by Pastor Leah Lonsbury
October 25, 2009
Mark 10:46-52

I love this passage.  I love Bartimaeus and his bold disregard for propriety and convention.  I love that he only increases in volume when the crowd shushes him-- much like my four year-old does.  I love that he leaps up, throws off his cloak, and follows Jesus on the way without a second thought.  But, I love Bartimaeus’ story most because it is for me a story of unabashed hope lived out in total trust.

Bart’s story reminds me of another story I love.  It’s told by one of my favorite writers, Annie Lamott.  I have come to understand Annie as the long-lost, dread-locked, potty-mouthed, and opinionated fifth gospel writer.  If you’ve read Annie too, you know what I’m talking about.  Annie writes about Anne, a member of her church, a cancer patient who has been missing a hand since birth, who is also a certified Jesus freak.  This is how Annie describes her:

She was brilliant, an activist and a passionate Christian, and I love that she spoke from the heart about her own needs, and the world’s children, and the Bush crusade, without rehearsing—because you don’t have to rehearse the truth.  But she seemed too intense, and I wondered if perhaps she was also a little cuckoo, which I suppose is not the politically correct word.  Anne sometimes sounded like a mad Old Testament prophet, beseeching us to tend to the starving people of the world, to save the rain forests…

She was so unabashed in her faithfulness and need that it made some people nervous.  Maybe I’m more comfortable with a little bashed, as the world leaves you feeling so often.  When she really got going, she made the rest of us seem positively staid.  We’d be having a politely rousing service, until this emaciated, freckled figure with sparse baby-bird blond hair would start to rage against [the powers that be]. 

She’d cry out about the suffering in the Third World, and the evils of the military-industrial complex.  She waved her stump for emphasis, or testimony.  She waved it when she sang.  She was like your craziest aunt, the religious one with funny eyes who drinks [too much at family gatherings].”

I imagine this is how the crowd or at least the disciples saw Bart.  He must have seemed a little cuckoo or whatever the first century equivalent of cuckoo was.  He must have made them uncomfortable.  You see, they’ve spent the whole gospel of Mark following Jesus, but following at a cautious distance.  Not a physical distance, but one that keeps them from really understanding what Jesus is about and living out his way unabashedly and with their whole selves. 

In stark contrast to what we might expect when there’s an unruly beggar shouting and demanding attention, the disciples are Mark’s real fools.  They bumble about, get wrapped up in unimportant things, proceed with hesitation and missteps, worry about their own reputations and gain, grapple for power, and pretty much miss the point of Jesus’ good news.  They just don’t get it.  They’re so worried about being right that they get it wrong. 

In the chapter that precedes our passage for today, Jesus comes across the disciples after being away for a bit.  In their midst is a boy badly in need of healing.  So what are the disciples doing?  Arguing with the scribes in the crowd.  I can just see Jesus shaking his head as he responds to their bumbling with “You faithless generation.” 

The disciples have failed to do exactly what Jesus has called and sent them to do—to heal, to give life, to share God’s restorative love.   The boy’s father recognizes that the disciples aren’t up to the job, and he turns to Jesus in desperation.  He asks Jesus to heal his son if he is able.  Jesus responds with, “All things can be done for the one who believes.”  Jesus replies, “All things can be done for the one who believes.” 

Notice what Jesus names as the only requirement for the kind of living and action that heals, restores, and gives life—belief.  This is the one thing the disciples lack—belief, trust in their connection to Jesus, faith that they have been called and empowered to act in love.

And then there’s Bart, the blind beggar—the loud one.  Unlike the disciples, he doesn’t hesitate.  He leaps up and screams out.  In this one act, in this split second, he says and does what the disciples who have followed Jesus all the way cannot.  He calls Jesus “Son of David,” and he’s the first in Mark’s gospel to do so. 

And this is no small thing.  In this he names Jesus as the Messiah, the one who brings healing and salvation and the life that the people have been waiting for.  Bart trusts what Jesus is about and what he is bringing, and Bart is done waiting.  He knows a good thing when he sees it, even as a blind man, and he leaps up and shouts.  He claims what he needs and what he knows is possible, and he acts in hope.  And hope does not disappoint him.

