Home

   Sermons

   Scripture
     Readings

   Ministries

Youth

UMW

Child Education

Adult Education

   The Spire

   Staff

   History

   Bookstore

   Donations

   Contact Info

Office Hours

M-Th 9-12, 1-3

Closed Friday

 

Telephone

(503)640-1775

 

Address

168 NE 8th

Hillsboro, OR 97124

 

Directions

   Email

General Info

 

Office

 

Spire

 

Webmaster

 

Gwen Drake

Pastor

 

Sandra Hunter

Director of Family

Ministries

 

Lefty Schultz

Visitation Pastor

 

Laura Lillegard

Office Manager

 

John Hiestand

Music Minister

 

Youth E-mail

Youth Ministry

 

Oregon-Idaho UMC

 

Main UMC Website

Boy Scout Tr #240

Scripture: Mark 10:46-52

The story of Bartimaeus is a story about the restoration of sight, among other things. It is a story about one man who wanted to get out of his own personal darkness. So he did everything in his power to gain the light. As such, it is a story that holds clues for those of us who want the same thing--to get out of our personal darkness. It holds clues for a church that wants the same thing--to get out of its personal darkness. These clues can be found as we walk around in the story.

So, imagine that you are one of the disciples, any disciple. You wake up on the road with Jesus. Jerusalem is only fifteen miles away and unless you are waylaid, you will be there by dark. You are not sure what will happen there, but from what Jesus has said, it sounds grim.

Not that you understand half of what he says. It is harder than you thought, this disciple business. When he first asked you to follow, you thought he was headed for success--for high political office, to start with, and then--if he is who you think he is--for the very throne of Israel. And he chose YOU to go with him! But lately he has been talking crazy, talking about dying and rising and being a servant, not a king. It was not what you expected, and you have thought more than once about going back to the old fishing hole. But you have grown to love him and you are in awe of the way he seems to love everyone he meets, never seeing just crowds but always people, and reaching out to touch them, heal them, save them.

You are on your way out of Jericho, with half the town tagging along behind you. Then you see a blind beggar by the side of the road. He is sitting there rocking back and forth on his heels. Someone in the crowd, a local person groans and says, “It’s Bartimaeus,” by which you gather that he is well known, at least by those who support him with their dimes, quarters, and dollar bills. Not to worry, you are thinking, the poor are always with us, when suddenly the beggar’s head jerks up and he shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Several of the disciples, you included, stop dead in your tracks and look at one another. How in the world does this blind beggar recognize what very few have seen with their own eyes, that the man on the road in front of them is indeed the Messiah?

But your questions and pondering are cut short by the shushing of the crowd, “Be quiet, beggar,” someone hisses. “Don’t be shameless, Bartimaeus, hustling a rabbi for small change. Somebody tell him to shut up.” But Bartimaeus will not shut up. “Son of David,” he cries again, “have mercy on me!” Jesus hears him this time and stops, “Call him,” Jesus says, and the crowd changes its mind about Bartimaeus, scolding him no longer but congratulating him instead, encouraging him to his feet. “Take heart,” someone says, “Get up, Bartimaeus, he is calling you! Today must be your lucky day!” But Bartimaeus does not merely rise, he flings off his cloak, and springs to his feet, rushing toward the remembered sound of Jesus’ voice. He misjudges by a foot or so and plants himself in front of YOU, his big round eyes rolling in their separate orbits, a look of great expectation on his weathered face. Someone takes him by the shoulders and turns him slightly, until he is facing Jesus. He is nodding his thanks when Jesus asks him. “What do you want me to do for you?”

Now there is a rhetorical question if you have ever heard one. What does Jesus think he wants, a pair of sunglasses? But no, you know better than that. Jesus is not playing to the crowd. Jesus wants to hear Bartimaeus say it, say exactly what he wants, exactly how much he believes Jesus can do. Jesus does not make any assumptions. So the blind man sums up his heart’s desire in six words: “My teacher,” he says, “let me see again,” and Jesus replies, “Go, your faith has made you well.” Just like that, just words. No mud, no spittle, not even a touch. Still, it is enough! Bartimaeus closes his eyes, and when he opens them again they work. “Go,” Jesus tells him, but he does not go, or else he decides on the spot that his way is Jesus’ way, because that is the way he chooses, without any way of knowing where it will lead. Still blinking, he chooses the road to Jerusalem in the company of his Lord.

It is a stunning story. It is one in which there is no ambivalence; all the verbs are strong and clean--Bartimaeus cried out, sprung up, and spoke straight from his heart. His faith was impeccable, and as soon as Jesus said so out loud, his eyes opened and he became a disciple, following Jesus on the way as if there was no other way once he could really see. It is a perfect story, full of courage and compassion, complete with a happy ending It is a story about the kingdom of God. AND, we want it to be our own story We want to be in that story: to encounter Jesus, to be called to him by name, to find the words to tell him exactly what we want, and to be healed, illumined, made whole. That is what we want, isn’t it? That’s what I would like to have. To trade in whatever blindness I have, to trade it in on sight, so that I can see--see myself, see our world, see all of you, see Jesus, CLEARLY, without cloud or shadow. That would be really something, wouldn’t it? I’d like to have that--I think. Wouldn’t you like to be able to see?

