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REFORMATION SUNDAY - TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

What the World Needs Now

Mark 10:46-52

What do you want me to do for you?

Last Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday morning, I was at the Bishop’s Convocation.  Every year the bishop calls together pastors and other rostered leaders in our synod for a few days of fellowship and worship and study.  And I go every year.

I began going, when I first came to this synod, so I could get to know other pastors.  I have kept going because they have become my friends and this is the only time we spend time together as friends.  We get together at other times, of course, but always with some agenda – getting ready to preach or planning an event or attending to some business of the church.  But this is the closest thing to agenda-less time we have together.

We share meals together.  We pray and sing together.  We imbibe in our favorite beverages together.  Some of us even play golf together.  We do also listen to speakers together, but that is secondary to me.  Because there is nothing like getting together with people who share common experiences – in our case, work as pastors in congregations.  There is a kind of understanding and support you can get from colleagues you can’t get any place else.

As important as I know this is, I tend to forget it.  It wasn’t until sometime Monday that I remembered how much I needed this time – this time of friendship with colleagues who have become friends.

And I think that is something about the eating of the forbidden fruit – our eyes are opened, but we can’t really tell the difference between good and evil – we don’t really know what we need.  We don’t always know what to ask for.

What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem .  He tells the disciples – for the third time – what’s going to happen when they get there, that he will be betrayed and rejected, condemned and killed, and on the third day rise again.  And the disciples, as much as they love being with Jesus, as much as they want to follow him until the very end, don’t really understand this.  Or maybe they don’t really want to understand this.

Because James and John, the Zebedee brothers, come and ask Jesus to make them a promise.  Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for you?”  And they say, “When you make it big, we want to be as close to you as possible, so we can get the same power and prestige and people to serve us as you do.”

And Jesus says, “Is that what you really want?”

But it’s not just James and John, of course.  That’s what all of the disciples want.  So, Jesus tells them, “If you want to be successful, then you must be a servant.  If you want to be like me, then you must serve others, because that’s why I came – not to be served, but to serve, to give my life away so that others can have life.”

Then they passed through Jericho , which is the last town before they get to Jerusalem .  There is a large crowd with them.  There is also a blind beggar, named Bartimaeus, sitting by the side of the road. 

When he hears that Jesus is passing by, he cries out, “Jesus!  Son of David!  Have mercy on me!”  People try to hush him up, but he calls out even louder, “Jesus!  Son of David!  Have mercy on me!”

At last Jesus hears him and says to those around him, “Call him here.”  When Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is calling for him, he throws off his cloak, leaps to his feet and goes to Jesus.

Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for you?”

The blind man says, “My teacher, I want to see again.”

Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well.”

And, in that very instant, he receives his sight and begins following Jesus on the way to Jerusalem .

Unlike the rich man who was seeking heavenly life, but could not give up his earthly possessions, Bartimaeus throws off cloak.  His cloak is all he has to keep him warm at night.  His cloak is all he has to safeguard the few small things he has manage to collect by begging.  His cloak makes his old life possible, but it also keeps him from his new life.  So, he throws it off.

And unlike the disciples, he knows what he really needs.  He asks, not for success, but for sight, and he calls out to Jesus as a beggar.

What do you want me to do for you?

On Sunday night at Bishop’s Convocation, I got to hear a sermon on this text.  The preacher was Dr. Craig Satterlee, a professor of preaching and worship at Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago , as well as a Lutheran pastor himself.  In addition, Dr. Satterlee also happens to be legally blind.

He was born with very limited eyesight.  He said the doctors told his parents not to buy any life insurance for their son, because by the time he was seven he would probably run out into the street and get hit by a car.

To his doctor’s amazement, Craig made it past seven years old without getting hit by a car.  To his parents’ amazement, he went to college and seminary and eventually graduate school.  To his own amazement, he became a Lutheran pastor.

On Tuesday morning, he told a story about his becoming a pastor.  He was on internship.  All pastors have to do an internship.  It’s the time when we move out of the classroom and into the parish to see if we can really do it, if we can really be a pastor. 

It was Christmas Eve.  He was on his way to the church.  And somehow he lost the keys to the church in the snow.

Now you should know that it is especially problematic for a blind person to lose things, because it is much harder to find them again.  And when he was growing up, to reinforce this lesson, his father would always yell at him when he lost things.  His father, he said, had only one emotion – anger.  And when his blind son would lose things, he would become angry and yell.

And when the son grew up, he did what is father did – when he lost things he would get very angry and yell at himself.  Now he had lost something really important and, because they were the keys to the church, it also raised questions about whether this blind man could really be a pastor.

So, he called his supervisor, the pastor of the church, and in a very shaky voice he said, “I lost the keys to the church in the snow!”

His supervisor said, “And you’re late for Christmas dinner.  Get over here!”

Dr. Satterlee told us, “I knew why he wanted me to come over.  It’s much easier to yell at someone in person than over the phone!”

So, he got to his supervisor’s house.  Before dinner, they sat down in the living room and began going over the bulletin for the Christmas service together.

After a bit, his supervisor said, “Craig, you seem distracted.  You’re not concentrating.  What’s wrong?”

And again, in a very shaky voice, Craig said, “I lost the keys to the church in the snow!”

And his supervisor said, “So, that means I’m supposed to yell at you.  OK.  Yell, yell, yell.  Yell, yell, yell.  Yell, yell, yell.”

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a duplicate set of keys.  He placed them in Craig’s hands and said two words – “Snow melts.”

In the moment that Craig lost the church keys in the snow, if Jesus had said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” I don’t know if he could have said what he needed most.  What he needed was certainly not for someone to yell at him, as expected as that would have been.  What he needed was not for someone to say, “Let’s go out and see if we can find those keys,” as helpful as that would have been.  What he needed was not even for someone to heal him from his blindness, as amazing and wonderful as that would have been. 

I believe what Craig needed was forgiveness.  Because even if someone had helped him find the keys that he had lost and even if someone had restored his physical sight, he would still have been miserable.  What he needed was forgiveness.  What he needed was Jesus.  And that’s what he got.

It was the genius of Martin Luther to identify the central message of the scriptures – justification by grace through faith – or, in a simpler word, forgiveness.  Luther’s genius also was to teach us that wherever we find forgiveness in the Bible – and sometimes it is hard to find – we find Jesus.  And wherever we find forgiveness in our daily lives – and that can be even more difficult – we find Jesus.  And wherever we come to this table and hear the words of forgiveness and trust the words of forgiveness and eat the bread and drink the wine that is forgiveness, we find Jesus. 

Because that’s who Jesus is.  Because that is why he came and suffered and died and rose again.  Because, even when we don’t know what we really need, that is what he does for us. 

Jesus is forgiveness.  And that is what we get from him.