“A New Way”

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

October 24, 2021

Jeremiah 31:7-9

Mark 10:46-52

Once again, today’s gospel passage isn’t quite what it seems. We typically chalk it up as another healing story. Jesus heals a blind man and says, “Go, your faith has made you well.” And then we expound on the many ways that we are blind, seeking Jesus’ healing for us. But there’s something so much deeper going on here.

It’s been such a blessing to me to read Pastor Lowell Hennigs’ blog leading up to the weekend each week. Each day, he delves into the details of a text in ways I wouldn’t have dreamed of. And this text is full of details—details we often miss because we are so assured that we already know the story. Let’s look closer.

“They came to Jericho.” It doesn’t tell us what they were doing in Jericho—maybe just passing through on their way to Jerusalem. We equate Jericho with Joshua marching his troops around it seven times, blowing their trumpets until the walls came a-tumbling down. It was where Rahab, the prostitute who hid the Hebrew spies, lived. She and her family were the only ones to survive Joshua’s attack. She is listed in Matthew’s genealogy account as an ancestor of Jesus. They came to Jericho.

And on their way out, on the road that left the place, they came upon a man. Not just any man. This man has a name. He even has a family. He is Bar-Timaeus, the son of Timaeus, which means ‘honored one.’ Or ‘shamed one.’ The Greek has a funny way of going both directions, according to D. Mark Davis. You’ll notice that in previous healing passages, the ones healed are not named. Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. Jairus’ daughter. The woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years.

Bartimaeus was sitting at the edge of the city. Along the edge of the road. This is a man who lived at the edge of society. A beloved intern that served here once preached a sermon and said, “If you’re not on the margins, you’re taking up too much room.” God gives preference to those on the margins. This man was on the margins—merely an annoyance to those who came and went with purpose.

As we’ll see if we were to read beyond today’s text, this takes place just before Passover—as Jewish pilgrims are making their way to Jerusalem. This is a great time to beg along the way because many pilgrims will be hoping to make their alms—give to the poor—as their spiritual practice prior to Passover. And so when the man “heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’” Again, this is loaded with intent. He calls him Son of David—a term linked with the Messiah. At a time when the Messiah is expected to show up—typically Passover as the Lamb of God again sparing the Hebrews in order to set them free.

And again, if we were to read on, the next passage is Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey where he will hear cries of “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” But Bartimaeus gets there first. Now the crowd is tired of this beggar and hearing his loud cries. They “try to make the blind man mute, as well.” But the man is persistent. He’s a beggar. This ain’t his first rodeo. So he cries out louder.

Now, this is where our English translation really botches things up. The Greek says that Jesus tells the crowd to call him over. So, they call him to Jesus saying, “Take heart, he is calling you.” Mark uses the word ‘call’ three times here. Three is an important number. Put a pin in that as we move forward.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The man flung off his cloak, sprang up, and ran to Jesus. Several commentaries suggest that this cloak is a tool of the trade. One even implies that it was a standard cloak offered by the government for the purposes of begging. It may be all that the man truly had for himself. It would serve as a bedroll, pillow, shade against the sun, protection against the rain, and perhaps most importantly, where he would collect the coins offered by passersby.

He flung it. Chucked it. Threw it away—with no intent to get it back. With everything he had collected. His whole source of income and security. The one thing he could rely on. Compare this with the rich man who came to Jesus wanting more. The man who grieved when Jesus told him to chuck it all because he had so much. And then this man who flung it aside without being told and did so with joy.

And Jesus said, “What do you want me to do for you?” Do you remember last week when James and John asked Jesus to grant them what they wished, and he responded, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And what did they say? They wanted positions of authority in his glory. What does this man want? He wants to see again. Or see anew. He wants to see with new eyes. He wants to SEE Jesus’ glory, not be held in its esteem.

