healing might simply be: go to the doctor. After all, what’s the point of faith if we feel reluctant to live within it?

Is our reluctance to talk to God due to a tentative faith, or are we afraid we’ll get an answer that won’t be the one we want? Are we worried that if we ask but don’t receive exactly what we desire, it will reflect badly on us—perhaps indicating insufficient faith? What if the conversation with God is not meant to be, “Please fix this,” but rather, “What should I do?” or “What is this meant to teach me?”

In that context, I sometimes wonder what sort of faith people bring with them when they come to me as a priest or pastor. I’m not a therapist; I’m not here to uncover patterns of trauma and trauma responses as a therapist might. I’m someone who’s supposed to try to comfort the afflicted and point them towards God. In this role, perhaps I should be more direct about inviting encounters with God in prayer.

The encounter between Jesus and Bartimaeus is illuminating in this respect. It has all the usual elements of a healing story: there’s an identifiable ailment, no solution, and Jesus comes along to provide the cure. However, the way in which Jesus is summoned is remarkable. Earlier in Mark’s gospel, another blind man was healed, but that man was passive and unnamed. Here, we have both a name—Bartimaeus—and a man who is shouting for Jesus’s attention. Bartimaeus was outside the normal expectations of behavior; blind beggars were meant to be seen, barely, and not often heard—sitting quietly by the side of a dusty road.

He was supposed to beg but not badger, gently reminding people with his presence of their duty to give alms. But he defied expectations and shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Something in his call made Jesus stop—exactly what, we don’t know—but Jesus did stop and asked for Bartimaeus to be brought to him.

Here is where this healing story becomes more than just a miracle story; it’s a story of a call—a disciple accepting an assignment. Bartimaeus’s transformation begins before he’s given his sight. Yes, he ultimately receives physical healing in this encounter with Jesus, but before he’s healed, he perceives Jesus more clearly than almost anyone else Jesus has encountered in Mark’s gospel up to this point. He was simply told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, yet Bartimaeus called out, “Jesus, Son of David,” identifying Jesus by his messianic designation. So far in Mark, no one else had been able to perceive Jesus so accurately, and this is the only passage in Mark where the title “Son of David” appears.

Jesus didn’t silence him. Mark’s Jesus, who has been so secretive about his identity, not only allows Bartimaeus to refer to him this way but rewards him with sight. Bartimaeus may not be the obvious choice as a model disciple, but actually, that’s how he’s presented to us here. He’s able to see Jesus for who he truly is, despite being blind. He makes his way to Jesus with a kind of desperate, reckless abandon that can’t be hindered, and his approach includes an expectation of transformation.

Remember, Bartimaeus threw off his cloak and went with exuberance to Jesus. Someone in his position would normally do well to keep their cloak, one of the few possessions they had close at hand, for fear of it being stolen. But Bartimaeus expected a change in his status. He realized that receiving the ability to see would restore him to a place of wholeness in his community. It’s almost as if casting off the cloak was a public answer to a question not yet posed: “Yes, I do want to be made well.”

So Bartimaeus was given sight and followed Jesus. Now I wonder how far he went. Did he follow Jesus all the way to Jerusalem? That’s where Jesus was headed. I wonder whether, with his newfound vision, he witnessed the humiliation, suffering, and execution of the man who healed him. I wonder if he began to question why the man who not only healed him but also told him he was saved could not save himself. What if his sight gave him the gift of seeing the resurrected and vindicated Christ?

There’s so much wondering here. Is it all too speculative? Perhaps someone should write a story about blind Bartimaeus—healed, saved, restored, follower of Jesus. Or perhaps we could find our own conclusion to the story by living it out. Maybe we should challenge ourselves to see Jesus the way blind Bartimaeus does—as the Messiah, as the Son of David—with all the implications for salvation, servant leadership, power through vulnerability, and peace through justice embodied in that title. We need to expect transformation and enter into this relationship with God not with one hand in and one hand out, but fully committed to throwing off our own cloaks in order to serve.

I’m confident that Jesus is calling us just as he called Bartimaeus, and we must decide how we will respond and whether we truly believe there is something in us that Jesus can save, can heal. Bartimaeus shows us the way because he recognized that his healing was not something to be selfishly enjoyed, but a call to discipleship. Jesus told him to go his own way because his faith had made him well—actually saved him. But Bartimaeus chose instead to follow Jesus on the road.

When blessed, healed, and delivered by God, the temptation is to take our gift and walk away. Bartimaeus reminds us that a disciple always follows, and that the way to life is always behind Jesus. But first, Bartimaeus had to muster the courage to stand up and call to the one who embodied the potential opportunity to save him.

So it is for us: start the conversation with God. It might not go the way we want, but it might save us in ways that only God can foresee. We might do well to ask ourselves what we see with the vision that God has given us, and how we take it in, absorb it, and appreciate it.

To that end, I offer this prayer:

God, our creator, may the vastness of your creation that we can begin to see through a telescope remind us of the abundance of Your love. May the loneliness of the smallest creatures and cells that we can see through a microscope remind us of how insignificant yet special we appear to be. May our vision each day of the world around us remind us that you so love the world that you sent Jesus, your Son. In all that we observe, open our eyes so that we may really see and grow in wonder and appreciation. Amen.