It seems to me that when I get around to writing a sermon I am usually stuck with one of two things: an idea that I cannot shake or a question that I cannot answer. For our scripture for today it is the latter. I have listened, I have read, I have sat silently, I have researched but I am stuck with a question I cannot readily answer: Why did the crowd try to keep the Blind man silent and away from Jesus?
Descriptions of crowds following Jesus around are a normal part of the Gospel. They force Christ to preach from a Boat, they produce opportunities for healing, they attract spies and Pharisees but also miracles, yet up until this point we have never encountered a crowd that bared folks from joining. And this is what doesn’t make sense to me. Why did the crowd, a collected mass of individuals, decide at one point that their mishmash of women, children, labors, and everyday folks would became exclusive and prohibit a man who is obviously looking for a miracle?
When I think about the throng of people following around Jesus I get the image of the crowd that follows around Golfer Tiger Woods as he moves from fairway to green. Never having been to the Memorial Tournament, but watching some Golf on TV, I have a very clear image of what this looks like. Tiger tees off before a silent but jammed packed crowd of fans. They are 5-6 people deep all clamoring for a line of sight and then jockeying for position as Tiger makes his way down to his 2nd shot. The more aggressive of the bunch walks fast (if not jogs) to the second shot claiming the best, most perfect vantage point to see the magic that is Tiger’s Golf game, leaving the seconds for those who were either too civil or too slow not to claw their way into perfect position. Why are those folks there? Why don’t they do the same thing for some guy struggling to make the cut? Simple: because it is Tiger Woods, perhaps the greatest golfer of all-time. They want to see something special. They want to see Tiger drive a green on a Par 4. They want to see Tiger put for Eagle. They want to see what he will do next. The crowd follows Tiger around for the show. I am not sure the crowd that followed Jesus around was all that different.
They in their sandals and tunics are not that different from the polos and slacks that stand in the presence of Golf greatness. The crowd that we now hear of leaving Jericho heading down the road to Jerusalem was there to breathe in the greatness, perhaps even the celebrity of Jesus Christ. They have heard his dynamic teaching, they have encountered his dealings with the Pharisees, and by the 10th chapter of Mark – which would have been right around the last few months or so of Christ’s life – word of Christ’s healing would have traveled to Jericho and yet instead of having a ringside seat to Jesus himself performing a miracle in their very presence, despite having the ability to claim the very best seat for the most amazing thing they would have ever seen they instead tell the blind Bartimaeus to shut up. If it were me… I might have started yelling “OVER HERE!” but instead they tell the blind man sitting along the road to keep quiet, Jesus isn’t for you. It is at this point that it is helpful that we remember that this story is about blindness.
We should not underestimate Mark as a storyteller. He is at work painting a story for us about sight. As Jesus is restoring sight to the blind the disciples are having a hard time seeing anything. Blinded by their expectations, their intuition causing them to stumble over the reality that Christ is not here to lead a nation or command an army, the Disciples are having a real difficult time making out even the biggest letter atop of the Eye Chart that is Christ’s Mission. They have had the best seat in the house, private lessons with the master and yet at the end of the day they still have to feel their way through. I don’t want to rag on the disciples, Lord knows that I am as blind as they come but I would like to think that if I had the opportunity that they had; if I could have traveled around with Jesus, seen him do the things and say the things that he did, I would have seen correctly, I would have not been blind. But we all know that is a lie.
We all wrestle with seeing Jesus. We can’t quite make out the face of the Son of David who came to redeem all of life. We have a hard time focusing in on the Teacher who tells us to trust above all else. The reality is that despite the witness of scripture, the tradition of the church, the community of those around us we still have a real hard time seeing Jesus – truly seeing Jesus for who he is. It is here that I like the image of the difference between following Jesus and being a Follower of Jesus.
These days some of the hipper Christian communities reject the term Christian. It has too much baggage they say, preferring instead to call themselves Followers of Jesus. Rejecting much of the tradition of mainstream religion they want to see themselves as folks who follow the teachings of Jesus, believe in the Gospel and seek to live in community with fellow Christians with the relationship they have in Christ as the bond that brings them all together. Not a bad idea I think but certainly different from the crowd of folks who are following Jesus. Over hill and over dale, along the dusty trail they follow Jesus around seeking to occupy the same space, lean into the celebrity of a man who speaks of forgiving sins, who heals people, and seemingly rewrites the rules as he goes. Jesus as a historical figure would have been crowd-worthy. Following Jesus around as he spoke of grace and peace, love and forgiveness, community and redemption, could have been a formative spiritual experience but if you were there for the celebrity, the “what will he do next”, if you were there for the show then your proximity to Christ would far outweigh anything that he could have ever said. It reminds me of an old friend of mine who was a fiend when it came to working out; a real Gym Rat. He was especially proud of his arms and one day while down in Southern California he walked into a gym right at the precise time as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at the time was running for Governor of the Great State of California. Schwarzenegger in his prime was known for the most amazing arms in modern bodybuilding, and sure enough sitting amongst a quickly filling gym was my friend sitting literally at the feet of the Master. To hear him tell it, Arnold spent about 35 minutes talking about Bodybuilding and answering questions before singing to the choir asking about voting in the upcoming gubernatorial election. You talk to my friend about this experience and he couldn’t tell you a single thing Arnold said about bodybuilding, the decision to run for Governor, anything about how to obtain the most amazing arms in Modern Bodybuilding. All he has to say is “I was sitting right next to The Terminator.”
Some folks are followers of Jesus and some folks are following Jesus and perhaps the way to go from celebrity to savior is for our eyes to be open to the full measure of a Savior who is the Word Made Flesh but in the end of the day I am still not too sure why it is that he crowd said No to blind Bartimaeus. Maybe it isn’t a question to be answered but rather a lesson to learn or an example for the church and us. Maybe it is a wake up call reminding us that Christ is the Word Made Flesh and not a Poster Child. Maybe it is a call to listen, a strong suit for blind Bartimaeus but not so much for us, and not get caught up in the glitz and glamor of a mainstream, accepted faith. Maybe it is meant to remind us that we shouldn’t be the ones setting the terms on who gets to have an experience of the Risen Savior. Perhaps it is a call to start paying attention to the cries for healing coming from outside the group. Maybe it is all three.
Anyway we slice it at the end of the day in Christ the Blind see, the Hungry are fed, the Thirsty drink deep from a Living Water, and perhaps what we need more than anything else is to either get on board or get out of the way.
Amen.
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