“Take Heart, He is Calling You”                                     March 13, 2011

Mark 10: 46–52                                                           The Rev. Dr. Beth Braxton

Today we begin the Lenten season, forty days, not counting Sundays until Easter. Why don’t we count Sundays? Because every Sunday is an Easter Sunday for post-resurrection people! These forty days are symbolic of Jesus’ time spent in the wilderness being tested/tempted by Satan. The context for Jesus’ wilderness time is having just been baptized and now struggling with his call –what is a “beloved Son of God” suppose to do? He is led by the Spirit, the scripture says, important detail, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to have some time alone to think and listen. During that time he refuses to turn stones into bread and to be relevant and nurture the world, he refuses to jump off the pinnacle of the steeple and be a dare devil seeking to do spectacular things, and he refuses to bow down to Satan who offers him all the kingdoms of the world to be a political ruler of the world. He responds to God’s call to be a servant of love; it is defined in one of the servant songs of Isaiah, which he reads when he goes into the synagogue back home in Nazareth. “I have come to bring good news to the poor, bind up the broken-hearted, give sight to the blind and proclaim the Day of the Lord!”

Lent is a time to take the time, for each of us to wrestle with our call by God. And by virtue of our baptism our call is to gospeled lives. We are called to be persons of Good News (what the word gospel means), persons of Christ, persons of the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are called to be disciples of Christ, disciples of servant love like our Lord!

Our congregation-wide study this Lent is called Gospeled Lives.  With this book, we are reading stories of lives gospeled by their encounters with Jesus. We are looking at how persons were called, challenged, rejected, transformed and empowered. I encourage each of you to take a book and join a small group for this Lent season or alternatively to take one for your own devotion, to read with your spouse or a friend.

Today’s’ story is about Blind Bartimaeus from the gospel of Mark, listen to God’s Word and for God’s Word for you this day as presented by our BPC Reader’s Theatre, Mark 10:46-52.

Bartimaeus is an outsider. He sits outside the city of Jericho. He is outside the main stream of social life. He is outside Jesus’ circle of friends.

The disciples are insiders. They are on the inner circle of Jesus friends. They are on the inside of knowledge, of his itinerary; they are part of the group. Yet Bartimaeus’ perception as an outsider stands in vivid contrast to the blindness of the disciples as insiders.

Bartimaeus has listened; he sees that this Nazarene is the Messiah, the one who is “of the house and lineage of David”, which means he is king! He is the Savior of the world so he calls out “Son of David!”

The disciples try to silence him. That’s what we often try to do with people in pain or people with disability. We try to keep them at a distance. It is often why some folks do not want to visit someone in pain in the hospital. Their pain is a reminder of how vulnerable all of us are. If this could happen to him or her it could happen to me. So we tend to keep sick and disabled people out of sight, institutionalized, and away from the rest of us.

Of course Bartimaeus is not going to let this happen. He shouts out for Jesus. He knows his healing source. He knows his healing source!

And of all the people Jesus heals, so far as we know, Bartimaeus is the only one who becomes a disciple and follows Jesus on the way, the way of the cross. You see, this story tells us some important things about becoming a disciple. Bartimaeus takes the initiative and is bold in crying out for Jesus; he is persistent in refusing to be silenced; he is daring and eager in response to Jesus’ call. And he is clear focused on the things he wants and needs. Taken altogether with his keen anticipation that Jesus could and would grant his desire, are the attitudes and actions, which Jesus calls “faith.” Its genuineness is demonstrated by the fact that Bartimaeus, having received his sight, followed Jesus on his way.[i]

A primary thing this once blind man has to teach us today is that Christianity is about following Jesus. Jesus is not looking for people who agree with him, or just believe in him, or admire him. Jesus is looking for people to follow him.

And it does cost something!

The cloak for a beggar was his livelihood. A beggar often spread out his cloak on the ground to catch the coins for which he begged. Bartimaeus was willing to throw off the cloak, to cast caution to the wind, to leave behind his old way of life to follow Jesus. That is faith in action!

Take heart, he is calling you! said the disciples rather irritated.

Take heart he is calling YOU! Bartimaeus throws off his present way of living to go to Jesus, to follow another way of living. Then Jesus asks Bartimaeus a surprising question, “What do you want me to do for you?”