Bart’s hope empowers him, his trust emboldens him, and his action liberates him for real life, life that is full and free and beautiful and just as God intends it to be for all of us.  Notice that his hope is not a quiet one he holds only in his heart.  He trusts its power, God’s power for what is possible and acts on it.  He reminds us of what Jesus says in the chapter before that “all things are can be done for the one who believes.”

In living out his belief, in jumping up and giving voice to his hope and trust in God, he is invited to cooperate with God’s love, God’s own hope for his life.  Jesus says to Bartimaeus “What do you want me to do for you?” and he answers, “Let me see again.”  Not make me see again.  Let me see again.  He’s saying to Jesus, “Come, move in my life.  Fill me with your re-creative Spirit.  Let me partner with you.  Help me live out this hope that is growing in me.  I trust in you.  I believe in the love and life you have for me.”

Because Bart trusts his unabashed hope lead him to action, he embodies the subversive truth and power of the kingdom of God.  He is blind, but he really sees. 

He is the stranger and outsider who recognizes what those on the inside do not. 

He is the one stranded by the side of the road in the beggar’s cloak that eagerly gets up and follows Jesus without reservation. 

He asks for healing and mercy and receives both plus the chance to participate in and shape the new life God has for him. 

He trusts, he is full of faith, and his hope bursts out of him in this act. 

Dr. Lisa Hess of United Theological Seminary writes about Bart’s persistence and the power of his hope.  She says it calls him forth to claim his restoration and the life that awaits him in God’s provision. 

The beauty of “Jesus’ power is [that it is] never one-sided.  It is always part of the Trinitarian dance of mutuality, of co-creation, and love shared.  Yes, Jesus can heal and call us forth for new life, but we must cooperate with that healing and be willing to live that new life in hope. 

We must have the faith not of the disciples, but of Bartimaeus.  We have to jump at the chances that meet us on the road and let our hope lead us.

Slightly cuckoo Anne in Annie Lamott’s story embodies this kind of empowered faith as well.  It wells up in trust and hope and she lives it out in her quirky but beautiful ways.  Annie writes, “True, she was odd, but she was also courageous, and dear, kind, and feisty...” 

As Annie learns more about Anne and all the ways that she lives her faith so courageously, she is swept up in this hope-filled living.  Annie invites Anne to speak with the children in Sunday school about her story and the light and hope of God that has been shining through all her struggles. 

When Anne’s cancer returns and eventually claims her life, their pastor tells the congregation that Anne lived her own eulogy, that her life bore witness to the love and power and trust she found in God.  She lived out her faith in acts of hope for the world. 

Like Bartimaeus, she jumped up and threw off the cloak of conventional wisdom and the world’s expectations of her.  She shouted out in trust and hope and waved her stump for emphasis and witness.  She cooperated with the mercy and healing God offered her, and her living grew out of her faith and her faith grew out of her living. 

Bart jumps up, throws off the cloak of conventional wisdom and propriety, and shouts out his trust and faith in God’s love for his life.  His is a hope acted upon, a hope that leads him to mercy and restoration and fullness of life on the way.  His a hope that calls him into co-creation with the God of that subversive kingdom that invites outsiders in and names love as it’s greatest power. 

This is my prayer for us today.  That we might act in wild hope like Bart and like Anne, that we might throw off what stops us from the way of trust and love and shout out in faith.  That we might say, “Let us see again,” and so gain a vision for co-creation with God. 

If you wondering how we get there, how we muster up the faith to shout out like Bartimaeus and act out our hope in love like crazy Anne, I think Mark’s gospel has our answer.  Remember the story about the foolish disciples caught arguing instead of healing the boy?  Well, the disciples pull Jesus aside later and ask why they were unable to heal the boy.  Jesus answers them that this kind of lived power, this active hope comes through prayer. 

And what is prayer? 

Well that’s a whole other sermon series, but here’s a short answer.  It’s attention and openness to God.  It’s making room for the movement of God’s Spirit and the willingness to follow that movement.  It’s recognizing our own need for God’s mercy and healing and vision in our lives and being willing to receive it.  It’s living boldly and foolishly and unconventionally in love.  And it’s offering the words of the healed boy’s father, “I believe, help my unbelief,” when we can’t quite get to that place of trust and faith and hope on our own. 

My sense is that you are praying people.  My sense is that you are people of hope.  May it well up and overflow for you.  May you stand up and shout in hope.  May you be a little cuckoo too.  May it be so.  Amen.