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Twentieth Sunday After
Pentecost – October 26, 2003
Mark 10:46-52
“What do you want me to do for you?” asked Jesus.
How would you answer that question if Jesus posed it to you today? What do you want from God?
You heard the story just read. Jesus and the disciples went to Jericho. Evidently, they were a big hit because when they leave the city, a huge crowd follows along. And as they pass through the city gates, a blind beggar by the name of Bartimaeus begins to shout.
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon me!”
Now the people react to this vocal nuisance by telling blind Bartimaeus to just shut up. After all, begging for money from Jesus is about as unseemly as passing the offering plate to the ministers and choir at church on Sunday. You just don’t do that! Its just not done! The offering plate never goes any further than there! That’s because ministers – and choir members – like Jesus – never carry cash! And besides, we wear these robes! So the people say to old Bartimaeus, “Bart, just leave Jesus alone, and don’t bother him. You’re here by the city gates every day. You were here yesterday. You’ll be here tomorrow. People always treat you with mercy, and you get what you need. Just let it be for today.”
Oh, religious people can figure out all sorts of reasons poor people ought to shut up. And upon hearing these reasons, Bartimaeus rethinks his position. Then, all the louder he shouts, “”JESUS, SON OF DAVID, SAVE ME FROM THESE PEOPLE!” Well, that’s not exactly what he said. But that’s probably what he was thinking.
And Jesus heard Bartimaeus, and called him.
“What do you want me to do for you?” asks Jesus.
Just a simple direct question.
And Bartimaeus answers.
“I want to see.”
What would you say if the question was posed to you?
Thinking about this story this week, it occurred to me that it is – at its heart – a story about contrasting expectations. The crowd didn’t expect a whole lot from Jesus for the beggar, did they? But the beggar expected something really BIG from Jesus. Bartimaeus expected a miracle - a complete transformation of his life as he knew it!
What are you expecting from Jesus? What are we expecting as a church?
Let me introduce you this morning to “Hank.” Hank is a fellow John Ortberg talks about in his book, “The Life You’ve Always Wanted.” Hank – not his real name – was a member of a church John served. And in the odd sort of way it sometimes happens with good sermon illustrations, Hank – it seems - has also belonged to all the churches I’ve ever served, including this one! Oh yes, there is at least one Hank sitting here today. Maybe even two or three or fifty! And probably a Henrietta or two as well!
Hank, Ortberg writes, was a cranky guy. That’s a delicate way of saying he was a dark cloud on a sunny day. He didn’t smile very much, and had a great knack for discovering islands of bad news in oceans of happiness. Hank’s native language was complaint, and he was fluent in it. It was never a question of whether Hank was complaining about something. It was just a question of what Hank was complaining about now. Hank had a critical, dour spirit.
There was a particular time when Hank’s chief complaint was about the music at church. “It’s too loud!” he protested to everyone he could get to listen, including innocent visitors who didn’t know enough to get out of his way. The staff tried to smooth things over and help Hank see that, in a church, people have all sorts of opinions about music– some think the music is too loud, others say it’s too soft, and if it’s not one or the other of those, the music is too slow, or much too fast. You can’t ever win with church music, you know! Besides, they told Hank, we shouldn’t be so openly critical in the presence of visitors.
Well, that diplomatic explanation
seemed to work. Or so thought the staff. Then one day, who shows up at the
church door but an agent from OSHA – the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration – investigating a complaint that the church music was so loud it
was causing people to go deaf!
And even though the complaint was filed as a workplace violation by an “anonymous member of the church staff”, everyone knew who had really filed the complaint! Hank!
The OSHA agent said he was embarrassed to even come out to investigate, but the rules said every workplace complaint must be checked into. Said the agent, “Do you have any idea how much ridicule I’ve faced around the office since everyone discovered I was going out to bust a church?”
Well, everyone laughed. Hank’s joyless spirit often produced humor like that. But more often than not, it produced sadness. His children did not know him or want to spend time with him. His wife felt unloved and constantly criticized. He had no real friends.
And he wasn’t going to change. Hank had grown up a cranky young guy, and now he was just a cranky old man. Are you a Hank? Do you know one? Are you sitting near a Hank today?
Well, listen to what John Ortberg says. “Even more troubling than (Hank’s) lack of change was the fact that NOBODY WAS SURPRISED BY IT. It was as if everyone simply EXPECTED that his soul would remain withered and sour year after year, decade after decade.” Yes, the church did have some expectations of Hank. They expected him to believe certain things. They expected him to attend services. They expected him to support the church financially. They expected him to read the Bible, and pray, and avoid certain sins.
But here’s what they didn’t expect.
No one REALLY expected that Hank – by the power of the Holy Spirit - would progressively become more and more like Jesus!
What do you expect of yourself?
What do we expect of each other as Christian disciples? Or, as Jesus put
it to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”
For Bartimaus, it was to be transformed from being a person wholly dependent upon the charity of others into a person with beautiful gifts of his own to share. Bartimaeus fully believed that, to be in the presence of Christ was to be in the presence of a spiritual power fully capable of transforming his life. The old really COULD pass away! The new really CAN come!
Now listen to me here. Not only is this personal transformation a possibility of the Gospel of Jesus, it is a requirement of the Gospel. It is mandatory. It is what our faith is all about. When you come to God, it is fully expected that you will change. You can no longer be the person you used to be. The selfishness you learned as a child, must be overcome; the ruthless economic bottom-line determinism you learned in a corporate career has to be abandoned; the bitterness and anger that came from the injuries of a divorce need to be resolved; the quickness with which you judge people, and the slowness with which you embrace difference, and the tendency you have to think that the only life that really counts is yours all must go. You cannot be a Christian and remain as you are. You have to change.
