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Celebrating the Simple

ANCHORS OF HOME

Celebrating the Simple

July 1, 2007

Text: Mark 10:46-52

Mark 10:46-52

46 They came to Jericho . As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho , Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50 So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” 52 Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

NRSV

To turn a house into a home—to turn a collection of people into a family—there are some basic things we have to do. During July, I’d like to devote a series of sermons exploring those basic things. The theme for these sermons I’ll call, “anchors of home.”

Day in, day out, Bartimaeus sat on the side of the busy road that connected Jericho to Jerusalem. He did the only thing he knew to do, to make a living. As travelers would pass in front of him, he’d hold out a rag and cry out,

“BLIND MAN! HAVE MERCY ON A BLIND MAN!”

Whenever he’d feel the weight of the coin in the rag or hear the clink, he’d shout out, “Thank you, bless you!” Mischievous kids would mess with him, throwing a pebble into it, and he’d start to say, “Thank you…” then hear their laughter. He’d curse and spit at them.

It’s bad enough to beg for a living. But to be ridiculed and humiliated this way? It only made his condition more miserable. If he could only see, his life would be different. “I’d teach those kids a lesson,” he thought to himself.

Sometimes an adult would pass by and sneer at him. He could hear under their breath, “Sinner!” Many believed back then that if you were diseased, it was because you did something to deserve it—sort of like, “You’re sick on the outside because you’re sick on the inside.” The only response he could make was the response he always made. He swallowed his pride, accepted his fate, and cried out,

“BLIND MAN! HAVE MERCY ON A BLIND MAN!”

One day, he heard a crowd coming his way. He heard someone say, “Jesus of Nazareth—the prophet, the miracle worker—that’s him over there! Look at him!”

It took Bartimaeus only a second to decide what to do. Someone like Jesus was his only hope, his only hope to leave behind his miserable begging.

“JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY UPON ME!”

Some of the people who’d sneered at him told him to be quiet, but that didn’t stop him. It made him cry out even more loudly,

“JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY UPON ME!”

Jesus stopped, and called him forward. He got up and, with his walking stick, tapped his way in the direction of the voice he’d heard.

And Jesus asked,

“What do you want me to do for you?”

Interesting. That’s exactly what Jesus had said to two of his disciples just a few verses earlier in this chapter from Mark. “What do you want me to do for you, James and John?” The two brothers replied, “We want to stand on either side of you when you come into your Kingdom—we want to be your Secretary of State and your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff!”

The brothers had ambition, goals, a lust for power.

“What do you want me to do for you, Bartimaeus?”

And this blind beggar simply replied,

“MY TEACHER, LET ME SEE AGAIN.”

Moved by compassion, Jesus replied, “Go, your faith has made you well.”

So Bartimaeus turned away from Jesus. As he walked, the darkness in his eyes grew paler. Lighter. He started seeing shapes, then colors. The outlines of people and things grew sharper. Finally everything became clear to him, like a camera coming into focus.

He threw down his walking stick. His steps quickened. He couldn’t wait to use his new eyes. He reached home, and you know what he did?

He turned on the computer, and logged onto Morningstar.com, to see first-hand how the money he’d invested from his begging was doing.

Once he saw his return-on-investment, he surfed to another site. Since he can see, he can drive. So he logged onto autotrader.com, to see the best deals.

Now he won’t have to beg anymore. He can get a better job, so he surfed to monster.com, to post his resume and search for leads.

Yes, that’s how Bartimaeus used his new eyes, right?

Maybe you’ve heard of the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. When he was a child, something happened that would shape the rest of his life. He was 9 years old when he went for a walk in the snow with his uncle. When they got to the end of a field, his uncle stopped him and made him look back over their footsteps in the snow.

“Notice how your tracks wander aimlessly from the fence to the cattle to the woods and back again,” he said. “And see how my tracks aim directly to my goal. There is an important lesson in that.”

