SCARY SIGHTS
Open my eyes, that I may see
Silently now I wait for Thee, |
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
October 25, 2009
Mark 10: 46-52
Hebrews 7: 23-28
I remember a childhood dilemma of trying to decide which would be worse: to lose my sight or to lose my hearing. Did you ever play that game with your friends? I could never decide. I still can’t. It would be equally awful.
Some folks of course weren’t given a choice: they are blind. Or they are deaf.
Bartimaeus is an example. Generations of Christians have called him “Blind Bartimaeus.” Bartimaeus, however, didn’t lose his sight. He was born blind.
Bartimaeus doesn’t remember the good old days when he could read without glasses, or even with glasses. He has absolutely no point of reference to what sight is. He can’t imagine what his loved ones look like for he’s never seen people or shapes or textures or colors.
Thanks to Jesus, however, Bartimaeus comes to be able to see for the very first time in his whole life.
It happened like this. Jesus and his disciples were traveling towards Jerusalem. Suddenly their journey was interrupted by the shouting of Bartimaeus, who is sitting by the roadside. Someone has undoubtedly told him that Jesus of Nazareth and his followers are passing by. What luck! He’s heard of Jesus and his miracles. What good fortune!
So he shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” His friends are clearly embarrassed. They tell him to be quiet. But he persists: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”
Above the crowd, Jesus hears Bartimaeus and decides to stop the procession. Jesus then bids Bartimaeus to come to him, and asks him a question that in this day and age would likely bring forth a sarcastic answer of “Duh.”
Jesus says to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”
It would seem obvious, wouldn’t it? The man is blind, almost certainly waving a cane in front of him as he walks.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus knows better than to be sarcastic. So he answers, “Master, let me receive my sight.”
And Jesus complies. He says, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”
And, according to St. Mark, Bartimaeus immediately receives his sight and follows Jesus on the way.
And that’s the end of the story. That’s all St. Mark tells us about Bartimaeus in his Gospel. We hear no more about Bartimaeus. The next chapter finds Jesus in Bethany preparing to enter Jerusalem for the final time.
Which means, if we want to probe the depths of this miracle story for its truth for us, we have to do some thinking on our own about it.
For example, we might ask ourselves what would it be like if we had always been blind? And then, what would it be like to see for the very first time? And what would have happened to Bartimaeus after that?
I once read an account written by an ophthalmologist, an eye specialist, that I’ve saved over the years. The article was about just this -- what it would be like for someone to receive sight after having been born blind. Given our medical advances, this modern miracle has actually been performed in a number of cases.
Naturally, you’d assume that there would be overwhelming joy. “Wow! Look over there! is that a tree? And what’s that? A house?” And, “Well, hello dear wife – my you’re not what I imagined, but you’re not too bad.” “Hey, seeing is fun!”
But, no, says the specialist, that’s not what it’s like. In fact, seeing for the very first time is a most unpleasant experience.
The first thing that happens, apparently, is complete disorientation, a disorientation more severe, he says, than losing our sight and becoming blind would be. He says the person who sees for the first time suffers dizziness like you can’t believe and falls down. If he tries to open his eyes again he gets sick, loses his lunch.
Indeed, a person who suddenly receives his sight for the first time will invariably conclude, in the beginning anyway, that sight just isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
So, here is Bartimaeus, after receiving his sight from Jesus struggling along with the crowd following Jesus. He can’t bear to look at where he’s going. Seeing is terribly confusing for him.
And he doesn’t feel so good in the stomach. Maybe he walks along alternately looking and then covering his eyes and using his cane.
After awhile, we might imagine, he probably decides to go home and share this wonderful news with his family and friends. Only Bartimaeus doesn’t know how to see his way home. What’s more, he wouldn’t recognize his own house anyway. So, again, he covers his eyes and uses his cane to get home. It’s the only way he can handle this new thing, this sight business.
Then, to continue our imagining, once home Bartimaeus would face new problems. For example, his family is likely not so willing as they used to be to wait on him, to fetch things, to take care of him the way they were when he was blind. Moreover, since Bartimaeus used to earn his living by begging, he’s out of work – who would give money to a sighted beggar who has had a miracle healing? Hey, let him go work like the rest of us, they’d say.
Bartimaeus is now well. He can see. But the world calls him to responsibility, to take care of himself, to end his dependency. And Bartimaeus is surely traumatized. “I knew how to operate when I was blind. Now I’m not so sure of myself anymore. How do you handle things when you can see truly?”
