Sermon October 27 Mark10:46ff (Bartimaeus)       Rev. Betsy Hogan

Do you enjoy the feedback surveys? Like, when you’ve been somewhere, to do something…

And then right after the something’s done, on the way out the door or popping up like magic on your phone, there’s a little survey like “How did we do? What did you like? Would you come here again?”

I do usually ignore them. Not always – I know they’re a thing, and they do make a difference for small businesses – 

But I heard of one this week that was honestly spectacular. It was from some kind of Toronto “event” that was held at the CN Tower. And one of the questions on the feedback survey was seriously and honestly… “How did you hear about the CN Tower?”

With somehow a list of answer choices like “word of mouth” and “online search” that somehow didn’t include “I’m sorry, what? ‘Cause it was kind of hard to miss”.

There are some questions that seem so manifestly ridiculous, so mind-blowingly obvious, that it’s hard to know where to even start. 

Which is probably how Jesus’ disciples and the great crowd following him out of Jericho feel, when finally Bartimaeus’ shouting from the side of the road, as they pass him in the passage Elaine read for us earlier –

When finally, all of Bartimaeus’ shouting, from the roadside where he sits and begs all day, stops being just “shushed” by the disciples and by the crowds – and instead gets heard. And Jesus stops. And he says to his disciples, “Bring the man here”.

Which they do. Suddenly solicitous. Because they’ve been basically ignoring Bartimaeus, telling him to keep quiet, pretending he’s not there – but now Jesus has heard Bartimaeus crying out “have mercy on me”, they don’t want to look bad, they want Jesus to think they’re lovely gracious people who care about the homeless –

So suddenly they’re all concerned, suddenly they’re all compassionate: “take heart, get up, he’s calling to you” – and now they’re helping him up and now they’re leading him over to Jesus…

And that’s when Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”

It’s actually one of my favourite moments in the gospel stories. Because it’s so gloriously ridiculous that it actually makes meaning. A blind man begging by the side of the road, in rags, crying out for mercy and then literally having to be led to Jesus due to being blind – Jesus who has literally been healing people of all their infirmities, day after day after day, travelling from place to place all over Galilee –

But when Bartimaeus arrives in front of him, sightless in his beggar’s rags, what Jesus says to him is “What do you want me to do for you?”

It’s just so patently ridiculous – how’d you first notice the CN Tower? – it’s so patently ridiculous that Jesus actually MUST have decided to say it on purpose. He HAS to be making a point here. And I think he really is.

A couple of points, actually. The first being that just assuming what kind of help someone might need is seriously unbelievably diminishing. 

A number of years ago, I was on call for one of our neighbour churches while the minister was away, and so I got a call at home from someone in need who didn’t actually know me, so they didn’t know my name or anything specific – they just said that they’d called the church because they needed help.

And I talked about it in a sermon afterward. Because I jumped straight into the assumption – admittedly based on years of experience, but that’s no excuse – I jumped straight into the assumption that a person calling the church because they needed help, needed me to sort out a food voucher for them, or a room at the Salvation Army, or something along those lines.

But they didn’t, this caller. They’d called the church because they needed the help… of having someone to pray with them.

Which believe me when I tell you, once I’d jumped to the conclusion that the help they needed was financial? I was no longer considered a viable candidate for that particular position. And indeed, I hardly deserved to be.

Because… What do you want me to do for you, Jesus asks Bartimaeus – assumptions are not helpful. Assumptions can be really really wrong. And SO diminishing

Our needs at any given time are rarely actually so ‘obvious’. And so what we get here is Jesus reminding the disciples, reminding the crowds, reminding US – that we honour each other, when someone says they’re wanting help, by asking the question. What do you want me to do for you? By treating one another as full and complicated people instead of sort of a crystallized distillation of a so-called “obvious need”.

In Bartimaeus’ case of course, what he wants Jesus to do for him, as the story unfolds, IS in fact the “obvious”. He’s lost his sight, he’s been left to begging -- and so he wants to see again. That’s what he wants Jesus to do for him: he wants to see again.