Years later Wright remarked that this experience helped shape his philosophy of life. He said, “I determined right then not to miss most things in life, as my uncle had!” [Isaac Asimov, Book of Facts]

When Bartimaeus’ eyes were opened, he determined right then not to miss most things in life.

Did you notice what he did?

He disobeyed Jesus.

Bartimaeus didn’t “go his way.”

The story ends with him turning back, and following Jesus.

“If Jesus has opened my eyes,” he must have thought to himself, “I wonder what things Jesus wants me to see. What will he show me?”

I think Bartimaeus wanted Jesus to show him all the beautiful things he’d missed out on. Jesus was the Master at pointing out such things. Jesus saw the beautiful and wondrous in the common and the simple. He talked about the “birds of the air” and the “lilies of the field.” He enjoyed the bright, colorful, laughing faces of children. He enjoyed the quiet solitude of a mountain forest.

“If Jesus has opened my eyes, I wonder what things WILL he show me?”

An Englishwoman, Carol Purves, was once afflicted with a health problem that limited her mobility. She grumbled about how that cut into the active lifestyle to which she was accustomed. But after a while, she decided to use her slower pace to her advantage. Whenever she would be out for a short walk, she would make a point of seeing at least three things she hadn’t seen before. Then, when she returned home, she’d write them down.

These are her words.

Now on quiet, lonely evenings, I get out my notebook and browse through my writing: “Saw my first spring flowers,” “Noticed the beautiful pattern white clouds made in the blue sky,” “Admired Mrs. W’s new baby,” “Walked through autumn leaves,” “Saw a rainbow.” What a delight the reading makes!

When I count the blessings God has given me, they seem to multiply. I have learned to “see”… --Upper Room, 2/16/05

Don’t you know that Jesus pointed out similar things to Bartimaeus?

Don’t you know that Jesus not only healed his eyes, but also taught him how to really “see”?

If we had been blind…

((Wait a second—aren’t we all a bit blind? Blinded by goals. Ambitions. Desires. Aren’t we? Maybe that’s another sermon.))

…If we had been blind, and Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well,” what WOULD we see with our new eyes?

Would we turn away from him, and stare at the computer screen?

Or would we follow him, and see what he points out?

I think I know what Jesus would point out to me, to make sure I make the most of my healed eyes.

He would make sure I’d see the subtle colors of the eyes of my wife and children, then all the wonderful features of their faces—I want them imprinted on my brain so that when my eyesight fails, I’ll still see them in vivid color. He’d make sure I’d see that big beetle that lay on its back on the hiking trail at Elephant Rock State Park—oh, it was a bug on steroids, with its legs flailing, and delighting my children—and then I turned it upright with a stick, and it scurried off to do its fearsome beetle thing. Jesus would make sure that I’d see a family of deer peacefully grazing at sunset at Sylvan Springs Park in Jefferson Barracks. Jesus would make sure I’d see the chicken and cheese enchilada that my wife makes better than anyone else, with its steam rising as she takes it out of the oven.

These are a few of the things Jesus would point out. Like Carol Purves, I’d write them down on a list.

If you started a list of the things Jesus would show you, what would be on it?

Jesus heals our eyes, so we might celebrate the simple things in life. He knew how sacred they were—God found in the commonplace.

That’s why he started the Lord’s Supper the way he did.

You will note that the Bible does not say, “And on the night in which he was betrayed, he lifted up the 22 oz Porterhouse, charred medium well and topped with a béarnaise sauce…” Nor does it say, “And after the steak, he lifted up a 20 year old Cabernet Sauvignon, aged in an oak barrel, with a hint of spice in the aroma…”

No.

The Bible says he took bread and a cup of wine—as if to say, “In such things you will find me.”

Remember this, as you eat and drink this morning.

“To see a world in a grain of sand

and heaven in a wild flower

hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

and eternity in an hour.” --William Blake

When you hold the bread today, you hold infinity.

When you taste the cup today, you taste eternity.