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Where might you fit in today’s gospel story? With whom do you identify? The crowd? The disciples? Jesus? Or the blind beggar Bartimaeus? Tomorrow our church staff will participate in a time of team-building. More than a dozen of us will be learning about the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, or MBTI. I am sure some of you have either been “typed” with the Myers-Briggs or at least have heard of it. When I was first ordained, it was all the rage in the Episcopal Church. Everyone seemed to be asking, “What’s YOUR type?” The implication was that there was something seriously wrong with you if you didn’t know the answer. Now, I am not going to spend a lot of time today talking about the “ins and outs” of personality types. But I have learned that talking about type can help us understand ourselves, to see how we prefer to live our lives – not just in the professional realm, but also personally and spiritually. A book I read many years ago called Prayer and Temperament (by Chester Michael and Marie Norrisey) argued that different types of personalities have different ways of praying and reading the Bible. Their argument is another way of saying that, when it comes to practicing our faith, “one size fits all” does NOT work. Using some of the saints of the church as models, the authors suggest that one type of person might have a more Franciscan type of spirituality, another a more Benedictine type and so on. For example, an Ignatian type of spirituality might be practiced by someone who is more realistic and practical about life, someone who likes to follow the rules and prefers structure and order, someone who might be inclined to pray in a more “hands on,” predictable kind of way. St. Ignatius also relied heavily on a vivid imagination. Imagination is something often considered a less practical part of who we are. The authors of Prayer and Temperament say that true Ignatian spirituality would combine the two. And so, to pray in the way of St. Ignatius, we could use our imaginations in a more sensible, concrete way, actually picturing ourselves in a certain biblical setting. For example, maybe you would see yourself as a pilgrim on the journey Jesus made to his crucifixion. I might become one of the men on the Emmaus road whom Jesus surprised after his resurrection. And in today’s gospel story from Mark, you or I could practice the Ignatian method by becoming one of the crowd. Or we could imagine being one of the disciples. What would it be like to be Jesus in this final healing story of Mark’s gospel? How might it feel, we wonder, to be Bartimaeus? If we were a member of that large crowd leaving Jericho, we might try to shun or silence Bartimaeus, since he was considered an outcast, undesirable. And honestly, I might have liked to keep him that way – poor and sick. After all, if Jesus heals him and he gets a job, what does that do to me, especially in this economy? Or…we might have taken pity on this blind beggar and said, like others did, “Take heart; get up; he is calling you” (10:49). That would be the Christian thing to do, wouldn’t it? Even if I’m not really sure I want his healing to happen? God, what about me? I need healing, too. Where is Jesus when I need him? On the other hand, if we were one of the disciples, we might wonder why Jesus is asking this outsider “What do you want me to do for you?” (10:50) That’s the very same question he asked James and John! Now, why would Jesus do something for this man, when he would not give two of the leaders of our inner circle, James and John, a place at his right hand and his left (10:35-45)? Why is Jesus reaching out to this man and not to us – unless he just doesn’t love us disciples as much as he loves the poor? Does Jesus really love us? For six weeks now we have been following the teaching, preaching and healing ministry of Jesus as described in the eighth through tenth chapters of Mark. After Jesus healed a blind man at Bethsaida (8:22-26), he confronted a different kind of blindness. In chapters nine and ten, Jesus constantly challenges spiritual blindness among his closest followers. The disciples – even Peter, James and John – seem either unwilling or unable to accept the radical claims of God that Jesus makes on their lives. One New Testament scholar calls the disciples “The Knucklehead Club.” Yes, the disciples listen to Jesus teach – about entering God’s kingdom like a little child (9:30-37); about welcoming whoever is not against them (9:38-50); about selling all they have and giving it to the poor (10:37-51). But they don’t get it. And when they do get it, they keep losing it. Jesus’ disciples keep losing sight of the vision of heaven on earth that he keeps laying right before them. Unlike John Newton who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” they just can’t say, “I was blind, but now I see.” So, I wonder: What’s it like to be like those spiritually blind disciples? What caused their blindness? Did they forget their own call