Which sure it might be the obvious, but because Jesus has first honoured him by not making any assumptions and actually asking him what he wants, Bartimaeus has gotten to SAY what he wants.

And if that seems sort of irrelevant, it’s really not. Because in a gospel tradition that’s otherwise deeply entrenched our conflation of disability with brokenness, and presented its ‘repair’ as shorthand for grace, Jesus’ pause and his question are seriously meaningful. 

Bartimaeus HASN’T been distilled here into just his disability: a presenting example of so-called obvious need. He gets to be a whole person. With no less a great wide swathe of possible hopes and needs he might have, or healing he yearns for, than any of the rest of us.

Who might, in fact, if we take off our glasses….
Need to put them back on again, because now all of you are just colours. And we want to keep reading to the end of the sentence that notes that we might have nearly as much reason, if very much less obvious, to say “My lord, let me see again”.

Bartimaeus gets to articulate his own need. But not only that. Bartimaeus GETS to articulate his need. Because what we’re also being shown here in this situation -- in the person, in the actions, of Jesus, in whom we imagine all the Godness of God, what God is like, rolled up into a person – 

Is that what God is like… is that we get to say, we get to shout, we get to articulate out loud, HELP. THIS is what I want, THIS is what I need, help me help me help me, it’s THIS that I want. It’s THIS that I need.

We GET to articulate our longings and our desperation and our grief and even our anger. That’s inherent in this relationship we’re swimming in with the Spirit of Godness who created us and sustains us. We get to say “not good enough, I need better”. We get to say, “not acceptable, try again”. 

And if that sounds facile when Bartimaeus’ articulation of his need here is answered by its immediate miraculous achievement, that actually doesn’t diminish what God IS able to accomplish in response to the prayers we lift up. Even when the response doesn’t look anything like the kind of miracle Bartimaeus gets. 

Because what we’re shown here isn’t just about a miracle. It’s about a life intimately intertwined with Godness. In which God wants to know “what do you want me to do for you” and we get to tell God. Clearly. With neither shame nor fear. 

And no one gets to gatekeep that for us. No crowd and no disciples. Who in the passage that Elaine read for us essentially set themselves up as the gatekeepers for who gets to see Jesus – who gets to articulate need – and who doesn’t. 

No one gets to gatekeep that for us. The disciples get rebuked for it and Jesus overrules them. There’s no gatekeeping the Spirit of Godness who created and sustains us – and who wants to KNOW. “What do you want me to do for you” and God’s people get to tell God. Clearly. With neither shame nor fear.

There’s an intimacy in this story of Bartimaeus. It’s weird – the whole thing takes place in the middle of this massive noisy crowd. But there’s still an intimacy to it that’s quite beautiful.

Because we live in the midst of a lot of noise. Some of it’s real, a lot of it’s metaphorical, but this life right now, it’s a lot.

It’s the entirely predictable predicted result of the choice made across the board forty-five-ish years ago to shift our socio-economic priority away from collective well-being to individual well-being instead – 

It’s the entirely predictable predicted result of the retrograde anger and existential fear and despair and poverty and populism and xenophobia that historically ALWAYS arise when it’s “every man for himself” like this –

But “predictable and predicted” don’t really help when it still feels shocking, this life right now. It’s a lot. And that’s before we even get to our own stuff.

But this story of Bartimaeus, it does have a word for us. In all of our post-enlightenment, democratically-empowered, action and activism, work for the solution worldview that might tend to discount it, or think it facile, or scoff at it as opiate for the masses, it does have a word for us.

There’s intimacy in this story. There’s God reaching out in Jesus, making no assumptions, setting no agendas, allowing no gatekeeping, and simply asking “what do you want me to do for you”. 

Let me help. I’m listening. I’m here. What do you want me to do for you? 

And we get to say. Help us. Help us. Help us survive the tangle of our days. Help us mend our raveling souls. Help us set our spirits free. 

Help us remember we’re not alone. Amen.