Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 10: 46-52

Today’s Gospel story takes place just before Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the last time.

There, as he has been telling his disciples again and again,

he will suffer at the hands of the authorities,

be crucified,

die,

and on the third day, rise again.

Jesus seems to knows that all this must come to pass,

and he is now single-minded about getting to Jerusalem.

Jericho is the last stop along the way.

His ministry—

a ministry that has consisted largely of healing people—

has come to a close.

It’s over.

Or so he thinks.

Right as he is leaving Jericho with his disciples

and the large crowd that seems to follow him wherever he goes now,

there’s a voice shouting from within the hordes of people:

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

It’s Bartimaeus,

a blind man who is known as a beggar in the city.

At first, the people in the crowd tell him to be quiet.

They know Bartimaeus.

And they know this man Jesus has better things to do than deal with him.

But Bartimaeus shouts even louder,

“Son of David, have mercy on me!”

And then the most wonderful thing happens.

Jesus stops and stands still.

I imagine there must have been hundreds of people in this crowd.

I imagine it must have been like a mob: chaotic, and loud.

And yet, the story says,

Jesus stops and manages to be still for a moment.

Still enough to hear Bartimaeus crying out for him.

“Call him here,” he says.

All of a sudden, the same people who,

just a few seconds before were telling Bartimaeus to shut up,

are now telling him to take heart,

to get up,

because Jesus is calling him.

And then another wonderful thing happens.

Bartimaeus is so eager to meet Jesus

that he throws off his cloak, and springs up

and runs over to Jesus.

And Jesus says to him,

“What do you want me to do for you?”

And Bartimaeus says,

“My teacher, let me see again.”

And Jesus says to him,

“Go; your faith has made you well.”

And immediately, Mark says,

he regains his sight, and follows Jesus along the way.

I love so many things about this story.

First of all,

I love that Jesus doesn’t just heal Bartimaeus from a distance.

Surely he could’ve just snapped his fingers

and healed Bartimaeus

so that he could’ve been on his way.

Or he might’ve just ignored Bartimaeus altogether,

and said to himself,

I can’t heal everyone!

I can’t do everything!

But that’s not the way Jesus operates.

Instead, Jesus calls Bartimaeus over to him.

He invites Bartimaeus to come close.

He wants to know him.

The healing Jesus offers here—and throughout the Gospels—

isn’t impersonal or anonymous.

It’s intimate.

It’s grounded in loving relationship.

I love that.

Another thing I love about this story

is that Jesus actually asks Bartimaeus what he wants.

Jesus is the Son of God, right?

Presumably,

he knew what was inside people’s hearts.

Presumably, he already knew what Bartimaeus wanted.

And yet, he doesn’t presume to speak for Bartimaeus.

Neither does he presume to offer him healing.

He first asks.

What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus invites Bartimaeus to say what he wants.

He invites Bartimaeus to name his desire.

It’s Bartimaeus who says,

“My teacher, let me see again.”

The third thing I love about this story

is that Bartimaeus’ encounter with Jesus sets him free to follow Jesus.

Jesus’ question to Bartimaeus (What do you want me to do for you?)

and his healing of Bartimaeus

free him to become a disciple of Jesus.

What is it Bartimaeus does the very minute he can see?

He follows Jesus along the way, the story says.

Maybe Jesus knew all along that Bartimaeus would make a good disciple,

perhaps from the minute he heard him shouting.

Even before Bartimaeus knew he’d become a disciple.

And so Jesus asked him the question

and offered him the very thing

that would free him to follow him.

I love this story.

I love it because it reminds me of things about God

that I sometimes forget.

It reminds me that God is actually concerned about me.

Like Bartimaeus, who to his great surprise,

Jesus calls out of the crowd to come close,

God wants me to come close.

God calls each of us close.

No matter how many times I hear the story of Bartimaeus,

this is still surprising to me.

That in spite of being the creator of universe,

God still has time for each of us.

That God wants a relationship with us.

Not just a long-distance relationship.

Or an impersonal relationship.

But an intimate one.

God wants to get to know us.

This story also reminds me that

God actually cares about what I want.

God cares about my desires.

God seeks to ask me and you,

just as Jesus did Bartimaeus,

What do you want me to do for you?

What do you want me to do for you?

And my response to this question—

our response

—actually matters to God.

In other words, our whole fate isn’t just determined ahead of time.

God doesn’t force us to do things or to become people we aren’t.

We’re not just passive bystanders to a story

that God has already written.

We have a say in matters.

God trusts us, loves us, enough

that we get to express our desires, our hopes, and our dreams.

We get to collaborate with God in our lives

just as Bartimaeus did.

Lastly, this story reminds me

that the thing I most desire

can be the thing that frees me to follow Jesus.

Bartimaeus’ greatest desire is to receive his sight.

This is the thing that makes him into a disciple.

What if the things we want, that we desire—

if they are authentically the things we want—

are also the things that free us to follow Jesus?

We don’t know what happened to Bartimaeus after he met Jesus on the road

just outside Jericho.

Bartimaeus is never mentioned again in the Gospels.

We have no idea if he was with Jesus in Jerusalem during the events that took place there.

Or whether if he became an evangelist for his new-found faith,

or perhaps if he died for this faith like so many of Jesus’ followers did.

God only knows what became of Bartimaeus.

He’s lost to history.

Which is kind of wonderful, really.

Since most of us will be lost to history one day too.

Thankfully for Bartimaeus, and thankfully for us,

being famous or going down in the history books

aren’t criteria for being followers of Jesus.

We’re simply called to follow him

wherever he meets us along the road of our lives.

To listen for his voice inviting us to come closer.

Take heart! Get up! He’s calling you!