The Gospel for this Sunday told the story of the blind son of Timaeus, sitting by the Jericho Road when Jesus, Son of David, came by.
Everyone knows what a preacher is going to say about this, but I wasn't happy to go there. The phrase that stuck out for me as I read and reread it was the question of Jesus "What do you want me to do for you?"
In the context of this narrative I would have thought that was bleedingly obvious but again I wasn't content with the trite answer to that.
The reason was that last Sunday we read the story of James and John asking Jesus if they could ask him a favour. He responds to them with exactly the same question "What do you want me to do for you?"
Why were these two stories side by side immediately preceding the Narrative of Holy Week and the Passion?
As I struggled with this question it seemed to me that if I was to interpret the question that the son of Timaeus asked in response to the question of Jesus was not so much about his specific need to SEE and more about his general need to be WHOLE then how we should respond to the question became much more open to real conversation.
Every one of us can answer the question of Jesus with the statement "I want to be WHOLE," but the content of that wholeness not only will be different for each one of us, but will change from day to day, as we struggle with how to be the people God wants us to be.
An acquaintence of my wife said she had meditated on this question every day for the past 14 years. Here is a life's work.
Here is true discipleship!
ROBERT INCHAUSTI: SUBVERSIVE ORTHODOXY
14 years ago
Listening to Richard Rohr – reminds us of the term “Cheap Grace”.
ReplyDeleteIt is found in Dietrich Bonnhoeffer's book “The Cost of Discipleship”and that book's most frequently quoted passage goes like this:
“cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”
Having that in the background of my mind, I spent much of this week pondering the fact that the words in the Gospel story that we read today that really stood out to me as if to say, “These are the words to preach on.” were the words Jesus said to Bartimaeus in verse 51:
“What do you want me to do for you”
They are striking words in this particular narrative because they seem to pose a rather stupid question. What listener to this story would not be able to guess the answer – it was so obvious. Bartimaeus was blind, he was calling out to Jesus, a known healer of the sick – of course he wanted to see again.
What is interesting is that in the story that immediately precedes this one, Jesus asks exactly the same question.
JAMES AND JOHN
Jesus put the same question to James and John when they approached him asking for a favour. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked – the same question.
How is it that these same words are connected to both these two very close friends and disciples of Jesus and a blind beggar, stranger?
It seems to me that they are almost opposites of each other rather than like each other.
On one level you could see these two “in-group” disciples, James and John, demonstrating how blind they were, despite having lived in Jesus' pocket, so to speak, for three years, by asking for a favour of Jesus in the form of positions of status. Then you have the Blind man who was still stute enough to really know who Jesus was. This could be a forced association.
On another level, you might take this story as a literary device for Mark, as he constructed the sequence of all the Gospel stories he knew, by which he wanted his readers to be most ready to SEE exactly what was going to play out immediately following this – Holy Week and Jesus' death and resurrection.
However, this will not resolve my curiosity about that question “What do you want me to do for you?”
Most of the times we read this story, when we hear the Blind man respond to this question by asking if Jesus would let him see again, we not unreasonably think the main point of the story is about being able to see properly.
If you change the intent of the Blind man's request from the specific – let me SEE – to the general – make me WHOLE – then both the juxtaposition of his request and that of James and John is much clearer. It also gives me an entry point to discuss the question itself as one we must consider every day.
Just as an aside – sermon writing is a really lonely business, but I want to acknowledge to you all today that I have an advantage over many sermon writers. I often talk with ... about where I might go with a sermon, and the discussion we have together generates a whole lot of ideas that I am sure I would not have been able to generate if I was really alone in this task. It often enables me to work with renewed vigour on a sermon after getting stuck, and it doesn't matter that what I end up with is a bit different from just what we talked about.
As we discussed this, ... told of a person of her recent acquaintance who confessed that she has indeed contemplated this question daily for the past dozen or more years. So it seems to me that this might be a very important question.
WHAT DO WE WANT JESUS TO DO?
ReplyDeleteWhere do we stand? With James and John wanting status and power or with the Blind beggar of Jericho wanting to be whole?
If Jesus were to ask us: “I give you one wish. What do you want me to do for you?” what would be our honest answer? I say “honest” answer. Not some pretty answer, dressed up to look religiously nice, but the raw, uncensored stuff of our souls. What do we really desire? What do we profoundly hanker for?
I have more than a suspicion that if we were to project up on to the screen here the things each of us might most want, our list could look more the one for James and John than the one for the Blind man. We too readily look for favours from Jesus. What we might say we want would be a bit like a spoilt child’s Christmas wish list.
Maybe a few of you might be a bit more like the Blind man. Perhaps you would indeed ask for better sight:
¾that you might more clearly see the path Jesus wants you to take through the maze of this complex and often confusing twenty first century
That you might:
¾have better insight into how to express the faith in word and actions?
¾know when to speak and when to be silent on moral issues?
¾know when to stubbornly dig your heels in and when to compromise for Jesus’ sake?
¾know how to be better stewards of your gifts, education, life experience and possessions?
¾know how to best serve Jesus in supporting causes like asylum seekers, the unemployed, and indigenous reconciliation?
I WANT TO BE WHOLE
So, if you were to ponder this question every day – to meditate on it deeply and really challenge yourself to be sure you were asking Jesus to give you exactly what Jesus would choose to give to you – what do you think you would be asking for?
If you were to embark on such a course of action then I am sure you would experience in its fullness the grace of God.
Which is where my opening idea starts to kick in, I think. It is when we realy really want something, a wanting that is born out of deep reflection and desire, then it is that we will know God's grace. And it won't be cheap grace.
The question I want to challenge you with today is if Jesus was to confront you with this question “What do you want me to do for you?” what would you really ask for in order to be made WHOLE?
As you ponder those areas of your life that are not WHOLE, that cause you to stumble in your walk as a disciple of Jesus, what would you ask of Jesus to make you WHOLE.
After a short period of silence in which I would like you to ponder this question for yourself, I will lead you in a prayer by John Bell:
Let us pray:
You keep us waiting.
You, the God of all time;
want us to wait
for the right time in which to discover
who we are, where we must go,
who will be with us, and what we must do.
So, thank you....for the waiting time.
You keep us looking.
You, the God of all space,
want us to look in the right and wrong places
for signs of hope,
for people who are hopeless,
for visions of a better world which will appear
among the disappointments of the world we know.
So, thank you .... for the looking time.
You keep us loving.
You, the God whose name is love,
want us to be like you ·
to love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable;
to love without jealousy or design or threat;
and most difficult of all,
to love ourselves.
So, thank you .... for the loving time.
And in all this,
You keep us.
Through hard questions with no easy answers;
through failing where we hoped to succeed
and making an impact when we felt we were useless;
through the patience and the dreams and the love of others;
and through Jesus Christ and his Spirit,
You keep us.
So, thank you for the keeping time.
and for now,
and for ever.