And here is what the change looks like. St. Paul, once asked about how you can know if you’re really alive in Christ, answered that the question we should all ask ourselves is this: “Am I becoming more and more like Jesus?”
You see, the church cannot be the church if it’s pews are merely filled with the sinful and fallen personalities of Hank, and Henrietta, and Marty, and Steve, and Bob, and Linda, and Pat, and – fill in your own name. The church only becomes the church when the pews are being filled by ordinary people like you and me who are bit-by-bit taking on the personality and character of Christ.
So what are the expectations before us as members of a church of Jesus Christ? Well, there are many more than we can talk about today, but let me just briefly name a few.
First, we share an expectation that all of our members will become softer, gentler, more loving people whose mission in life is the healing of others. You know, there’s a lot of heartache in the world, a lot of injury, a lot of tragedy. And what broken and bruised people need in their lives is not indifference, not preaching, not easy answers to life’s most difficult questions. No, what we humans need in our lives is someone who will simply be the presence of love in our lives. And love – you see – is patient and kind – it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things – love never gives up. And when love is present, it works in the background to bring about healing over time. We expect that every member of our church will become more loving.
Second, we share an expectation that all of our members will become more welcoming and accepting of others – especially those not like us. Those of you who ernjoy “The Simpson’s” may remember the scene when Homer Simpson asks his fundamentalist Christian neighbors where they’ve been all week. The neighbor replies, “We went away to a Christian camp. We were learning to be more judgmental.”
You and I have to leave judgment behind and learn to relate to others – especially those we identify as “sinners” – as Jesus did. He befriended them. Ate with them. Valued the meaning of their lives. That’s the only way we will ever be able to make a positive difference in others, you know. That’s the only way we will lead them to faith. So we have an expectation that the members of our church will learn to open their arms in love to everyone.
Third – and I think this is a good one for us – there is an expectation that we will become younger even as we grow older! As I was listening to Psalm 92 being read last Sunday, I found myself smiling over a beautiful line. Here’s what it says:
“The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green…”
Now, you may look like an old Oak tree on the outside, but the Gospel promises that there’s plenty of green wood in you yet!
Last week, I mentioned the name of my friend Harold Gustafson who died a few years ago at 80-something years of age. Harold was old! His body looked old! But there was a twinkle in Harold’s eye! Whenever the kids of the church needed adults to be with them, they asked for Harold. Whenever they had a panel discussion, they asked Harold to be on the panel. And he was always the star of the show! Harold had a spirit in him that was lively and young, and the kids picked up on it. Harold – at 80-something – was full of green wood!
You need to discover the green wood in you, too! Green wood means that old dogs can learn new tricks, and ancient forests can still grow. Let’s make that an expectation of our church members – that every last one of us will grow younger even as we grow older!
And finally today, in the Bible, there is an expectation about joy. Now there’s a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is the emotion you feel when things are going great. Joy, on the other hand, is that inner confidence and strength that says, “Even though my world has fallen apart, I know that God cares about me, and will rescue me.” Joy is the ability to find God’s beauty in life even when ugliness seems to rule the day.
Next Sunday is All Saints Sunday. It’s the day God invites us to lift our eyes to the heavens, and to embrace in love those who’ve died. It’s God’s way of saying, “I haven’t forgotten the promise I made. Your loved ones are not lost to you, nor you to them. The day will come when we will rejoice together again!”
I so very much needed that assurance thirty years ago when, early in November, my father died at 50-years of age. He was much too young to die. And I was much too young to lose him.
Well, in the days and weeks afterwards, I found myself often slipping into the sanctuary of our church to weep and to pray and to somehow express the depth of my loss. And while I sat in the sanctuary, a psalm kept coming to mind. And this is what the psalm said:
And I wondered, what does that have to do with me? This is not a good day, and there is nothing to rejoice about.
But the words remained, repeating themselves over and over again like a mantra. “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!”
And then came a moment when I realized something about Psalm 118. It is a Psalm about great tragedy and loss. It is about a day that dawns with incredible evil and human hardship. And it is a Psalm that says something like this, “Though this day dawned with tragedy and heartache, God, in love, has now come to make it His day! God is at work in it to bring life from death, hope from despair, and joy from sadness. The Lord is making a NEW day out of this awful, nightmarish old day, and when the new day is complete, it will be the most beautiful day you’ve ever seen!”
One of the most beautiful
gifts God gives his children is the gift of quiet, hopeful joy because of God’s
faithfulness to us even in the face of our hurts and tears.
Now how can God expect us to change in these ways? How in the world are people like us going to become more loving, more accepting, younger, and able to experience joy?
Well, it happens like this. Jesus finds us today sitting here – just as if we were sitting outside the gates of Jericho - calling out for help. And he hears our voice – your voice – my voice. And he comes to us and says:
“What do you want me to do for you?”
And, we like the blind beggar Bartimaeus, must tell Jesus the truth:
“Lord, I want to become more loving.”
“I want to become younger in my old age.”
“I want to find joy in the
midst of my tears.”
Or maybe it’s something else that’s on your heart today.
And did you notice what Jesus said to the beggar?
“Go, your faith has made you well.”
And the Bible tells us that old Bartimaeus got up from where he sat in weakness, and followed Jesus along the road to life.
Today, I invite you to do the same!