As you may know from your study of the Bible, the accounts of Jesus in the Gospels are not necessarily chronological. That is, what happened in chapter 10 didn’t necessarily happen after the events recorded in chapter 9 or before the events in chapter 11. Instead, each Gospel writer had a reason to put them in the order they are to make the whole of the gospel story intelligible to their readers.
In the case of Bartimaeus, scholars are convinced that Mark put this story where he did to make a very strong point: the readers, you and I may in fact be blind.
Oh, not blind in that we can’t see with our eyes. But, blind in that we may not seeing the truth clearly. And, coming as it does soon before Jesus’ reported entry into Jerusalem, Mark is also saying that Jesus’ passion and cross can save only those who come to see that they can’t see. Who recognize their desperate need for Jesus. Just as did Bartimaeus.
Thinking back about Bartimaeus, the turning point of that story is the question that we scoffed at: “What do you want me to do for you?” The question of course implies that Jesus knew Bartimaeus might actually prefer to be blind. Because when you’re blind, you get waited on. Your work as a beggar is hardly difficult. And you get all that sympathy. I mean, it could be worse. Preferring to be blind to the truth has its immediate rewards.
And so too it may be for the likes of us. Although we’re not physically blind, maybe we prefer to be blind in some ways. Maybe we prefer to be blind to the truth, the real truth. As someone said the other day, only half in jest, “My mind is made up, don’t bother me with the facts.”
So: In what ways might Jesus consider you to be blind?
Is your mind closed to new truths, new understandings, new ways, new insights that would cause great upheaval in your life if you were to open your eyes?
What is the truth about yourself? Do you know the truth? Can you handle the truth? Or, do you prefer to deny the truth? Which is to say, do you prefer to be blind to the truth?
It’s hardly a good advertisement for Christianity, but, fact is, most all of us most all of the time come to God whether in private or together in worship hoping against hope that we will not have to make changes in our lives.
Instead, we prefer, vastly prefer, that we will be sustained in what we already believe. That our values will be shown to be correct values. That we will be patted on the back for what we are already doing. That we will not feel guilty if we do no more. That God will only wink at us for our habitual sins, our little faux pas.
For example: I go to God in prayer or in worship. Could it be said that if I begin my worship as a Democrat, that I’m open to leaving as a Republican? Or vice versa?
For if I’m not open to God so conceivably changing me in a way that transforms my understanding of what God wants in the world, then I’m choosing to remain blind.
Or, I go to God in prayer or in worship. Could it be that if I’m giving the left overs of my checking account, the easy money to the church that I’m open to cutting back on some of my purchases and pleasures so that I can give hundreds more, thousands more? If I’m not open to God so conceivably changing me, then I’m choosing to remain blind.
Or, I go to God in prayer or in worship. If I’m cheating on my spouse or cheating on my health or cheating on my employer, am I open to changing things? If I’m not open, then I’m choosing to remain blind.
Or, I go to God in prayer or in worship. If in the beginning I’m afraid to be different, to act different, to make different choices about my lifestyle, about what I buy, about what I do or don’t do because my friends or my spouse or my family or other church members will think I’ve become some kind of religious fanatic – am I open to doing so anyway if Jesus asks me to? If I’m not, then I’m choosing to remain blind.
You know, if blind Bartimaeus wouldn’t have spoken up, wouldn’t have called out to Jesus, “Jesus, have mercy on me,” Jesus would have walked on by.
Jesus, you see, never forces himself on anyone.
If we’re comfortable with life as it is, then Jesus walks on by.
But, here’s the thing that I really must tell you even as I have to tell myself: You, I, can’t get into heaven if we choose to remain blind.
Which, in another era of our church’s history, the preacher would have put it this way: If you have decided that you will not let Jesus change you, change your heart and your life you are bound for hell.
That preacher would have been right!
My advice: Step one: Stop with the excuses. Be willing to change anything and everything for the sake of Jesus. Step two: Call out to Jesus. “Have mercy on me.” Step three: Hear Jesus respond to you: “What do you want me to do for you?”
Then, decide how you’ll respond?
Will you say, “Nothing, never mind. I’m just playing with you. Just playing with my life. Just playing with this religion business.
Or, will you say: “Master, let me receive my sight.” I know I’ll likely be disoriented for awhile. But, let me receive my sight. Let me see truly.
Jesus will do whatever you ask.
If I can help you talk in depth with Jesus about your life – I’d be honored.