A sermon based on Mark 10:46-52
Don Friesen
October 24, 2009
Ottawa Mennonite Church
A story out of Jewish folklore tells of two young brothers who had lived all of their lives in the city. Their circumscribed existence was such that they had never seen a field or meadow. One day, however, they decided to visit the country, and as they walked along the road they saw a farmer plowing a field. They were puzzled. "Why in the world is he doing that? He turns up the earth and leaves deep furrows in it. Why would someone take a smooth piece of land covered with nice green grass and dig it up?"
Later they watched the farmer sowing grains of wheat along the furrows. "That man must have lost his senses!" exclaimed one of the brothers. "He takes good wheat and throws it into the dirt."
"I don't like the country!" said the other, in disgust. "Strange people live here." So he returned to the city.
The other brother remained in the country and witnessed a remarkable change take place several weeks later. The plowed field began to sprout tender green shoots, even more beautiful and fresher than what had grown there before. This discovery excited him, and he wrote to his brother in the city to come at once and see the wonderful transformation for himself. His brother came and he too was delighted with what he saw. With time the sproutings grew into golden heads of wheat, and slowly the brothers began to understand the purpose of the farmer's work.
Eventually the wheat ripened, and the brothers watched as the farmer went into the field with a scythe and began to cut it down. At this, one of the brothers exclaimed: "What is he doing? He worked all these months to produce this lovely wheat, and now he's cutting it down! What an idiot!" And in great disgust they returned to the city! (adapted from A Treasury of Jewish Folklore: Stories, Traditions, Legends, Humour, Wisdom and Folk Songs of the Jewish People)
Sight Is a many-splendoured Thing
Observation is a complex task, and so much depends upon what we bring to what we see. When I lost sight in one eye, I was initially worried that I would not be able to function well enough at things that require sight. Paul D who knows stuff, all kinds of stuff explained to me that the eye may be an intricate organ, but its lens is of relatively mediocre quality. Our brains do most of the work interpreting what passes through the lens, and to a certain extent the brain is able to compensate for what the lens does not see. And sure enough, with time my brain, such as it is, learned to ignore the warped and shadowy lines and images delivered by the blind eye and fill in some of the gaps.
There is more to reality than what we see. Babies and small children like to play "Peek-a-boo," and child psychologists say that for the young child a person is out of mind if he or she is out of sight. When the child can see you, you are there. When she cannot see you, you're gone! You no longer exist! And so when you reappear, only a moment later, saying "Peek-a-boo," the child squeals with delight at the unexpected reappearance. "Peek-a-boo" no longer delights most adults because as we grow older we learn that the fact that someone is not standing within your line of vision does not mean that the person no longer exists. We learn that there is more to reality than what we observe.
Much depends on what we bring to our observations. A German pastor was approached by a group of 20-somethings outside the steps of his church, and they asked him, "What is this place?"
"It's a church," he told them.
"What's a church?" they asked.
The pastor fumbled for words. "Well, it's a place where we meet; more than that, it's the group of ...us who have devoted ourselves to following Jesus."
"Who is Jesus?" they asked! (John Ortberg, "Books: Christendom Must Die...for the church to live," Christianity Today, June 16, 1997) Unbelievable that we can bring to our observations such a paucity of religious knowledge! And therefore make our observations unbelievably trivial and superficial.
Our brain informs if not directs our observation. Thirty-some years ago I went to an art exhibit in Winnipeg that was showing works of art from the Hermitage collection, among them a portrait of Leo Tolstoy. A fan of Tolstoy, I stopped before the portrait and mused about the manner of this man, such a gifted writer and a man of faith. I examined his visage with great intensity, looking for hints of his character, only to discover that the portrait of Tolstoy was behind me. I was looking at someone else's portrait!
My embarrassment has lessened since I discovered that similar things have happened to others. For example, in 1961 a work (Le Bateau) by Matisse hung upside-down in the Museum of Modern Art in New York for forty-seven days, seen by 116,000 people, until someone finally noticed the mistake. The woman who noticed it notified a museum guard, who told her, "You don't know what's up and you don't know what's down, and neither do we." It was only after she called the New York Times about the mistake that the lithograph was rehung properly.
The Story of Bartimaeus: More than a Miracle?
