Pentecost 23 B: Bartimaeus and the Reformation
Mark 10: 46-52
John 8: 31-36
Romans 3:19-28
Dear Partner in Preaching,
It’s a peculiar pattern in Scripture that those who have every reason to worship and give thanks, too often don’t, while those who seem afflicted and have all kinds of reason to doubt or complain, often surprise you with their profound faith.
Or maybe it’s not so much that it’s a peculiar pattern in Scripture, but in life. Blessings for which we were once grateful are all too soon taken for granted. No longer unmerited blessing, they quickly become, at least in our fallen imagination, somehow accomplishments or, worse, entitlements. And then life gets in the way – illness, a broken relationship, painful loss, deep disappointment – and suddenly we realize how fleeting all important things are and, indeed, how vulnerable we are.
That feels to be very much a theme in the Gospel readings for both the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost and Reformation Sunday. In Mark 10 (Pentecost 23), we meet blind Bartimaeus, and goodness but it’s hard not to like him right off the bat! Having heard Jesus is coming, he starts calling out, addressing Jesus as “Son of David” (he’s clearly been listening carefully to what people are saying about this guy!), and asking for mercy. And then, when the people around him try to shush him into more respectful silence… he yells all the louder! And it works. Jesus hears him and bids him come near, and suddenly the crowds change their tune and offer encouragement: “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” While I would have likely been tempted to mutter, “yeah, no thanks to you,” Bartimaeus has no time for pettiness but excitedly throws off his cloak and rushes expectantly to Jesus.
Now, I’ll admit I have a hard time imagining what it was like to see blind Bartimaeus rush headlong through the crowd toward Jesus. Did he have help? Was he simply that surefooted and confident, so attuned to the sounds around him that he navigated the route without incident? Or did he stumble from time to time but doggedly persevere? I don’t know. But I am taken by his persistence and enthusiasm. Similarly, I do not completely understand Jesus’ question: “What do you want me to do for you?” Does Jesus not see he’s blind? Or does he give him a chance to voice his deepest hope? Whatever the case, Bartimaeus’ answer is as heartfelt as it is simple: “Teacher, let me see again.” And Jesus does, not only granting his prayer but commending his faith.
Bartimaeus has all kinds of reasons to be discouraged if not resentful, but in spite or, perhaps, because of his loss and suffering he is attuned to what a gift it is to be near Jesus and excited to make his petition known.
The folks Jesus interacts with in the eighth chapter of John (Reformation), by contrast, have every reason to receive his words about freedom with joy. They are, after all and as John deliberately points out, those “who believed in him.” They were followers, disciples, those who had decided that this was the Messiah, the one who offered abundant life and was the embodiment of God’s promises. Yet there is something about Jesus’ instruction and promise that seems to grate on their nerves and push them away. Perhaps it’s simply that Jesus offers them something they believe they already have. Which, when you think about it, could be kind of offensive. “Hey, use this product and you’ll be good looking.” Kind of implies you’re not particularly easy to look at just now. Or, a little closer to home, “Let me help you become a decent preacher.” Which makes me what kind of preacher now, exactly?
So rather than receive Jesus’ offer of freedom with gratitude, they push back, so offended they are almost nonsensical in their umbrage: “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Never been slaves to anyone? Really? But what about the Egyptians, or Assyrians, or Persians? And how are you enjoying the Roman occupation? Geesh.
So what’s going on? Why do we have this penchant to resist anything that threatens our thoughts and perceptions and – if we can admit it – illusions about our independence and self-sufficiency? The answer rests, perhaps, in Paul’s analysis. The law, Paul says in the 3rd chapter of Romans, makes sin manifest (3:20). But this isn’t simply the law of Israel, though that is certainly part of it, but the law woven into creation that inevitably points out not simply missteps and misdeeds, but the fundamental and precarious nature of our lives as fallen, mortal, vulnerable, and broken people. “Sin,” here, isn’t so much accusation but description. We are flawed, far from God, simultaneously beautiful as well as broken, courageous and confused, capable of great good and so often perpetrators of great harm.
Part of the way we tolerate these contradictions and endure the tension they create is by maintaining a level of what I would call “willful denial,” but which, when you get right down to it is little more than self-delusion. And all too often, religion aids and abets in that delusion, giving us things we can do, a heritage to boast of, a sense of what makes us distinctive over and against others. Faith – at least faith like that evinced by Bartimaeus and rediscovered by Luther – does not offer that retreat to religious practice or doctrine or identity but rather announces God’s arrival, the arrival that both spells an end to our delusions of ability and accomplishment but simultaneously promises absolute acceptance and unconditional love, the two things we desperately need but cannot attain outside relationship with someone else.
As I’ve shared before, I believe we all have a deep need to hear the words, “I love you.” Yet we cannot finally believe and trust those words unless they are preceded by three other words: “I know you.” Absent the assurance that we are known, we may fear that we have fooled our beloved, that he or she loves the person we’re presented, not the person we actually are. And so more often than not, when God gets involved in the lives of characters in the Bible – Jacob, Isaiah, Peter, these disciples who “believed in Jesus” – the initial response to God’s presence is usually not deep joy and gratitude but fear or offense, for finally the jig is up and pretense over, which feels an awful lot like dying. But then, almost immediately if not simultaneously, precisely because it was pretense, the genuine love and acceptance God embodies and offers creates new life. And sometimes, and as is the case with Bartimaeus, – and perhaps the person you’ve visiting in hospice or parent you meet who is struggling with the addiction of a child – life has already announced the “I know you” that makes completely ready to receive God’s “I love you” with thanksgiving.
I know you. I love you. Both said by the God determined to do anything and everything it takes to bring us to life. Which means that on this 23rd Sunday after Pentecost and Reformation Sunday, our task, Dear Partner, is not to valorize or sentimentalize Bartimaeus or Luther, not to lift up our heritage or compare ourselves favorably over and against others, but rather to invite an encounter with the living God we know in and through Christ and Christ’s cross and resurrection. Our job, in short, is to communicate that God both knows us and loves us, both sees through our pretense and accepts us as we are. Not the person we’re trying to be or planning to be or have promised to be, but the person we already are. Known. Loved. Already. Until suddenly we all can’t help but sing, “I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.” Amen.
Thanks for your good work and words, Dear Partner, and most especially for your witness to the justifying God of grace and love of God. In these days dominated by the vitriol partisan politics and the self-delusion and pressure to justify ourselves fueled by social media, it’s a message that matters more than ever.
Yours in Christ,
David
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