St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – 21st Sunday after Pentecost (Reformation) - Oct.25, ’09
“Eyes Open – On the Way!”
Text: Mark 10:51,52
For the past three Sundays in October I have started off sermons saying that generally with most of us in church we like things normal, right side-up, easy-to-see, easy-to-understand from a our perspective. But along comes Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel of Mark, especially in the 10th chap. of the Gospel of Mark and, as the exceptionally gifted teacher that Jesus was & is, what Jesus teaches and what Jesus says has an altogether different “upside down” look and feel to it.
In Mark 10, as the Son of David, Son of Man, sent from God; Jesus is on the final leg of his journey to Jerusalem and to the cross that He knows is waiting for Him there. Jesus knows that the one major aim & goal of His short life is to suffer & die & offer Himself for the sins of all mankind. But Jesus also knows that an equally important goal for Him is to nurture His followers’ interest & commitment to love & value & rejoice in the good things of God, to take up things in the Kingdom of God that are not unlike heading “up a down stair-case”, going against the flow, seeing things in reverse, looking at things not from the top down but from the bottom up.
Looking back over the ground covered in previous sermons this October, I have seen and I hope you have too
How Jesus is not down on divorce but up with marriage.
How Jesus is not down on children, but up with all God’s little ones & vulnerable ones because they are valued ones.
How Jesus is not down on success & money & wealth, but up with generosity & letting go.
How Jesus is not down on greatness & glory, but up with service & humility.
Now this Sunday, in the Gospel reading for this Sunday which is about a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, here we have perhaps the biggest step of all to take if we are truly willing & determined to walk with Jesus up a down-stair! This Sunday the challenge, the goal is to see that Jesus is not down on believing & calling out to Him for help, but rather Jesus is up with seeing & not standing around, not to go off on our own, but to go from seeing to following Him.
I should also add, since we are observing this Sunday as Reformat-ion Sunday, we ought not lose sight of the fact that there probably would never have been a Reformation to celebrate; there would never have been a serious, vigorous, contentious, costly, much-needed proclamation of Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Scripture Alone by Martin Luther had Luther been content to sit in His study having his eyes opened to the free & saving grace of God in Jesus but had not gone out taking a hammer & nails to post His 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, Germany.
I say this because the Reformation was not just about rediscovering the free, undeserved, saving grace of God in Jesus so clearly revealed in the Scriptures. The Reformation was also about going & doing the gracious Will of God following on the way with Jesus.
If blind Bartimaeus who had his eyes physically opened by Jesus, and Martin Luther who had the eyes of his heart & mind spiritually opened by Jesus; if these two men of great faith have anything in common, it’s this -- that true believing, believing that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life means humbly, faithtfully, boldly, following Jesus.
All the teaching of Jesus, all the talking, all the explaining, each private conversation Jesus had with His disciples as well as Jesus’ miracles of healing the lame, curing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, casting out demons, feeding 5000, all of this was a very big part of Jesus’ life and ministry! But in the Gospel of Mark the biggest, most important part of Jesus life & ministry is the going . . Jesus going on . . Jesus going from town to town . . Jesus going up to Jerusalem . . Jesus going to the cross . . Jesus going to His own death like an innocent lamb led to slaughter, the ultimate sacrificial offering for the sins of all mankind.
So we take a closer look at what’s going on in this particular miracle story because it’s not only a story that shows us one more time the power of Jesus as the Son of God, but it’s also a story that shows us the nature of life with Jesus that He is not only Savior but Lord, and Jesus’ Lordship means we do not just admire Him, believe in Him, but we follow Him; surrender more & more of ourselves to Him.
What a way for Mark to underline the importance of true Christian discipleship as “Going! Going on the way!” Blind Bartimaeus, having recovered his sight did not go his way as Jesus told him to, but in-stead “having immediately recovered his sight he followed Jesus on the way!”
How different, how radical, how great a step is this “following, going on the way”, turning things around, turning things upside down?
