What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Lakin, Kansas on Sunday October 25, 2009, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22)
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

“Job then answered the Lord.” Now there’s a statement that takes some guts; Job answered the Lord. Of course, Job asked quite a question himself. Job asked “Why?” Why did he lose all of his earthly possessions? Why did he lose his family, his seven sons and his three daughters? Why, why, why?

Now, Job didn’t start off asking these questions. In the beginning, after losing everything, Job’s wife offers this advice: “Curse God and die.” “Get it over with,” she says. “Just do it” the good folks at Nike tell us.

Job curses too, Job curses creation, specifically his creation. “Let the day perish in which I was born.” He curses the day of his conception, “Let that day be darkness.” But curse God, no.

Job had led a blameless life, fearing God and turning away from evil. He made offerings not only for himself and his wife; he made them on behalf of his children just in case they slipped. There is no one like him. When the accuser comes before the Lord after “going to and fro on the earth” the Lord asks, “Have you considered my servant Job?”

Job was blameless. Not without sin, but he was blameless; and he knew this. What we call “the gospel of prosperity” is nothing new. Do good, get rewarded. When it gets taken away, it’s obviously because of something you’ve done. This is the argument Job’s friends are making through the text. The pity is that Job gets suckered into this argument.

Job begins to argue with his friends with the wisdom of Proverb 26:4-5:

Do not answer fools according to their folly,
or you will be a fool yourself.
Answer fools according to their folly,
or they will be wise in their own eyes.

Job begins to argue back with his friends, answering them according to their folly. It is then that Job asks “Why, why, why?”

Finally, nearing the end of the book of Job, the Lord asks Job a question. The Lord demands and the Lord asks:

“Gird up your loins like a man;
I will question you, and you declare to me.
Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be justified?

Job asks “Why?” He wants to hear the Lord God explain what's going on. He wants to know, “Why me?” And the Lord tells Job to “Cowboy up.” Understanding the work and the will of God are outside of Job's pay grade, and he had better get used to it. “Why?” The answer to that one's just not in the cards.

Job comes to the conclusion that what God says is true:

I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Job knows that some things are too wonderful for him to know.

Job had lost everything in his life, everything which the culture tells him is important. He had lost his wealth and his children. These things were returned to him, and returned in abundance. He is so grateful that he even gives his daughters a full share of inheritance along with their brothers, something unheard of in that day and time.

The Christian singer Michael Card discerns one thing more that Job receives, or rather, one more thing that Job never lost. In all things, in all times, and in all trials, Job is never outside of the presence of the loving God. Job is never outside of the protection of the grace and peace of the Lord.[1] Even when his life is the bleakest, even when all Job has is sackcloth, ash, and friends like these; Job is in the presence of God.

Bartimaeus was a blind beggar. We know so very little about Blind Bartimaeus that we don't even know his name! As Mark points out, Bartimaeus is the Son of Timaeus. In Aramaic, Bartimaeus means Son of Timaeus. We know so little about him that we don't even know his name; we know his father's name, but not his.

Bartimaeus is not a terribly popular man. He sits on the road outside of Jericho on the way to Jerusalem. Jericho was a sort of a resort town and the road to Jerusalem was a busy place. This is where he begged. When you drive in a big city and see people at a stop light using a squeegee to clean windshields for money, on the first century road between Jericho and Jerusalem, that would be Bartimaeus.

Bartimaeus hears the commotion and finds out who is coming, Jesus of Nazareth. This is the last healing miracle found in Mark's gospel, so we can take it for granted that by this time in his earthly ministry the word had been passed up and down the road. Jesus of Nazareth is coming and he heals the sick.

“Jesus, Son of David,” Bartimaeus cries, “have mercy on me!” And the people rebuke him; they demand he shut up. The obvious reason the people tell Bartimaeus to be quiet is that they don't want to disturb the Rabbi while he is on the road. But there is another possible reason too. While at this point in Mark's gospel there is no question, no doubt about Jesus’ messianic identity, this is the first time anyone uses the royal title, “Son of David.”

To the religious elite, this is like calling a First Lieutenant fresh out of ROTC “General,” but with eternal overtones. The people were on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover, there were bound to be religious leaders along the way with the group. We know all to well that not everyone considered Jesus to be God with us, so suddenly a blind man sees more than the Scribes and Pharisees hope or imagine. I expect that there are a lot of people trying to tell the blind man to close his mouth along with his eyes.

Can you imagine the looks when Jesus told him to come down? Jesus stops the crowd in their tracks and says, “Call him here.” The good people along the route tell Bartimaeus “Take heart, get up, he's calling you.”