The Gospel reading this morning is the story of Bartimaeus, a blind man who was sitting by the side of the road when he heard a large crowd passing by. He could hear in the commotion their voices, the movements of their bodies, the rustling of their clothes, their laughter and conversation, and he discovered that in the crowd, and the reason for the crowd, was Jesus! Bartimaeus started shouting at the top of his lungs: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Mark 10:47) The crowd objected to his bellowing, telling him to keep quiet! Bartimaeus, however, was having none of it, and he "cried out even more loudly, Son of David, have mercy on me!'" (10:48) By then Jesus had heard him, stopped in his tracks, and said, "Call him here." (10:49)
Someone in the crowd relayed the message, saying, "Take heart; ...he is calling you." (Mark 10:49) "On your feet!" (NIV) And with great haste Bartimaeus threw off his cloak, jumped to his feet at once and came to Jesus. (10:50, NIV, The Message) And Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?" (10:51) And there's no hesitation in the blind man's response, "Rabbi, I want to see." (10:51, NIV) "Go," said Jesus, "your faith has made you well." (10:52)
It's a simple story: A man is blind. Jesus is known as a healer. The blind man asks Jesus to heal him. Jesus does. The blind man can see again! Commentators, however, say that there's more to this story than a healing miracle. One commentator (Hubert Beck) says that "the performance of miracles is of little consequence in the long haul of things. (Miracles) undoubtedly create an immediate sensation, but any long lasting significance is ...quickly lost...."
I'm not sure Bartimaeus would agree! Unless he quickly lost his sight again, the miracle was hardly insignificant. I would regard the return of sight to my left eye very significant! I watch technological developments in this regard with fascination, hoping that in my lifetime a computer chip in my eye may help to make my driving a little less erratic! And I'm not averse to a miracle! I don't think it's beyond God's power. I want neither to minimize the power of God nor to presume upon it.
It's true, however, that perspective also influences how we view miracles. For one thing, miracle workers were hardly unknown in New Testament times; the book of Acts, for example, refers to other "miracle workers" encountered by the disciples. (Acts 19:11-13) Miracles were not unique to Jesus, and so, while Bartimeaus may have felt otherwise, this story may have been included in the Gospel for other reasons.
One reason the story may have been included is that the question Jesus asked Bartimaeus "What do you want me to do for you?" (10:51) is the same question Jesus asked the disciples (10:36) in the story just prior to this story. When Jesus asked the disciples this question, it was in response to James and John's request for special privileges in the kingdom of God. The context and tone is very different in the two stories, and it's ironic that the disciples seem blind to Jesus' purpose, while blind Bartimaeus sees the purpose of Jesus with great clarity. No subterfuge. No political manoeuvring. Just faith in the power of God evident in Jesus, and gratitude that he regained his sight.
Through a Glass, Darkly
Bartimaeus' story makes the disciples' inability to see that much more vivid. The disciples' view of the kingdom of God was blurred; they really did see "through a glass, darkly" (1 Corinthians 13:12), as the Apostle Paul phrased it. Some day, however, wrote Paul, we will "see reality whole and face to face!" (13:12, PHL) "Now (we) know in part; then (we) shall understand fully...." (13:12, RSV)
Someone has compared the miracles of Jesus to those peep-holes that you see on construction site walls. The construction people want to keep you out, for your own safety, but for the curious they offer those small holes cut into the walls so that you can see what's going on inside. These little windows, if you will, do not offer an unobstructed view of things, and so your vision is rather limited.
Similarly, Jesus' miracles, and Jesus' stories, for that matter, offer us brief glimpses into the kingdom of God. Jesus often started his parables with the phrase, "The kingdom of God is like ..." (Matthew 13:31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52; 20:1; 25:1), offering us a resemblance of life in the kingdom, not a photograph. Jesus' stories offer a glimpse rather than a comprehensive panorama of the entire kingdom.
This way of looking at divine revelation is reminiscent of Moses, who had to beg for a glimpse of God, and even then he only caught a glimpse of God's back. (Exodus 33:23) God had to shield Moses as God passed by, lest Moses be overcome by God's radiance. (33:22) And while Moses was honoured with a peek, Moses' face was forever emblazoned with God's radiance and he had to wear a veil when he came away from God's presence and into human company. (34:34) The prophet Habakkuk plays with the same image when he writes about God's glory; it "covered the heavens...." he wrote. "The brightness was like the sun; rays (of light) came forth from his hand...." (Habakkuk 3:3-4) Jesus' transfiguration also has a display of dazzling light. (Mark 9:2-13)
There are moments in life, fleeting moments, when the curtain between heaven and earth is drawn back and we catch, if but for a moment, a glimpse of eternity. Every once in a while, we see something seemingly ordinary but which is "so touching, so incandescent ...that it's almost beyond bearing." (Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life, 1992, pages 203-204)
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, another great Russian writer, said, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "Some things lead beyond words. Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to ...spiritual experience. Through art we are sometimes visited dimly, briefly by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking. Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales: look into it and you will see not yourself but for one second, the Inaccessible, (a realm beyond reach), and ...the soul ...groan(s)..." (Nobel Lecture in Literature, 1970)
A Kingdom Peek Reveals ...
