Sunday, October 25, 2015 | Reformation Sunday | 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.

Being on the Gigantic Stage with Jesus

Walter Brueggemann
Professor Emeritus, Columbia Theological Seminary
Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 34:1–8
Jeremiah 31:7–9
Hebrews 7:23–28
Mark 10:46–52

For Bartimaeus to ask for his sight
would mean not only having the faith
that Jesus could and would do it.
It would mean having the faith
that he could set off on
a whole new life.

N. T. Wright

If any of you are as old as I am, you might remember that there used to be a Saturday afternoon radio program entitled Grand Central Station. That famous train station was a launching pad for a drama each week as the lead character stepped off the train. But before that, the program was introduced each week with a set formula spoken in solemn tones about a train that “swept down the Hudson River Valley for 140 miles and dived with a roar into Grand Central Station, gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily.” As I thought about the text for today as a drama to be performed, I thought of the phrase “gigantic stage on which are played a thousand dramas daily.” It struck me that Jesus’ life, as remembered in the New Testament, was indeed a gigantic stage for many dramatic performances. There were a thousand dramas played there, both because Jesus drew all sorts of people to him and because he sought them out. He seems to have accepted that demand on his life. Then it occurred to me that we, with our baptism, have agreed to perform in the drama of Jesus on his gigantic stage. In this text in Mark 10, we are given only a brief episode in which there is a presenting problem, a brief exchange, and a good outcome. We are left to imagine the dramatic performance of the three characters in the drama.

So consider the three characters. The character who draws our attention is Bartimaeus. He is a blind beggar. He sounds to me like he is homeless. He is unemployed (except for begging), and likely he is unemployable. He might well be without hope for any good thing happening in his life. He seems fated to be forever a blind beggar.

The amazing thing is that he is not without hope. Somehow he musters his energy to voice his urgent need. He heard a rumor that Jesus of Nazareth was in the neighborhood. He could not see him, but he felt the buzz that Jesus created. He took a chance. He addresses Jesus, whom he assumed was in hearing distance. He calls loud and identifies Jesus. He knows he is Jesus from Nazareth, but that is not how he addresses him. He addresses him in a very different idiom: “Jesus, son of David.” Bartimaeus has been reading the Hebrew scriptures (or having them read to him), and he knows interpretive moves made by the people around Jesus. He knew that David was the Old Testament character who carried the big promises of God for a good outcome for Israel. He trusted that Jesus now carried those good promises and that they applied even to him. In his address he confesses Jesus as the carrier of all of God’s good promises to Israel. Jesus, son of David! Bartimaeus reckoned himself to be a part of that community of God’s promises.

He addresses Jesus with an imperative: “Have mercy on me!” He knew he needed mercy. He trusted that Jesus was a carrier of mercy. It was an old affirmation in Israel that the powerful and wealthy, most especially the king—surely the Messiah—were to show mercy on the weak and vulnerable who lived without resources. He did not ask for justice. He asked for mercy, a generous delivery of good news beyond anything he deserved. He does not specify what he wants; but we can guess: (a) he is blind; surely he wants to see; (b) he is a beggar; surely he wants food, sustenance, and a viable existence with dignity and security. Don’t we all! He does not want or hope for soupy romantic religious gestures. He wants transformative action that will change his life circumstance. And he believes that Jesus—son of the old king now become the Messiah—will traffic in generous, material good things for him.

He will soon call out more loudly. He knew he must speak up at the point of his need. He addresses Jesus a second time in the same way with more urgency: Jesus—the one with transformative power—son of David—the one who carries promises: Have mercy; transform my vulnerable life. “Jesus, son of David, have mercy!”

II.

The reason Bartimaeus must call out a second time more loudly is because he has been interrupted in his first address to Jesus. His first address to Jesus had evoked hostility from those around Jesus. Maybe it was the crowd, or maybe it was the disciples. They “sternly ordered him to be quiet.” We are not told why they silenced him. Maybe they thought he was being disrespectful with his demanding imperative. Maybe they thought he was crashing the line and he needed to be at the end of the line. Maybe they thought there was not enough mercy to go around, so the undeserving poor should shut up.

But maybe it was the disciples who quieted him. Maybe they were trying to protect Jesus for his more important work. Or maybe they were protecting their own position with Jesus. In the paragraph just before this in Mark, the disciples had had an argument about which disciple should be first in the new kingdom and who would have a seat of honor. They were jostling for position the way people do when there are scarce resources; you have to push and shove. They do not want their special place with Jesus interrupted by this nobody. Maybe the disciples anticipate the later church that very often does not want the church to traffic in such sordid matters as disability and economic disadvantage, such evocative needs as blind beggars.

As the drama unfolds, however, the urgency of Bartimaeus was stronger than the silencing of the crowd or the disciples. He shouted out even more loudly. He would not let the censoring crowd or the self-protective disciples interfere with his chance to be with Jesus, who was surely his last hope. So he called out more loudly a second time: “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”

III.

Then the drama makes a radical turn. Mark says, “Jesus stood still.” Whatever he was doing, he stopped. You can imagine his pause as he quieted his companions and said, “Listen.” He had heard his name called. He struggled to listen, and he heard the voice of the blind beggar. Jesus said to those around him, “Call him here.” Bartimaeus, with his disability and in the midst of such resistance, could not get to Jesus. But Jesus took the initiative. Jesus summoned him.

Mark does not immediately tell us of the beggar’s response to the summons of Jesus. He pauses and lets us look again at the crowd—or the disciples who had shushed him and silenced him. Now “they” (that is how Mark identifies them: “they”)—crowd or disciples—call out to the blind beggar.

