I gave this homily at an Adoration Service at Hopwood Memorial Christian church on Tuesday October 27, 2009. As per the instructions, I kept it under ten minutes (though the bar was set at five, and I did exceed that), which proved to be somewhat difficult, as I seem to posess the inate ability to speak longer than I should. However, as I have realized in the last few years that a speaker can only expect so much attention from the audience (as I too possess a relatively short attention span when sitting on the other side of the pulpit), I have already been on the path towards a more succint sermon. But the challenge lies, therein, to pack those eight minutes with something meaningful while at the same time giving proper respect to the text at hand. So it it my hopes that in this I have, at least in part, accomplished some of those tasks.



Mark 10:46-52

46Then they came to Jericho And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road.

47When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

48Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

49And Jesus stopped and said, "Call him here." So they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you."

50Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus.

51And answering him, Jesus said, "What do you want Me to do for you?" And the blind man said to Him, "Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!"

52And Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.

(NASB taken from biblegateway.com)

When I was very young, my dad and I went and played pool in the house of a friend from church. His name is Lloyd Schneider, he was older at the time, and he was legally blind. I will not pretend that I was any good at the game; I was young, that’s my excuse. But even at that age, I could recognize great skill. I vaguely recollect that game and that day, but the one thing that I remember is that man played well. He not only played well, but he wiped the table with us. And again he was legally blind.



We place an awful lot of importance on sight as a determinative for life. In theory, two people with solid vision should be able to easily beat somebody who is legally blind in a game that relies in great part on sight. Yet, that was not the case.



In our reading today, we see a man, who, by his very physical nature, could not see Jesus. And yet, he possessed such a great faith in the unseen, that he was both physically and spiritually saved.



In many ways, this passage serves as a capstone to the ministry of Jesus so far. It includes many vivid recollections of previous events and charges made. It also serves to further develop the theme of true discipleship by furthering the dichotomy that is present between the Apostles who did not always live up to the standards of discipleship impressed on them, and those often viewed as the bottom end of society, children and blind men, who more accurately reflect the call of Jesus. In Bartimaeus, a perfect example of one whom society rejected, we see that a true disciple is one who submits his own will to the will of Christ.



So, let’s take a quick look at the passage, and see how Bartimaeus is this true disciple.

Jesus and His disciples are leaving Jericho, of which Bartimaeus becomes aware, so he calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many in the crowd rebuke Bartimaeus for his request, no doubt embarrassed that one of the least of their own is making a fool of himself and his fellow citizens in front of a celebrity. The motif of barriers between the healer and those seeking to be healed are found throughout Markan miracle stories. In fact, the disciples themselves served as barriers when they rebuked those bringing children before Jesus in 10:13.

Jesus acknowledges the request and calls him forward, and suddenly those who opposed Bartimaeus changed their tune, encouraging him to go to Jesus. He throws aside his cloak, jumps up, and goes forward, and in this one fluid motion, Bartimaeus, like so many before him, rejects his old life in order to follow Christ.

So, Jesus then asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” to which Bartimaeus responds with the obvious answer, “I want to regain my sight!”

This was not the first time that Jesus asks this question “What do you want me to do for you?” In fact, Jesus posed the same question to James and John in vs. 36 of this chapter, where, instead of desiring to understand the will of God, to “regain sight”, they reveal their true desires to have the highest honor with Jesus. Despite their sight, they still lacked understanding.

Jesus replies with “Your faith has made you well,” and his sight is restored. The Greek word used has a double meaning; it can be used to describe a physical healing as well as salvation. Bartimaeus went and was given both.

This is not the only healing of a blind man that we find in Mark. Only a few chapters earlier, we see Jesus healing another blind man at Bethsaida by spitting in the man’s eyes and then placing His hands on him. The man could not at first see clearly, and described people as trees, so Jesus again placed His hands on the man, giving him full sight. This scene is a direct allusion to the Apostles, especially Peter, who saw Jesus but did not understand his purposes on earth; he was blurry to them. This is made abundantly clear in the passages that follow that miracle as Peter first proclaims Jesus as the Christ, but then reveals his misunderstanding of what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah as he rebukes Jesus for saying that he would suffer and die, a process that is painfully and completely necessary for our redemption. Rather than see God’s plan for salvation through sacrifice, Peter imposes his own desires for Messiah to come with earthly power.



And so we see that true discipleship does not stem from our own will but from the will of Christ. So what does this have to do with the Eucharist? Everything. Because we participate in this service as disciples of Christ.



I was not raised in a Liturgical setting, as I would imagine is the same for many of you. And sometimes I think that it is enriching to the experience to have a better understanding of some of the elements contained in it.



Very soon, the presider will ask us to “lift up our hearts”, to which we then proclaim “we lift them up to the Lord”. This portion of the prayer is called the Sursum Corda, which literally means “Lift up your hearts.” When we respond in this way, we as individuals and as the church are lifting ourselves up to God along with the bread and wine as living sacrifices, which hearkens back to Romans 12:1 when Paul writes, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”



So, if we are to offer our discipleship up to God, we should consider what kind of disciple we are. Are we, like Bartimaeus, seeking to become true disciples through submission of our wills to Jesus, or are we like Peter, who sees trees of Power when he should see the Christ of sacrifice, our are we like James and John who seek self-gain rather than self denial. I would submit to you today that we are all three and then some. When asked "What do you want me to do for you?", somedays we may reply “to regain sight”, while other days our answers may reflect our own wills and desires.



Yet we cannot leave it this way because we are called to be like Christ, who is perfect in humanity and divinity. And so we come to the great divide between the ugliness of man and the Holiness of God, which can only be bridged by the death of Christ. And it is this gift of salvation in His death that we celebrate and remember at the table. It is his ultimate sacrifice that redeems us so that we can become living sacrifices, true disciples, and lift up our hearts in thanksgiving for His wonderful mercy in our lives.



I am not suggesting that we have to be perfect in order to come before the table. Rather, I want to acknowledge the radical calling that is placed on our lives, and enforce the responsibility that we own as individuals and share as a church, disregarding the popular myth that the burden of true discipleship is too difficult, so therefore we shouldn’t try. And this isn’t something that we will arrive at here tonight, or even this week. Rather, we should spend our lives seeking after Christ’s will, submitting ourselves to it, and in the process, becoming true disciples.