What Do You Want? A Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday After
Pentecost. Preached at All Saints, King
City, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Sunday, 24 October, 2021.
Readings for
this Sunday (Proper 30B): Job
42:1-6,10-17; Psalm 34:1-8 (19-22); Hebrews 7.23-28; Mark 10.46-52.
Go for a
half hour’s walk from All Saints in any direction, and the average annual
income of the homes you’ll pass is just over $200,000. In some neighbourhoods, especially those just
north of 15th Sideroad, it’s a lot higher than that. Which means that as you go for your walk,
you’re not likely to meet anyone like blind Bartimaeus from today’s gospel
reading.
This week I
know a little more about the average income of King City thanks to a demographic
survey that the parish just commissioned.
We felt the survey would help us and our next priest to better
understand the neighbours whom we hope will join us as we follow Jesus. The survey gave us a detailed picture of who
are King City neighbours are and what’s important to them.
In brief,
the people living within walking distance of All Saints are mostly well off, and
many have significant wealth. They are
almost all homeowners, many with at least two children at home. Those who work are mostly white-collar
professionals. They value the trappings
of suburban life, they travel, they are highly status and brand conscious, and
their children’s lives are highly programmed.
They value goal-setting, personal
control, and being in control of their lives.
Even if you
don’t know such people as neighbours (or maybe even as family members!), you’ve
met people like this in the gospels these last few Sundays. Two weeks ago it was the wealthy man who
wanted to be spiritual but couldn’t choose Jesus over his many
possessions. Last Sunday it was James
and John, who seemed happy being disciples if it meant that they could be
masters of the universe, sitting with Jesus in glory. And today, in stark contrast, here’s poor
Bartimaeus, who just knows two things, one, that he’s blind and helpless, and
two, that Jesus can help him.
“Son of
David, have mercy on me!” Not everyone
in the gospel of Mark knows who Jesus, but Bartimaeus gets closer to the truth
than many when he calls on Jesus as the “Son of David” (Mk 10). In calling Jesus a descendent of David, Bartimaeus
recognizes Jesus as a Messiah, as someone who has the power to save him. Moreover, he knows enough to ask Jesus for
nothing but mercy, hoping that Jesus will stop and help him out of compassion. As if to underline his total dependency, when
he’s called forward, Bartimaeus throws aside his cloak, which, presumably, as a
blind beggar, is perhaps his only possession.
It’s small detail but a total
contrast from the rich man who holds back because of his many things.
Jesus puts a
very simple question to Bartimaeus: “What
do you want me to do for you?” (Mk 10.50).
It may seem an obvious question to put to a blind beggar, scarcely worth
remarking on, until we recall that Jesus put exactly the same question to James
and John (Mk 10.36). By placing these
episodes side by side, Mark seems to be inviting us to see the encounter with
Jesus as a moment of honesty and self-revelation. Before he says anything or asks anything of
them, Jesus invites these three men to reveal their true selves to him. James and John reveal their ambition and
desire for status. Bartimaeus reveals his
deepest, most desperate need: “My
teacher, let me see again” (10.51). It’s
as if Mark is saying that Jesus can reach us and help us only when we have come
to the end of our own resources and find ourselves, like Bartimaeus, totally dependent
on him for help.
Another
connection between these three episodes is that everyone – the rich man, James
and John, and Bartimaeus - addresses Jesus as “teacher” (Mk 10.17,35,51). A teacher can only be effective if the
student is teachable, if they have a willing spirit. The rich man is left grieving at the side of
the road. With James and John, they’re
already disciples, but it’s easy in the gospels to wonder if the disciples ever
really learn anything until Pentecost opens them fully to God’s truth. With Bartimaeus, there’s no doubt that he’s
teachable. Jesus never says to him “follow
me” – in fact, Jesus says, “Go” – but for whatever reason, whether gratitude or
the excitement of a new life among the sighted, he ends the story walking with
Jesus “on the way”. At that point he
vanishes from the gospel stories, but in all his qualities, through his
recognition of Jesus, his complete reliance on Jesus for mercy, and for his
decision to follow Jesus, Bartimaeus is someone who, as N.T. Wright says, Mark
clearly wants us to admire and imitate.
“What is it
that you want me to do for you?” I think
one of the lessons of Mark’s gospel these last two Sundays is that this is Jesus’
question to all of us. It’s a question
that can lead nowhere if we want to cling to our own lives, agendas, and
resources, but it’s a question that can be transformative if we are truly open
and honest with Jesus about what we need the most.
“What is it that you want me to do for you?” If Jesus were to walk around King City and pose
the question to those living here, we might think that most of our prosperous, self-contented
and self-directed neighbours might say “nothing, thanks, I’m good”. But we don’t know that. Our mission as church is based on the belief
that Jesus can and save all that truly need him. What salvation looks like in a prosperous
neighbourhood might look different from life in a poor one. For all we know, inside these prosperous
stone homes, there are people are burdened by their possessions, oppressed by
their desire for status, and haunted by a sense of “is that all there is?”. To such neighbours, our role as church may be
like the crowd at the end of today’s gospel reading, to simply to point our neighbours at Jesus, our
teacher, and say “Take heart, get up, he is calling you”.
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