Don’t you wonder how they felt with their new assignment of bringing the man to Jesus? They had tried to eliminate the blind beggar from the drama. But the insistence of the man—the blind beggar—and the attentiveness of Jesus together refused the silencing. Maybe the crowd or the disciples were embarrassed by what they had done and they sheepishly reversed field to obey Jesus. Or maybe they quickly forgot their previous hard-hearted action and were pleased to function as head ushers and sergeants of arms, as though they had decided that the guy could see Jesus. They are cast in an ambiguous role and should have been embarrassed.

They are not embarrassed, however, because they do know about the power of Jesus. They say to the beggar: “Take heart; have hope!” Or as we say at communion, “Lift up your heart!” The reason for such hope for his hopeless man is that “He is calling you.” He wants to see you. He is granting you a moment of his time and access to his energy. The man they had tried to shush now becomes the focus of Jesus’ attention and the center of the drama. He approaches Jesus, who welcomes him. Mark says, “He took off his cloak, and sprang up and came to Jesus.” He is ready and eager; he knows he is approaching the Lord of mercy, who is capable of transformative action.

IV.

Jesus does not fool around with small talk. He says, “How can I help you? What do you want me to do for you?” Duh! What would a blind beggar want? Well, sight. Well, resources. The narrative assumes that such gifts are in the power of Jesus. Bartimaeus is as terse as Jesus. He will not waste his moment of opportunity: “Let me see again.” Bartimaeus does not doubt that Jesus has that capacity.

And then Jesus speaks . . . or acts. But he does not do anything. He only says, “Go, your faith has made you whole.” His faith was to seek out Jesus. His faith was to count on the transformative power of Jesus. His faith was his readiness to give up his disability. His faith was to brave the hostile crowd for his fifteen seconds of newness with Jesus. And Mark adds tersely, “Immediately he received his sight.”

He has been with Jesus. The narrative ends with the terse report that he followed him on the way. “Follow” is a word for discipleship. He signed on with the Jesus movement, because he knew that Jesus, son of David, carrier of God’s mercy, would transform the world. He wanted to be a part of that inexplicable transformation that defied all the old powers of death and disability.

So consider this gigantic stage:

There is the blind beggar who spends his last chit of hope. He might be the guy who wrote Psalm 34 that we read:

I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
   and delivered me from all my fears. . . .
This poor soul cried out, and was heard by the Lord,
   and was saved from every trouble…
The young lions suffer want and hunger,
   but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:4, 6, 10)

This is the testimony of the blend beggar who lacked “no good thing.” He got everything he needed. He is better off than young lions who remain hungry. He has been completely satisfied.

There is this Jesus. He is the healer. He is the one who is attested in our reading of Hebrews 7. He is the great high priest who intercedes for the needy. That writer says of him:

He is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

He saves those who come to hm. He makes intercession for them to the God of all mercy. He is the big reliable connector between the plight of the world and the mercy of the God of heaven. So we have Bartimaeus who speaks Psalm 34 and we have Jesus who is witnessed in Hebrews 7.

But we have this third player in the drama. The crowd or the disciples who tried to shush the guy but then are embarrassed that Jesus summoned the one they had tried to silence and eliminate from the drama. The church, after the manner of these disciples, is always shushing need, not wanting to notice, not fully understanding that this is Jesus’ vocation and eventually our vocation. But this silencing crowd or disciples have no continuing role to play in the story. They are displaced in the story by the blind beggar who quickly followed Jesus in glad obedience, even as they, in their self-protection, drop out of the drama, having no future there.

VI.

So welcome to the gigantic stage of the life of Jesus. We get to choose which part we will play:

We could play and often do play the role of Bartimaeus. We are like blind beggars without hope in the world who plead for mercy. This is our role in much of our faith, in our prayers and in our worship, seeking mercy from this great high priest.

We could play the role of the silencing crowd that does not want the work of Jesus interrupted by poverty or disability or any of the cries of need that are all around us. We prefer a nice, clean, innocent Jesus who chooses nice traveling companions like us.

We could play the blind guy healed who followed in glad obedience, telling many others where they, like us, might receive mercy.

Or on a good day we could, like the faithful church, play the role of Jesus and perform transformations in a blind hopeless world.

The gawkers and the hawkers and the hackers want to draw us to their little stages of action and outrage. But here is the news. We are summoned, like Bartimaeus, on to the gigantic stage, the one occupied by the force of gospel transformation, with its thousand dramas daily.

So ponder this:

Get on the big stage with Jesus and expect to be healed, to be heard, to be surprised, to be summoned.

Play many roles; don’t get stuck in one. Play the one who trusts and cries out; play the one who is healed and follows. Play the one who does the healing and transformation. And notice that we all play, sometimes, the role of silencer. Experiment with the gigantic stage and the awesome script of evangelical surprise. The God of all mercy who dominates the gigantic stage of creaturely reality says it this way in Jeremiah:

With weeping they shall come,
   and with consolations I will lead them back.
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
   in a straight path in which they shall not stumble,
for I have become a father to Israel,
   and Ephraim is my firstborn. (Jeremiah 31:9)

Imagine, not being an orphan in the world but with a mother and a father. Imagine not being alienated but home. Imagine not being blind but seeing with God’s eyes. Imagine not being shushed but plunged deeply into transformative mercy. Imagine, and take up your many roles on his gigantic stage! That is our proper place—on the stage in the great drama of Jesus. There is room on that stage for all of us!