This past week I found in my college study Bible, which I keep on my desk in my home study, two little shirt pocket size tablet pieces of paper on which is written my name and, “Read, Mark 10: 42 ff. Ask: ‘What do I want Jesus to do for me?’” It was about twenty-eight years ago that in my vocational restlessness, I took a bold step and admitted my ennui to a clergy colleague who I did not know, but who was known as a spiritual giant in the Newton Presbytery where I was working as an Associate Pastor. He listened and wrote this scripture and question on a little tablet: Read Mark 10:42 ff and ask –– What do I want Jesus to do for me? He also wrote:

“Ask: What disciplines can I enter into to nourish and deepen my inner life?”

“Ask:  What is currently adulterating my relationship with Jesus Christ?”

These are good Lenten questions for each of us to consider – what is God calling me to be about in Lent 2011? Is there something from which I need to fast as Jesus did in order to be more in tune with God? Maybe not just chocolate or junk food, maybe TV or alcohol, maybe the secret pornography or Facebook (at the very least twice a week) OR maybe some of the ideas sent through the Presbytery Monthly this week:

Give up judging others, not only by the color of their skin, but by their form of worship.

Give up divisive rhetoric born from partisanship and work together to create positive change.

Give up trying to outdo your neighbor and do something positive together.

Give up impatience during long waiting lines and smile at the cashier after you’ve waited ten minutes or more. That may be the brightest spot in their day. The labor market is tight, and lines are going to get longer.

Give up one extra hour at the office or on the job and have more of you to give to your family.

Give up speaking harshly.

Give up taking those who are closest to you for granted.

It would make a difference to someone if you act on just one of these suggestions.

Though all these suggestions are good practices for us to consider doing for Lent, the author of our Lenten book makes the important observation that “the experience of call for Bartimaeus begins in Jesus’ question that invites recognition and confession of need.” Notice that he did not say a confession of sin. “Sometimes we in the church put such a premium on our need for God’s forgiveness that we manage to avoid other needs we bear. Many of us are well-versed in offering a confession of sin. But Jesus’ question is not aimed at the sins of Bartimaeus or our own. “What do you want me to do for you?’ beckons in a different direction. The question calls us to identify what would make us whole by naming the need that separates us from God and from others. In that call, it prepares us to follow like Bartimaeus in response to a grace that saves and makes us whole.”[ii]

Can you name the need you have that separates you from God and others? Is it insight, wisdom, patience, that you need? Is it hope, openness, strength, humor? Is it love, perseverance, prayer, blessing? Is it a friend, a new job, health? Is it courage, steadfastness, softness? What do you need, to be on the way with Jesus?

When I went to see that clergy colleague twenty-eight years ago who wrote out Bartimaeus’ question for me, I saw a poster in his church about a workshop on spiritual growth being led by potter and author, Marjory Bankson. I attended that workshop and was greatly inspired by Marjory and had time to talk with her personally about my vocational struggle. Later that year she led a Women’s Event for Faith at Work here in the DC area attended by persons of the newly formed Burke Presbyterian Church. One of those women told Marjory that they were looking for a new pastor, did she know of anyone? Marjory told the woman that she had met Beth Braxton in New Jersey and thought that she was looking for a new position. (I don’t remember telling her I was looking for a new position, only that I was frustrated where I was and needed help)

That elder wrote me a hand written letter and told me all about how wonderful Burke Church was and that the church was looking for a new pastor and they were open to having a woman. I was very touched by the letter and the latter statement was encouraging, since pastor positions for women in 1983 were hard to find. But I had not yet done my dossier! So I set aside the letter, as I was very involved with a number of youth activities at my church at that time. Six months later when I completed all my dossier work, I found that Burke Presbyterian Church position had not been filled! (What were the chances of that?!) I decided right then, not only to send my dossier to Presbyterian headquarters in Louisville, which is the proper route for finding a job in the Presbyterian Church, but I decided to send my dossier directly to the Pastoral Nominating Committee of BPC and the rest is history! That was God’s unique way of calling me to this church: 1) counseling from someone I had only seen from afar, who drew me to Jesus’ question to Bartimaeus; 2) a potter woman who took some extra time to get to know me; 3) an elder who took the initiative to write an inviting letter. My initiative and God’s response; God’s initiative through others and my response. God works in mysterious ways!!

It has been truly a fulfilling experience to serve Burke Presbyterian – and to think it all happened because I embarrassingly, but boldly first sought out a disciple of God who could let me know that Jesus was calling me and who could help me listen to Jesus ask, “What do you want me to do for you, Beth Braxton?”

Take heart Jesus is calling you today!

Be bold to seek out what you need to do, to do the will of God; be bold to name what you need to be a servant of love, in that is your peace and your fulfillment!

Amen? Amen!