from Jesus? What might help them to hear God’s call, to see again? And what might it be like to be Jesus in this story? Do we have the courage to consider what it was like for him – journeying from Bethlehem to Bethsaida, from Jericho to Jerusalem, from life to suffering and death? This Son of David, this Messiah who was coming as a new, David-like king – Jesus was supposed to restore Israel to its former political prominence…or so folks thought. Later, when Jesus enters Jerusalem and a different crowd shouts, “Hosanna in the highest!” his disciples will still not know what it all means. But Bartimaeus knows. He sees in Jesus what others, even his closest friends, can’t see. And yet, Bartimaeus doesn’t see it all. Jesus, in his death, will reject that oh, so common misunderstanding of what “Messiah” means. Even Bartimaeus has a vision of Messiah-ship that “continues to blind him to Jesus’ true mission” (Feasting on the Word, p. 216). What then, I wonder, must it be like for Jesus, whose mission and vision is fully embraced by no one else? How can this “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” carry on? How can he keep going, when no one is ready, willing and able to say, in a genuine way, “Now, I see!” Barbara Crafton is a priest and writer with a website called “Geranium Farm.” She sends regular e-mails reflecting on the spiritual life. On Saturdays she sends a special e-mail about two of the Bible lessons appointed for that Sunday, just in time to help us preachers with our sermons. Her reflection on today’s Gospel text helps me understand just what it might have been like to be Bartimaeus. It’s called “Not Just Blind, and Not Just a Beggar.” Well, wasn't it obvious? The man was blind -- why would Jesus even ask? Of course he wanted his sight back. What else would he want? But Jesus does not assume that. Yes, the man had a disability -- but he was still a force to be reckoned with, capable of defying anxious friends, who wanted him to sit down and be quiet, for heaven's sake. Capable not only of that, but of "springing up," tossing his cloak aside and making his way toward the healer. Try "springing up" with your eyes closed sometime: moving around without sight is a scary business for most of us. So yes, he was blind, and a beggar. But he still had a life in his community, and he still had spirit and initiative. He could have wanted to talk to Jesus about any number of things. Jesus interacted with the whole person, not just the handicap…. None of us can be fully understood in terms of only one of our attributes. We are all more than even our most visible weaknesses, just as we are all less than the sum of our strengths. Our fellowship with one another is as whole people, not as walking maladies. This man hints at a life of the mind and spirit we know nothing about. He already knows who Jesus is. "My teacher," he calls Jesus, whom -- presumably -- he has never met, as if he were already part of his band. He's been on the road to fulfillment for a while, it seems, before we encounter him, blind and begging, on the side of the road. We have come here today, seeking strength for our journey on the road to fulfillment. The bread and wine we will share are food for that journey. We can also feast on today’s story about Bartimaeus. And here is what else sustains us: we are more than just our weaknesses or our strengths. We are more than our personality types. Each of us here today is more than anyone else can begin to comprehend. Even we do not fully comprehend ourselves. But there is One Who does. There is One Who knows and calls us each by name. There is One Who loves each one of us, from before the time we came to be a spark of the divine within our mother’s womb, on down through to the very end of time. No matter where we fit or don’t fit, no matter how faithful or faithless we are, no matter how blind or full of sight we might be, there is One Who has come to have mercy on us. There is One Who keeps on keeping on, One Who always invites us to join the journey, One Who loves us, no matter what. And that Love continues, until we are loved into sight, until we can say, finally, “Now, I see.” And there is this same One, Who will love us over and over, more and more, until yet another day, when we finally ask, “Jesus, my teacher, let me see again.” Next Sunday we celebrate All Saints Day, a very special day for us, when we remember all the saints who have gone before us. We will remember all types and sorts and conditions of children, women and men who make up the church of God. As we get ready to celebrate, let us pray. Let us pray that we get it. Let us pray for sight. Let us pray for the sight and the insight only God can give us. Let us pray the prayer of Saint Bartimaeus: “Jesus, my teacher, let me see again” (10:51). The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg (For more on Barbara Crafton, go to www.geraniumfarm.org For more on the interruptions of life, go to http://fathermom.wordpress.com |
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