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Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” How would you answer? Would you assume it’s obvious—why should I have to say it, doesn’t God already know everything?
On this Reformation Sunday, as the church remembers the life of Martin Luther, how would the church answer—what do we want Jesus to do for us? Would we ask Jesus to make us strong, or would we ask Jesus to simply fix the problems of climate change and war and poverty? How much are we willing to sacrifice of our lives, our time, our own treasures, to meet Jesus on the way?
As we have been reading for the past few weeks in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is meeting people on the way, and that way leads into Jerusalem, where Jesus will be crucified. Today’s story about Bartimaeus, a poor man, makes more sense when you contrast it with the story about the wealthy man who came to Jesus asking how to inherit eternal life. Jesus said: sell all your stuff and give the money away and then come and follow me, but the man couldn’t do it.
Here’s what the contrast means, according to Biblical scholar Ched Myers:
“Bartimaeus, like the rich man, encounters Jesus ‘on the way.’ The rich man could not liquidate his fortune, but poor Bartimaeus throws away his garment, his sole element of livelihood ([because] beggars spread out their cloaks to receive alms). The one at the top of the social scale rejected a direct call, but the one on the bottom does not even wait for a call, springing up and ‘following Jesus on the way.’
“The significance of the social, economic, and political fabric of the Bartimaeus story being placed on the eve of the Jerusalem campaign should be clear. The poor join in the final assault on the dominant ideological order, and the rich have walked downcast away. The first have become last, and the last first.”[1]
“…Only if the disciples/reader struggles against the internal demons that render us deaf and mute, only if we renounce our thirst for power—in a word, only if we recognize our blindness and seek true vision—[only] then can the discipleship adventure carry on.”[2]
Remember what you have heard from Jesus: “All who wish to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross…”[3] “If anyone wishes to be first, that person must become least of all and a servant of all.”[4] Ched Myers finds in these sayings two essential elements of nonviolence: “[5]the political vocation of the cross and the social vocation of servanthood.”
These ideas challenge the dominant order, where we would assume a person’s great wealth means they are more blessed by God, or assuming that great power means great security.
Jesus shows us a world where the insiders—like the disciples, who get the inside scoop and greater access to Jesus and his teaching—the insiders keep misunderstanding the teaching, and the people who wouldn’t seem to have any power end up getting it right, like on the very first try. Jesus teaches in the same manner of the Hebrew prophets, building a catechism of challenge and promise, lessons that can really only be learned by doing.
Myers says that even Jesus’s sermons that are, as Myers writes,
“delivered ‘sitting’ to a passive audience, the catechism is a ‘school of the road’ with a high degree of argumentation from the audience. …the catechism is not simply a body of wisdom sayings, but a drama, full of object lessons and symbolic action.”[6]
All of this is to say: discipleship is not just about what words you say but it’s also about what you learn by doing.
Today we have two confirmands who have completed their study of the catechism. Lutherans do have a written catechism to explain some major points of the Christian faith, like the foundation of the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament which we share with the Jewish faith, and all that grows out of that tradition: the Gospels and the letters of the New Testament, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. All of these ways we learn how to live in right relationship with God and with each other.
And in our confirmation program, we learn by doing. When I have taught confirmation class, I don’t give tests on the material—life is gonna test you, you don’t need me to do that. But when life does test you, do you know where to go for wisdom? Do you recognize your belovedness as a child of God? Do you know how to talk to God in prayer?
There’s no curriculum in existence to prepare you for everything that life can throw at you, but in those moments of struggle, would you rather have an instruction book or someone to save you? Would you rather have words or a relationship?
Our teacher Jesus issues no textbooks, assigns no homework, demands no essays. He only invites you to give up your life so that you might save it. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus calls out to you.
Amen.
Pastor Cheryl
[1] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, page 282.
[2] Ibid, Page 282.
[3] Mark 8:34
[4] Mark 9:35
[5] Myers, page 283.
[6] Myers 285.
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