October 27, 2024
Dedication Sunday
“There is an old Saturday Night Live sketch from back in the day in which Chris Farley plays the tropical storm system called “El Niño” as if he were an all-star wrestler.
At the end of the bit he says, “For those of you who don’t habla español, El Niño is Spanish for … the Niño”. The Gospel reading for this week begins in much the same way.
After teaching for the third time what it means that Jesus is the Messiah — that he must go to Jerusalem, be handed over to the authorities, be condemned to death, mocked, beaten and killed, to rise three days later (Mk 10:32-34) — and chastising (James and John) for arguing about who is the greatest, Jesus is on the way to Jericho with the disciples. And there we are introduced to a blind beggar, (named Bartimaeus)” (Working Preacher, Karl Jacobson). READ Mark 10:46-52
“Bartimaeus’ name is one of the strange moments in the Gospel of Mark. Bartimaeus is an Aramaic phrase: bar timaeus, where “bar” means ‘son.’ The astute among you will have noticed that if you take away the ‘bar,’ what have you got? Timaeus. In the Greek, literally it means, ‘the son of Timaeus, Son of Timaeus.’ (Interestingly, Mark uses Aramaic several times.) When Jesus raises a girl from the dead he says, ‘talitha cum,’ ‘little girl, get up’ (Mk 5:41). When he heals a deaf man he says, ‘ephphatha,’ which is Aramaic for ‘open up’ (Mk 7:34). Hanging from the cross in agony Jesus says, ‘Eloi Eloi, lema sabachtani?’ which is Aramaic for, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ The words that Jesus speaks when he heals, and when he cries out to God, need to be made clear to us. His words that give life, and hearing, and sight, serve in Mark’s Gospel to emphasize, in a way, the ‘otherness’ of Jesus, his identity as God’s Messiah (the “Son of David” to whom Bartimaeus cries out) and his power to transform the lives of broken or faithless people” (Working Preacher, Karl Jacobson).
As a blind man, Bartimaeus was trapped in darkness and relegated to the side of the road to beg. Blindness meant abject poverty, living by the mercy of others. But rather than seeing this simply as a story of lack of sight, maybe we can put ourselves in Bartimaeus’ shoes. “Do you ever feel like you are in the dark? When you feel lost, and you can’t see a way forward. Maybe the answers and beliefs that once lit your way no longer illuminate. Or maybe it’s the darkness of fear. Maybe grief, or the shadows of guilt and disappointment. I wonder if that’s what it was like for Bartimaeus. (His blindness also kept him sidelined, always on the edge of society.) Do you ever feel like you are sitting on the roadside of life? Do you ever feel life is passing us by? Maybe it feels like you don’t have any place to be and no one to miss you if you’re not there. Maybe you’ve been sidelined by loneliness or by being an outsider. I wonder if that’s what it was like for Bartimaeus” (Let Me See Again, Michael K. Marsh).
But Bartimaeus, blind and sidelined, saw Jesus for who he really is, the Messiah. He sees him better than the sighted people, better than the disciples. Harkening to his royal lineage, he cries out, not once but twice, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Now many sighted and able-bodied people rebuked him, trying to keep Bartimaeus sidelined. But Jesus enlisted those same people, to call Bartimaeus, to bring him to Jesus. Jesus got them actively involved in transforming his life. They say, “Take heart, rise, he is calling you.” Oh, to have Jesus say that to each one of us! Jesus calling you, before changing your life for the better. Yet Bartimaeus seemed to know the outcome. He had so much confidence in Jesus, he threw off his cloak. He discarded his one article of protection. In essence saying I will no longer be blind, I will no longer need to beg, if I can only get to Jesus.
Then Jesus asks him the same thing he asked James and John when they wanted to sit with Jesus in his glory, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus answered, “My teacher, let me see again.” Did you notice that the disciples wanted glory, were concerned about their egos, while the blind man asked for mercy to address a need. A good way to think about ego is with the acronym “Easing God Out.” By comparison, the blind man asked for mercy and the restoration of sight. We’re told that Bartimaeus wanted “to see again” and that “he regained his sight.” But those same words can also mean that Bartimaeus wanted “to look up” and that “he looked upwards.” He was able to see, perceive, that Jesus could heal him, and now he has his sight restored and a spiritual connection to Jesus. He has a higher vision and a greater consciousness.
“Isn’t that the pattern of spiritual growth we see in the scriptures? Richard Rohr describes it as order, disorder, and reorder. My guess is that every one of us has lived that pattern. Isn’t that what happened to Bartimaeus? Isn’t that what happened to the Israelites? They went from Egypt, to the wilderness, to the promised land. Each of those patterns is a story of life, death, and resurrection”
(Let Me See Again, Michael K. Marsh). For Bartimaeus, it was sight, blindness, sight.
“Pastor Steven E. Albertin told the following story. In my church secretary’s office there hangs a modernistic picture composed of a maze of colors and shapes. I realized these sophisticated and abstract pictures were supposed to contain some profound artistic or philosophical message, but I never was able to figure it out. It just looked like a jumbled mass of confusion. If there was a message there, I was blind to it.
One day while I was standing in the office, waiting for the copier to warm up, one of the congregation’s kindergarten-age boys, Adam, stood beside me and said, “Do you see what I see?”
“Do you see something in that picture? I sure don’t.” Adam looked at me with glee in his eye, “Pastor, can’t you see him? It’s Jesus hanging on the cross.” I stared as hard as I could, until my eyes actually hurt from staring. I wanted to believe Adam and that there actually was the image of Jesus hanging on the cross hidden somewhere in that mass of color and shapes, but I couldn’t see Jesus anywhere. “Adam, I’m sorry but I must be blind. You will have to help me see.”
Directing his finger to a mass of color in the center of the picture, Adam said, “There, Pastor. Do you see what I see? There is Jesus, his face, his arms outstretched on the cross.” And then, like an epiphany, the image began to appear. Yes, there hidden somehow “behind” the colors and the shapes was the barely visible image of Jesus, hanging with arms outstretched on the cross. “It’s amazing, Adam. You have helped one blind pastor to see Jesus. Yes, I can see what you see, Adam” (Sermons.com, Steven E. Albertin, Against the Grain).
We all “see” Jesus in our own way. But the point is we see Jesus and we are changed by knowing our Savior and Lord. Today is Dedication Sunday, the day we dedicate ourselves- our energy, time, talents and resources to the Jesus we see. We dedicate ourselves to the church, the body of Christ, we serve and love. To that end, I want to share one final observation. Jesus calls us to come and follow him. When Jesus heals someone, he often says, “Go, your faith has made you well” as he said to Bartimaeus. Yet the blind man is the first who follows Jesus on the way. In the very next passage Jesus enters Jerusalem “starting the chain of events that will end up at the cross. Bartimaeus truly exemplifies the disciple who sees where the way ahead leads and yet follows and believes Jesus” (Working Preacher, Mark V. Hoffman). Jesus asks us to come and follow him. And we come to church. Yet with Bartimaeus, Jesus says go. “Is “going” the same as “following” when it leads to the cross? It certainly can be when “following” Jesus to the cross becomes “going” and telling others what we have seen and experienced in the one who is the merciful Son of David, Jesus the Messiah” (Working Preacher, Mark V. Hoffman). Go with Jesus to the cross, go with Jesus out into the world. Go with Jesus as disciples on the Way. AMEN