Jesus tells him, “Go, your faith has made you well.” Just like the woman who was bleeding. Just like Jarius. But the man’s faith wasn’t proved in the asking. The man’s faith was shown in the flinging. In the discarding of all that held him back. In the turning away of his old life in order to approach Jesus. His faith was even in his disobedience. Jesus said ‘Go’, and instead the man followed Jesus. And, as I’ve said before, if we read on we know exactly where that led—to Jerusalem and to his death.

This isn’t a healing story. This is a call story. This is a story of discipleship. This is a story that shows us someone who, after all the attempts of many prior to him, gets it. Someone who is blind who sees better than anyone else around him exactly who Jesus is and what he is about—and doesn’t shy away, doesn’t rebuke. Instead, he follows. He grasps. He welcomes this Jesus of the cross, the Jesus who serves, the Jesus who suffers.

This past week I attended our yearly theological conference—a gathering of pastoral leaders in the synod. We had the opportunity to listen to Bishop Michael Rinehart from the Texas-Louisiana Synod speak, and he really got me to thinking.

Being from Texas and Louisiana, he’s had a little experience dealing with natural disasters. He was bishop when Hurricane Katrina hit—and Hurricane Harvey, and all the other climate-related disasters of the area. He knows what it’s like to care for communities devastated from the storm. He knows the difficulties of rebuilding—and burying.

With this perspective, he led us through two days of considering what we’ve been through with this pandemic and where we’re headed. First, it’s important to tell our pandemic stories. Each story is different. Each person was touched by the events differently. Telling the story helps traumatized people deal with the reality of tragedy. Listen to the stories of others. What have they lost? What have they gained?

Second, recognize the reality of where you are. We are still in a liminal space. Liminality simply means an ‘in-between’ place—where you aren’t where you were, and you aren’t where you’re going. It’s being on the road. For us, pre-pandemic is in the past, and post-pandemic is still in the future. We are in between. We are on the way, but we don’t know quite where.

It’s the wilderness where the Hebrews wandered for 40 years. Like them, we find ourselves wanting to go back, though if we’re honest with ourselves, where we were wasn’t really working. It was just what we knew. It was a church with a 500-year-old mindset. It takes liminal space—a wilderness—to take us out of the past and take the past out of us.

And like the Hebrews in the wilderness, we’re anxious to get to the Promised Land. But God doesn’t let us just jump to the end. We’re going to need to wander in this liminal space for a while.

As Bishop Rinehart said, we shouldn’t waste a good crisis. We are at a precious moment in time where we can become something different. This pandemic has stripped away many of our securities. We are in the holy moment between hearing the voice of Jesus calling and flinging our cloaks aside in order to run to him. We are in the midst of a sacred liminal moment. There is no going back, no matter how much we want to. It simply is no longer there.

But in this crisis—this moment of discernment—we have choices to make. Some of you have already made choices. You have experienced the quietness of not being quite so busy and have said ‘no’ to many previous responsibilities. Some were forced out of work and taken this time to reevaluate what’s next—often not returning to where you were. Some have come to appreciate working from home and have chosen a hybrid way of going forward. Some of you have loved the slower pace of Sunday mornings and chosen to worship with us online.

I, too, have made some choices—leaving behind Saturday night worship. And though many keep asking when we’re going back to two morning services, I suspect we won’t. We don’t need to. What we DO need to do is consider what God is calling us to now. We have a rare opportunity to stop and listen—to discern our next steps without being beholden to the past. We can’t go back, and we don’t have to recreate what once was.

Because the truth is, the Church of the future will look very little like it is now. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We get to define our next steps. Imagine our goals. We get to fling our cloak of the past and run to Jesus asking for our eyes to be opened—to see anew what it is we are about. And then to follow Jesus.

This is good news, though it sounds quite difficult and scary. That’s the life of discipleship. It is so very good. Because we are not defined by our past. You are not defined by your past. Every second of every day is a liminal moment in which God is redefining you and calling you to something new. Every crisis is simply reminding you that you are a work in progress—we are a work in progress. And that God will open our eyes anew over and over again, helping us to see the way to a new day together.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE