"What do you want from me?"

A sermon based on Mark 10:46-52

Would you pray with me?  

God, you remind us through your gentle insistence that every thought we think is a prayer, because you hear it, and everything we do is an act of worship because you see it. Be with us in this moment, God. Make us aware of you. Fill our prayers and worship, every thought and deed, with your abundant life, for it is by the power of your Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus the Christ we pray. Amen.  

Do y’all ever read the Bible and wonder what Jesus is thinking?

I mean, we know Jesus. Most of us have been doing this church thing for a long, long time, and we’ve heard Jesus stories so often that we know them backwards and forwards. Jesus gets baptized in the River Jordan. He takes a nap on a boat. Jesus feeds the five thousand. Five thousand Jesus feeds.

But when you read a bible story, or when you hear one read, do you ever sit up and say to yourself, “Huh. What was Jesus thinking?”

That’s how our scripture reading this morning struck me as I was preparing this sermon. On the surface, this is just your standard healing story, like we’ve heard before. But as I begun to dig in, I found myself wondering, “Man, what was Jesus thinking in a time like this?”

See, this passage comes in a section of Mark I like to call, “Exasperated Jesus.” Seriously. First the disciples are arguing about who’s the greatest, then a rich man chases him around asking him what he has to do, then James and John want to “sit beside Jesus in glory,” and the whole while, Jesus cannot believe the stuff he’s dealing with. Jesus spends like three chapters walking around Judea, bouncing between Jerusalem and Jericho, like a mother with three kids under five. One says he’s hungry even though he’s got a snack catcher of Cheerios IN HIS HAND, another has just fallen and is wailing over the lightest of skinned knees, the other one has somehow inserted most of a toy car in their left nostril, and here’s Jesus, raising his eyes to the heavens, asking what could possibly happen next. Let the little children come unto me, indeed.

And, fortunately or unfortunately for Jesus, what happens next is Bartimaeus.  

 Because you can picture it, right? You can just see Jesus, dusty from a day of walking, with people all around him, his disciples, other folks who want to be around him, this huge crowd, and he’s already done with everything. He’s just trying to get where he’s going. And on the way, there’s this… beggar… on the side of the road, shouting at him.

And of course everyone else shushes the guy. I probably would have too. Like, here’s Jesus, the most important person ever, and over here is just some guy, standing in the median, with a cardboard sign, shouting at Jesus. I’d at least go over and see if I could get him to pipe down. The politeness in me would overwhelm everything else, and politeness is such a heavy burden on our shoulders.  

But Bartimaeus doesn’t pipe down. He gets louder. And I can’t tell what Jesus is thinking with his response to this situation. Is he thinking to himself, “This guy isn’t going to let this go unless he talks to me. Let’s just nip this in the bud”?  Or is he thinking, “I can’t believe everyone’s shushing this human being!”? Or is he overwhelmed by compassion?  

Now me, I think it’s the first one, because, again, this is Exasperated Jesus we’re talking about here. He’s nearing the end of his rope with all these people. So he hears Bartimaeus, he hears the shushing, and he hears Bartimaeus get louder, and he just stops. He says, “You know what? Ask that guy to come over here.”

And this causes a complete mood shift in the crowd. That time of shushing, that time of trying to sweep Bartimaeus under the rug and out of sight, that’s gone. Now the teacher wants to talk to him.  Now the savior wants to talk to him. Barty has a little bit of that Jesus sparkle on him now. So folks go over and they say, “Take heart! He wants to talk to you! Stand up and we’ll get you to him!” It’s a complete transformation in the level of compassion they have for him.  

And how does Bartimaeus respond to this attention? Dude THROWS OFF HIS CLOTHES and RUNS to Jesus. Bart’s doing the most here.

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

Now, Jesus asks this question, or a version of it, often across the gospels, especially as his ministry leads him closer and closer to the cross. He asks the disciples of John who are following him around by the Jordan this question. He asks the man by the pool if he wants to be made well. He asks James and John this question earlier in this chapter. And it seems to me that he’s not just asking out of pure curiosity. I don’t think he’s trying to trip people up or trick anyone. That’s not it. But I think he’s listening for the answer. He’s listening to see if we get it.

Here’s what I mean.  

Throughout the gospels, there is a question: what kind of Messiah will Jesus be?  

And when I say “throughout the gospels”, I mean it. From his birth, people are asking this question about Jesus. Herod is asking this question. The wise men are asking this question. Matthew is prompting this question in his genealogy of Jesus at the beginning of his gospel. John the Baptist is asking this question at the beginning of Mark. John the Evangelist is answering this question in the opening of their gospel. Each of the gospels, in their own way, spends the entire gospel trying to answer this question. And it’s live in every conversation that Jesus has throughout every gospel. What kind of Messiah will Jesus be?  

Because, to be honest, we’re all trying to be saved from something. We all want someone to deliver us from something in our lives. We all have a moment where we look at the cup we’ve been handed and we say, “My Father, if it is possible, let this pass from me.” And if you haven’t had that moment yet in your life, if you haven’t had that season yet in your life, I invite you double-down on your relationships and your community, because we all see days like that eventually.

I used to not think that was true. I used to think it was all about how you responded to life, how you planned for life. I used to think that with enough preparation and forethought, and maybe a little bit of luck, every bad event could be avoided. I thought that if I did enough good things, that if I was smart enough and maybe kind enough, nothing bad could happen to me. But people in my life can attest that no amount of preparation or planning could have saved me from the hurt of this world. I’m in remission now, but there was nothing I could have done to prevented the cancer that grew by my spleen. I’ve found other work now, but there was nothing I could do to stop the funding crunch that cost me my job a few years ago. And goodness knows there was nothing I could do to divert the hurricane that tore apart the mountains I call home a month ago. 

Sometimes, I need a savior. Maybe all the time. And so did the folks who walked the same earth and breathed the same air as Jesus of Nazareth. But of course, their needs are different from mine. Most folks in Jesus’ day needed to be free from the Roman Empire.  

And that’s the kind of Messiah many everyday people wanted Jesus to be. They wanted him to swoop in and be the guy who kicked Pilate back to Italy and replaced Herod on the throne. They hoped that he would fix everything that was wrong with their world and relieve the suffering that was happening all around them. They wanted Jesus the Mighty Son of David to cast down the rulers and raise up the underdogs, and they didn’t care how he got that job done. That’s the Messiah Simon Peter wants. That’s the Messiah that the Zealots want. That’s the Messiah that Judas wants. That’s the Messiah James and John, the Sons of Thunder, had in mind when they asked to be seated at Jesus’s left and right hand.

But that’s not the Messiah that Jesus was. The longer Jesus is in ministry, the closer Jesus gets to the cross, the more he tells us that the kind of revolution these folks are imagining, it’s not the kind of revolution he’s here for. The freedom he’s trying to bring is something deeper, something more holistic, something holier. It’s not about power for Jesus. It’s not about the throne, it’s not about the office, it’s not about the military, it’s not about anything like that. If you’ve got your bible open, you’ll see that the very. next. story. in the gospel of Mark after the healing of Bartimaeus is the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The very next story is Jesus’s most public display of the kind of Messiah he is. He rides into town not on a war horse, not surrounded by the spoils of battle, with prisoners in tow, but on riding on a donkey, surrounded by palm branches.

And so here is Bartimaeus, shouting “Son of David! Son of David!” Here’s this man who can’t see calling out for the hero amongst us. If you were to look at this story in the original Greek, you’ll see that Bartimaeus son of Timaeus actually calls out “Son of David” before he calls out “Jesus.” It’s almost as if Bartimaeus hears the crowd talking about the Mighty Son of David and tries that name first, to see if he can catch Jesus’s ear that way. And when Jesus doesn’t respond to that title, Bart tries it another way. He calls out, “Jesus. Jesus, have mercy on me.”  

And then there is Jesus. Long-suffering, patient, exasperated Jesus. Jesus, who is dealing with the expectations of folks who just don’t get what he’s trying to do. Jesus, whose closest friends still think he’s going to take the world by storm. Jesus, who knows the cross is just ahead. Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want from me?”  

And Bartimaeus answers, “Teacher, I just wanna see again.”  

And Jesus smiles in relief, and he says, “That I can do. Go. Your faith has made you well.”  

Five chapters ago, there was a woman who reached out in the crowd around Jesus, Jesus who had just thrown out a Roman Legion’s worth of demons out of a man, Jesus, full to the brim with the power of life and life abundant. Five chapters ago, the power went out him to this woman who touched the hem of his garment, and Jesus stopped, and found her. He found her, and he knelt down, and he said, “Go, daughter. Your faith has made you well.”  

Jesus comes among us, today, too. Twenty centuries later, Jesus is still asking us, “What do you want from me?” and Jesus is still waiting for us to say, “Lord, I want to be made well.”  

Because Jesus knows something that is easy for us to forget. Jesus knows that when we are well, we will go into the world to make others well too. Jesus knows that when we have encountered the savior, we will do our level best to help save others. And Jesus knows that we can’t wait for Jesus to save the world for us. Jesus knows that he must empower us to do that world-saving work. The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few and Jesus, long-suffering, tired, patient as a mother, knows that we need some saving before we can go out and help save others. Jesus brings our attention to the food we already have in front of us- we already have everything we need. Jesus kneels down to tend to our wounds, no matter how big or small. And Jesus gently helps us undo the hurts the world has done to us, and sometimes, those we’ve done to ourselves.

Friends, as we go from this place into a world that will both hurt us and need healing from its hurts, I invite you to think about what you want from Jesus. Maybe you know what that is now. Maybe you know exactly the kind of savior you need. If that’s the case, I am here to tell you that salvation is here and you have everything you need. You are loved with an everlasting love that will not let you go, so act boldly. Your faith has made you well.  

But if you don’t know what you need from Jesus (and I’ll be honest, that’s me a whole lot of the time), I invite you set aside some time this week and read the Gospel of Mark with our question from the top of the sermon in your mind. What is Jesus thinking as he sees all these people, as he encounters all this need? What is Jesus thinking? And do I think like Jesus?  

Because I promise you, if you make that time to encounter Jesus this week, Jesus will show up. Jesus will give you fresh eyes to see the world around you through the scripture and he will open up your heart. That faithfulness will make you well in a way you don’t even know you need yet.

Because as much as I hate to admit it, everyone needs a savior. We all want something from Jesus. But if we listen to him, if we try to understand him, then maybe we’ll learn to want what Jesus wants too. And that is the path to salvation.  

Amen.