If the story of Bartimaeus provides a peek, a window into the kingdom of God, what does it reveal to us? Let me suggest several things.
... God's Desire for our Shalom and Shalem
For one thing, it reveals God's desire for our well-being. Our own tradition stresses God's desire for shalom, for peace in families, in communities, in nations, in the world. However, God is also concerned with shelem, a Hebrew cognate of shalom. God is also concerned for our health and wholeness. God is concerned for human salvation in its totality, and that includes our health.
As we peek into the stories of Jesus, we see that he did not share the contempt toward the weak or sick common among his contemporaries and also common among some of our own! While not wanting to be known as a miracle worker, many of his miracles are reported, and many of them are miracles of healing. The gospels report at least twenty-six individual healings and ten more references to "many" being healed. Jesus passed on this concern to his disciples, giving them the authority to heal diseases and infirmities. (Mark 6:7; Acts 3) The early church saw healing as one of the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:9), and the New Testament concludes with a remarkable vision of a renewed and healed cosmic order in which the past with its suffering fades away, and all things are made new.
... the Kingdom of God's Otherworldliness
The story of Bartimaeus also provides a peek into the heavenly kingdom's otherworldliness. The healing of Bartimaeus' sight reveals not only God's concern for human well-being, it reveals a transcendent dimension to our existence that too often is dismissed out of hand.
Modern Mennonites are particularly fond of the earthly dimension of the heavenly kingdom. It's something we can touch, and manage, and chart and report upon. And I'm pleased with this legacy; often churches are so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good, but our emphasis has moved to the more utilitarian concept of God's kingdom. We forget that Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world...." (John 18:36, NIV)
Jesus prayed, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10), so it behooves us to delve into the mystery of what God's will and kingdom look like in heaven. It encourages some humility on our part about our ability to see with any breadth and depth of vision. It points beyond the boundaries of our earthly ability to see. It encourages us to develop new eyes, new ways of looking at things, new ways, for example, of seeing the value in things and people that others view as insignificant.
Peter Berger (1929- ), a well-known sociologist, notes that our age can only come to faith by opening its eyes. He wrote: "A rediscovery of the supernatural will be, above all, a regaining of openness in our perception of reality. ... It will be an overcoming of triviality. In openness to the signals of transcendence the true proportions of our experience are rediscovered." (A Rumour of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural, 1970, page 95)
... Our Role in Miracles and other Kingdom Activity
I think the story of Bartimaeus also gives us a glimpse into our role in kingdom activity. Bartimaeus was eager to see Jesus. When he heard Jesus was nearby, he immediately began shouting, eager to get Jesus' attention. When he got Jesus to stop, Bartimaeus quickly threw off his cloak, jumped to his feet at once and came to Jesus. There's nothing cool, careful, calculating, or cautious about Bartimaeus. There's nothing proper or polite about his approach. There is just his honest need, and his great eagerness and effort to be near Jesus. Bartimaeus is a portrait of faith, in all of its needy, eager, hopeful intensity.
Jesus' question of Bartimaeus, "What do you want me to do for you?" (10:51) is not as effortless an offer as it may appear. Bartimaeus has to do much of the work. The genius of the question is that in answering it we are forced to decide what is important to us.
Wendell Berry (1934- ), a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays, suggested that "to treat life as less than a miracle is to give up on it." (Life is a Miracle: an Essay against Modern Superstition," 2001, page 10) Bartimaeus refused to give up on the miracle of life and faith, the miracle called Jesus. He jumped up and grabbed the opportunity God's grace afforded him.
It makes me wonder what a peek into our congregation might reveal about God's kingdom. Would it offer a glimpse of God's Spirit at work? A glimpse of something spiritually attractive and compelling? A glimpse, even, of something mysterious and holy?
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.