The Rev. Roger Bower
Isaiah 59:(1-4)9-19 | Psalm 13 | Hebrews 5:12-6:1,9-12 | Mark 10:46-52
Good Morning everyone. Time check. This is one of the most confusing days of the year. I spend half the day out of sorts because my car clock says one thing, my computer says another and my watch is always wrong. So if I am a little off track today, please forgive me.
As we gather around the Lord's Table we have a powerful Gospel story. The more I read this I realized how powerful it is. I would like to re-read this and add a few more things. Sometimes if you are like me when I am sitting in the pews listening to the Gospel it goes in one ear and out the other.
Close your eyes for a moment.
It is a hot day on Jericho about three in the afternoon. Jesus and his disciples have been inside the gates of the city teaching and preaching. Imagine the gates of Jericho, the big strong walls, and at the gate structure there are merchants and traders. You can hear all the animals. You hear the sounds of children playing and smell the meals cooking. You hear the chatter of people gathering at the temple gates. Suddenly there is a murmur; Yashur of Nazareth is coming through the gates. He and his disciples have been teaching and they are going to the countryside. Let us listen to him. As you look through the gates Yashur of Nazareth is coming with his disciples. We see at the gate structure a blind beggar sitting on his mat. A blind man at that time was useless. He had to beg for everything. This blind man can hear everyone saying Yashur of Nazareth is coming. Finally, everyone is in uproar and the blind man calls out, "Yashur of Nazareth have mercy on me." His friends sternly rebuke him by saying, "He has no use for you. You are blind and be quiet." The blind man yells louder, "Yashur of Nazareth have mercy on me." Then sudden stillness. The master has halted his steps and turns and walks to the blind man and say, "I am here, what do you wish of me?" The blind man with tears says, "Let me see again." The master gently takes him by the hand and says, "Go my son. Your faith has made you well." Immediately the blind man opened his eyes and began to see everything. He picks up his mat and says, "Yahsur, master and teacher, I wish to follow you along your way." Open you eyes.
Thank you. A little different. It was more powerful told that way. When I read these stories in the scriptures it brings me to two questions. First, did this really happen? We do not know how long this guy was blind. Did Jesus really do this? Yes. The scripture says it so. It is interesting in another Gospel, John's Gospel, there is another story of healing a blind man. The last part says there are many other things that Jesus did. If every one of them were written down I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that were written. Did this really happen? YES!
Second question, could this happen today? Is God still active? Does he still pull miracles out of the hat? Yes, I have seen it happen. Countless times. I can imagine with the pastoral care that Fr. Dan does, we see the miracles happening in peoples lives. It is God still active, lovingly and making miracles happen in people's lives. YES! In the midst of our trials and troubles and traumas that we live in, God is still very active.
I think we can learn a few things from Bartimaeus about how we can cooperate with God's miracles.
I would like to share two things. First of all if you read the scriptures you can imagine all the worries and traumas Bartimaeus had experiences all his life. He was probably very familiar with what people had read to him from the book of Isaiah. Many of may probably feel the same way. Isaiah says in the first reading, justice seems so far off from us. Righteous does not even seem to reach us. We wait for light and low and there is darkness. We look for brightness but we see gloom. We grope along like a blind person finding a wall. Groping like those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as like the twilight. I do not know about you but there are times in my life that I am groping for some sort of sign that God is alive in my life. I am looking for light in a very dark world some days. We come here today to be reminded that somebody like Bartimaeus and throughout all of the scriptures have felt exact same feelings that we experience in our day and age today. How many of us when opening the newspaper wonder where God is? God is right here in our midst.
I think we learn a few things from Bartimaeus. First, Bartimaeus and people like him defy the darkness of doubt. I think Christians often wonder and doubt about all sorts of things. Our relationships that are hurting. Whether God will heal us that are physically in diseased. We wonder if God will help our church and our world. The doubt seems to overwhelm us at times. We come here this day to listen to the first words of Isaiah's reading. The Lord's hand is not too short to save; his ear is not too dull to hear. God hears us. God's hand is not too short to reach out and to touch your life. We must overcome our doubts with faith with resolve.
Reminds me of a story of a young football player. He was the quarterback at college but not of tremendous talent. He journeyed off to the European football league. Spent some time in the Canadian football league and even an indoor arena league. He was still getting washed out and no one was calling him on the phone. So he ended up in a grocery store in Iowa someplace working on the shelves. A phone call came from a team in St. Louis and asked he would play third string quarterback. He tried out and kept with it and the next year a young man with a strong Christian faith named Kurt Warner led the St. Louis Rams to the Super Bowl and they won. Imagine the doubt in that man's heart. He had played rookie leagues and never got a phone call and with his faith he still said," I am worth something."
A blind man in Bartimaeus' time was worth nothing. People walked all over these people. He could have easily said this Yashur of Nazareth will never take the time. But with the strength he rose up. Last night I thought about this and realized what the first words out of his mouth were, "Yashur, have mercy on me." He did not ask for a Rolls Royce or ask for his sight immediately. He did not ask why this had happened to him. I know I ask why many a times. His first words were, "Have mercy on me." Then Jesus asked what do you want from me.
For those of you that come here with doubt, worry and anxious; we come here this day to resolve that we will defy the darkness of doubt. We will see the light and possibilities that God can touch our lives.
Second thing that Bartimaeus can teach us is that we must turn our apparent curses into our living calling. Our apparent diseases, our apparent anxieties, our apparent troubles and turn them into calling. The Bible is real simple. Jesus had a conversation with Bartimaeus. Jesus healed him and said, "Go, your faith has made you well." What happened? Immediately he regained his sight and followed him along the way. Can you imagine the lives of people that he touched as he went around with Jesus as he told the story of being in Jericho and Jesus coming by and touched me and was made well? He turned his apparent illness into a calling to follow Yashur of Nazareth.
What curses, anxieties, worries or troubles do you bring with you to church today? What we saw with Bartimaeus is the Lord touched him and transformed him by the Holy Spirit and Bartimaeus become a follower of Jesus. Probably transforming hundreds of lives in his ministries. How can you use whatever God has given you in your lives as a follower of Jesus? How can you use that to make a difference in our world?
I will give you an example. A twelve year old boy many years ago with his Mama and late one night she got gravely ill. There were no lights and so the doctors came running to the house and with a sense of anxiety they had to wait for the sunrise before doing any work on this woman. So the doctors and this twelve year old waited at the bedside filled with a sense of anxieties for the sun to rise. As sun rose and dawn came upon them the mother died. The boy could have decided to live in despair and heart brokenness all of his life but he transformed that experience into something extraordinary. That twelve year old name was Thomas Edison. He created the light bulb.
What can you create with your worries and troubles? We are called to be people of light. People of faith. We have to persevere. Life is not easy. The book of Hebrews reminds us and tries to inspire us by saying what we want from each of you is to show the same diligence so to realize the full assurance of hope to the very end. So you may not become sluggish but be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit God's promise. God wants us to persevere through our dark times and times of anxieties and turmoil. With faith in the Lord Jesus, with hope in one another and with God we will rise with the daylight and life will come before us. We must be people who defy the darkness of doubt. We must be people who turn our tragedies into triumphs. Our curses into callings of life. We must be people who see today's troubles and make them tomorrow's miracles.
Our Lord is calling you to be a person of light today. Our world is a dark world with all sorts of traumas and tribulations and difficulties. All sorts of challenges and worries and anxieties. But you can become a person of light fed at this table. Nourished with God's word and sacrament. To be a beacon of faith and hope. Jesus said I am the light of the world. You too can be that light shining in the darkness.