I like this translation, “take heart.” The New American Standard Bible renders it a little differently. It says, “Take courage.” These two together go a long way toward what the original language intended. The New International Version and the New Living Translation rendering of “Cheer up” in this passage doesn't do it for me. Bartimaeus sits on the road all day begging from strangers and travelers. He learns Jesus is coming and invokes the royal name of God to address him. He will not be quiet when the crowd demands it. It seems of Bartimaeus’ needs, he doesn’t need cheering up.

I guess another way to translate this is “Cowboy up.”

Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, sprang to his feet and comes to Jesus.

I grew up in the Kansas City area. One of the places I would frequent during the more misspent parts of my youth was Westport. While running around there, I met a man named Curtis. Curtis was a homeless man, burned over half of his body. His face was scared; he had just one arm, and a pronounced limp.

Whenever I would see Curtis, regardless of the season, I would see him wearing a parka. That parka had all of his worldly possessions. One night, a kind of a chilly night, particularly late in the night, or early in the morning if you will, I saw him sleeping in a doorway, using his parka for cover.

Bartimaeus' cloak served the same purpose as Curtis' parka. It kept the sun off of him during the days and kept him warm at night. It held his worldly possessions. Living on the road in ancient times is not so different from living in the streets in midtown Kansas City, both of them could be dangerous places, even for those familiar with the ins and outs of living there. To lose his cloak would have been a huge loss in the life of a man with out vision or even his own name.

Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and comes to Jesus. The odds of it being there when he got back to it were poor; very, very poor. Yet Bartimaeus is willing to throw away all he has for the hope of seeing Jesus.

Jesus asks “What do you want me to do for you?”

The first request from Bartimaeus had all ready been asked, “Have mercy on me!” This request is granted. Jesus shows him mercy. In a world where we see just a blind beggar, in a world where we don't even know the man's name, in a world where we hope the crazy screaming man will just be quiet; Jesus shows him mercy. Jesus calls Bartimaeus to him. The Lord our God calls the dirty, smelly, poverty stricken, blind man to his side.

Jesus gives Bartimaeus the most important thing anyone can give someone, dignity. Jesus welcomes this man who society shuns into his holy presence with out condition. Unconditional love, love he cannot earn. Bartimaeus receives grace and mercy.

Then Bartimaeus asks for the gift of sight. “Rabbi, My teacher, let me see again.” No frills, no spitting in the mud, it is the faith of Bartimaeus that makes him well, faith that in Jesus Christ all things are possible. By grace through faith Bartimaeus receives the gift of sight. Faith that in Jesus Christ, even when the people around us say we have nothing, not even a name, we have a place in the arms of God.

Job had everything taken from him, Bartimaeus left it behind voluntarily. The results for both of these men was the same, they had their vision restored. They were both able to see the light of God at work in the world, and in their own lives. Job had to learn what this truly meant through the loss of everything. Bartimaeus left everything in his cloak on the side of the road just to follow the vocation laid before him on a dusty road to Jerusalem.

The Lilly Foundation funded a project to study evangelism in the seven mainline American churches using denominational records and followed up with over 1,200 interviews. One of the things they discerned is that the people who have never heard the gospel can be split into different populations.

One of the nine groups who need the Good News of Jesus Christ is those who are “far from the church” and are “hurting.”[2] These are people who are burned out by congregational conflict. These are people who find the theology of their youth to be oppressive. These are people who have experienced tragedy and for whom the church has provided no comfort or support. These are the people who have been judged and shunned by the church.

Job is one of these people. Job was met by his friends and received the holy counsel, “So, what did you do to deserve this fate from the Lord?” Bartimaeus is one of these people. Because of his blindness, he is so shunned by his people that we don’t even have his name. What we have in these stories, what we have to share with the world is that when the world is at its worst the Lord God does not forsake us. The Lord God never abandons us. The Lord God never deserts us. The Lord asks “What do you want me to do for you?”

When the world turns its back on us, the Lord is at our side. The Lord calls us. The Lord lets us see in a world blind to the work of God. This is our call, this is our vocation; we must again learn to speak so that those who will hear us will understand we have something to say. And what a thing we have to say. What a thing we have to share. We believe that faith makes a difference in our lives. We believe that we are saved by faith through grace.

As the body of Christ, we are called to be the presence of God in the world. In this truth, we must recall the teaching of Aquinas, “Share the gospel, use words when necessary.”

When the world is at its worst, the Creator is at our side; Emmanuel, God with us. And by this, we are called to take God’s word of grace and peace into the world, using words when we must.

[1] Card, Michael, “A Sacred Sorrow.” Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2005, pages 41-45
[2] Reese, Martha Grace, “Unbinding the Gospel, Real Life Evangelism.” St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2008, page 90.