What Do You Want? A Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost1

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.

 Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again”  (Mk 10.51).

 

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 15^th 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”.