Consider what normally goes on when blessings & even miracles of healing, rescue, recovery, restoration happen to people. What normally happens is that human nature is not very good at seeking first the Kingdom of God.
Jesus was once approached by 10 lepers who cried out for healing. You know the story. All ten lepers were healed but only one returned to give thanks. “Were not ten cleansed?” Jesus asked. “Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
“Pastor”, I’ve heard people say, “thanks for coming to visit me in the hospital, thanks for all your prayers. When I get over this, when I get back on my feet, you’ll see me in church every Sunday.”
And what happens? A good intention, good to go, gives way human nature still going one’s own way! Giving thanks to Jesus for health & healing is easy! Getting out, going, following Jesus is not so easy!
That’s true for most of us, if not all of us! It does not work to equate Christian discipleship with church membership. “If we Christians were willing to learn the meaning of real discipleship and actually become disciples,” someone has written, “the Church in the West would be transformed, and the resultant impact on society would be staggering.” (David Watson)
Author David Augsburger says the true impact of the Gospel message is about following Jesus on the way, not about us merely getting our way. He says what’s happening is that in an increasingly narcissistic “having it our way” culture, talk of religion & spirituality is often slanted toward bringing Jesus into our lives rather than Jesus bringing us into His life. We call out to Jesus to help us, open our eyes, improve our lives, grant us good health, bless our business, bless our families, but we don’t often ask how we might serve his kingdom, go where he wants us to go, on the way, following Him.” In other words, when it comes to discipleship, we get it, but we don’t get it. We talk the talk but we don’t walk the walk.
Now get this! This is Good News! Bartimaeus, blind beggar that he was, got it. Jesus said to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”
And Bartimaeus said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him,” Go your way; your faith has made you well.”
And immediately Bartimaeus recovered his sight and followed Jesus on the way.
Where was Jesus headed? In the very next verse following today’s Gospel, Mark 11:1, Jesus draws near to Jerusalem, sends two of his disciples to go find a colt for Jesus to ride humbly yet triumphantly into Jerusalem, and less than a week later, after several days of teaching & confronting the Scribes & Pharisees with their hypocrisy & self-righteousness, Jesus is nailed to a cross, lifted up to die a horrible death by way of intense pain and asphyxiation.
Was Bartimaeus there? Did Bartimaeus stay close to Jesus as the scribes and Pharisees got tougher & tougher with Jesus to the point of having him arrested, put on trial, handed over to the Romans and then crucified? We don’t know! Scripture doesn’t say. Was Bartimaeus among the 500 brothers the resurrected Jesus appeared to at one time (1 Cor. 15:6) after Jesus first appeared to the Eleven? Again we don’t know!
But I suspect given the way Mark tells the story of Bartimaeus’ miraculous, immediate healing & following Jesus, Bartimaeus was in-deed in on Jesus resurrection appearances before Jesus ascended into heaven, and Bartimaeus was ready to go to others with his story & testimony to Jesus because Bartimaeus got it. He followed on the way.
This is what discipleship is all about. It’s not about coming to church and having coffee, punch & cookies on a table nearby. That’s an OK thing, but that’s fellowship. Discipleship is about having your eyes, your heart open and your feet going; going out of you way to a hospital ward, entering the sitting room at a funeral home, arranging for some entertainment at a care home, stopping in with a container of soup & words of encouragement for a neighbor laid up with a broken leg, sending caring thoughts through the mail to someone experiencing hard times. Speaking, reflecting, demonstrating the Good News of Jesus, the Good News of the up-side-down Kingdom of God to other people often means going, journeying down the road to the place of meeting, being people of “the Way.”
Come to think of it, before followers of Jesus were called Christians in the Book of Acts, they were first called “people of the Way.”
And this is being part of “the Way”. Up the down stair case; up with going and not just sitting around, not standing around. Up with living a forgiven life, up with grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone, up with “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” up with the cross of Christ, “Lift High the Cross, the love of Christ proclaim,” up with spreading the Word “Till all the world adore His sacred name.”
Amen