I’m asking you a metaphorical question, of course. Real physical blindness is something altogether different. Those of us who can see, cannot imagine what it would be like to live in darkness and then, having only known darkness, what it would be like to suddenly be able to see, to have to make sense out of color, depth, distance, perspective, and all those other things we figured out years ago and now take for granted. What if we had never learned to make sense of the world that way?

Annie Dillard’s book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, in a chapter titled, “Seeing,” she quotes at length from another book by Marius von Senden titled Space and Sight. It is about the first people in the world to undergo successful cataract surgery. All had been blind from birth. When they received their sight, they were interviewed about what they saw. Their stories are strange and moving. They described a world we no longer see. They described it the way a newborn baby or someone might see it for the very first time. One newly sighted girl was shown a pile of photographs and paintings by her mother. “Why do they put those dark marks all over them?” she asked her mother. Her mother explained, “Those aren’t dark marks, they are shadows.” “Shadows?” the girl asked, and her mother said, yes. “That is one of the ways the eye knows that things have shape. If it weren’t for shadows, many things would look flat.” “Well, that’s how things do look,” her daughter answered. “Everything looks flat with dark patches.”

Another girl was so stunned by the radiance of the world that she kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When she finally opened them she saw only a field of light against which everything seemed to be in motion. She could not distinguish objects, but gazed at everything around her, saying over and over again, “Oh God! How beautiful!”

But not everything was beautiful for these newly sighted people. Unable to judge distances, they reached out for things a mile away, or cracked their shins on pieces of furniture they perceived only as patches of color. The world turned out to be much bigger than they had thought, bigger and infinitely more complex. Unable to control it, some fell into depression. Others, having seen themselves for the first time in a mirror, realized how often others had seen them with out their awareness or permission. Some became terribly self-conscious about their appearance while others refused to go out at all. The distressed father of one young woman wrote to her surgeon that his daughter had taken to shutting her eyes when she walked around the house, and that she never seemed happier than when she pretended to be blind again. A fifteen-year-old boy finally demanded to be taken back to the local home for the blind. “No, really, I can’t stand it anymore,” he said, “If things aren’t altered, I’ll tear my eyes out.”

Tear your eyes out? After being rescued from a life in the dark, after being hauled into the light and presented with a world full of color, depth, movement, space, sights! Tear your eyes out? For God’s sake, why? It’s just too much! Too much what? Too much to see. Too much to do. Too much to be. It was better before! Better? How? Smaller. Quieter. Safer. But this is what you were made for--YOU WERE MEANT TO SEE! I would rather not. Besides, the sun hurts my eyes. If you will excuse me I think I will go lie down now.

Lie down? Take heart! Get up, he is calling YOU! What will you do? Because that is what this is all about: to see or not to see. How will you have it? You can stay where you are. You can sit in your familiar dark, where all the edges are rounded off so that you will not hurt yourself, where you need only concern yourself with what is within your reach. After all, you wouldn’t want to make a spectacle of yourself, and it probably would not work anyway. No sense getting your hopes up; no sense thinking of yourself as a person who might see. Stay with what you know!!!!

I know this story well--so well, too well! It’s the story of our lives. It’s the story of the church. How will we have it? Will we sit in our comfortable darkness only concerned about what is within our reach?

Or, will we cry out, spring up, and ask for our heart’s desire. Jesus, Master, fill this sanctuary with all kinds of people--people who are yearning to wrestle with deep questions of life, people who don’t want easy answers, people who are seeking for a community to welcome them, people who are Methodists but don’t know it yet!

This story tells us good riddance to caution, to propriety, to fear, to everything that keeps us in the dark. Lie down? NO!!! Get up!!! Jesus is calling us! Are we willing to see or not? And if we are willing, are we willing to see everything there is, the good along with the awful, the lovely along with the monstrous--in yourself, in everyone you meet, in the world? Are you willing to bruise your shins, to learn your way around the obstacles and through the newness of it all, into the mysteries? Are you willing to bruise our heart?

Oh my goodness, is this my story. When God called me into the ministry, it was been my story. When my children were born, it was my story. When my marriage ended it was my story. What Kate, my District Superintendent called me and said, “I have the church for you?” it was my story. And it is your story, too! God calls all of us and the church out of our personal darkness. God calls us to take heart, get up, proclaim what you want. What is your answer? Is it YES? Yes, I want to see! Yes, I want to live! Yes, I want to be what I was meant to be!

Then, Jesus tells us to go, go our way because our faith has made us well. Your faith has made you well. Go your way, seeing as if for the very first time. Or, if, having gained your sight, your own way does not look so appealing anymore, then try another way. Try the way that leads to Jerusalem, through a garden, past a cross, to an empty tomb. It is not always pretty, but wait until you see what is there at the end, or should I say WHO.

What? You think you haven’t been invited? TAKE HEART! Get up, he is calling you!

Amen.