When He Asks You What You Want

Mark 10:46-52           They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

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I don’t think you ever know how many lonely people there are in the world – until you stumble on the places where they hang out. 

That might sound paradoxical.  You wouldn’t think that lonely people would hang out; they don’t have friends to hang out with.  Lonely people sit at home by themselves feeling lonely, watching Love Boat on a Saturday night (self-disclosure).

But that’s not the definition of loneliness.  There are people who spend a lot of time alone simply because they are content in their solitude.  And likewise, there are people who can always be found in a crowd but they are, in their hearts, very lonely.

The places you can find lonely people are the places where they dare to reveal their loneliness.  Web sites like Postsecret.com – a place that combines analog and digital activity to allow people to share their secrets anonymously.  People mail in unsigned postcards with a secret written on it.  It’s like a confession to the universe.  And the curator of this project posts them online.  Sometimes they are funny, sometimes they are embarrassing, sometimes they are tragic.  Very often, their loneliness is revealed in their secrets.

Then there is Whisper, an app you can use on your phone.  It touts itself as the best place to express yourself – anonymously.  It’s very similar to Postsecret but it’s all done online.  Reading through some of these posts you find a great deal of sadness and loneliness.

Sites like Postsecret and Whisper have an interesting function in our hyper-connected world: they give people an opportunity to express the things that are hard to say, to open up the parts of themselves that are most vulnerable, the parts that are lonely, to seek out an authentic connection.  In reality, I think that many of us are somewhat lonely inside.  Most of us have an emptiness inside of us that longs to be filled.  There aren’t too many ways to express that.

Bartimaeus was probably a lonely man.  A blind beggar in a crowd of people, but still alone.  No one spoke to him except to scold him.  I doubt that anyone invited him over to dinner; he was a marginal person with serious flaws, pushed to the edges of society. 

And he was aware of what he was missing – don’t think for a moment he was not.  He was blind but he was not oblivious to the rest of the world around him.  He was blind and he wanted to see.

It might be that the people around Bartimaeus shunned him because they believed he was cursed, that he had been punished with blindness because of his sins, or the sins of his parents.  Such beliefs, we know, were not uncommon. But Bartimaeus did not seem to be disheartened by their negativity, because he knew what he wanted: he wanted to see.

When Jesus came through town, Bartimaeus knew this was the man who could restore his sight so he put everything he had into calling out to him: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The people shouted at him to shut up, but he was not cowed by them.  He cried out even louder, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

When Jesus heard Bartimaeus calling, everything came to a halt.  Imagine this sea of humanity moving down the road – suddenly, the man in the center of it stops.  The crowds of people around him stop, confused, unaware of what was going on.  The noise dies down and all eyes turn to Jesus, who asks Bartimaeus the question: what do you want me to do for you?  And Bartimaeus answers him, because he knows what he wants.  He wants to see.

It’s a simple thing, and yet it’s a marvelous thing, because how many of us would be able to answer if Jesus asked us the question: what do you want me to do for you?  How many of us really have a good answer to that question?

Jesus asked his disciples, James and John, the same question just a few verses ago – do you remember?  He said, “What do you want me to do for you?”  And they replied:

Let us sit one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.  Let us be the first; give us the seat of privilege; give us the glory.

And it strikes me that James and John were just as blind – if not more blind – than Bartimaeus the beggar.  The only difference was that they did not want to see.  They did not want to know that the way of discipleship was to choose to be last instead of first, to make oneself servant of all, to be a living sacrifice. 

In a way, Bartimaeus already saw more than they did, even in his blindness. He was the last, the lowest, the servant of all.  He was like the little children coming to Jesus who were being pushed away, but about whom Jesus would say, “let them come to me.” 

And Bartimaeus comes freely, joyfully, to tell Jesus what he wants from him.  He wants to see.  And to this Jesus replies, “Your faith has made you well.”

That always seems to us an odd reply – a non sequitur.  We are not sure what faith has to do with anything that has happened here.  Bartimaeus has not been asked to profess his faith.  He has not been examined for doctrinal purity.  He has not made a confession of sin and the necessary penitence.  He has done nothing but cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me – I want to see!”  But –

If that’s not an expression of faith – what is?

Blind Bartimaeus sees so much already – and he deeply, passionately, wants to see more fully.  He wants to know Jesus and love Jesus and follow Jesus with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength – everything he has.  We know, because as he regains his sight he follows him on the way.

Jesus asks the hard questions of his friends – like what do you want me to do for you.  And it is up to us to answer him.  Do you want fame and glory?  Do you want power and riches?  Do you want a life of ease with everything you desire at your fingertips? 

I’m not gonna lie – it all sounds pretty good to me. 

Or do you want to know love in its fullness, peace that passes understanding, life that is really life?  Do you want to have that lonely place inside of you filled?

It’s not always easy for Christians to really understand what Jesus is offering us, or what kind of life we are trying to live into.  With so many messages coming at us, so many choices before us, we do our best while moving along on the highway of life.  And maybe one day we look around to find ourselves out in a spiritual wilderness.  We’ve lost the way.

Sometimes it feels like the church has lost our way.  Perhaps it is time for another beggar to stand up and say, Jesus, Son of David, I want to see. 

In the confusing, the conflicting, messages of this world we may dare to stop.  Listen.  Hear Jesus asking us, what do you want me to do for you?  And when you hear it –

What will you say?

The Cup

Mark 10:35-45           James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

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When I was 13 years old, just shy of my 14th birthday, I was received into the church with the confirmation class of 1974 at Messiah Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, Illinois.  Back then, the day of your confirmation was also the day of your first communion, and for most of us the first time we tasted wine.  I remember kneeling at the communion rail around the altar in alphabetical order.  We all watched one another as we received the bread and the cup for the first time.  And I remember clearly seeing Marilaine Anderson take the cup, cock her head, and mouth the word “cheers!”  I was scandalized.  Mortified. I had never been so close to such sacrilege in all my years.

Clearly, Marilaine hadn’t learned anything in our two and a half years of confirmation classes.  All those hours spent memorizing Luther’s Catechism had apparently not penetrated her soul.  I was afraid, because she took the cup and she didn’t know what she was doing.  Much like James and John did not know what they were doing when they boldly approached Jesus with their demand.

They are astoundingly thick.  Go back and reread the paragraphs leading up to this passage and see for yourself.  Jesus has taught them repeatedly about the need to accept the kingdom of God like a little child; he has told them more than once that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  And just seconds before they come up with this request he has told them that he will soon be handed over to the authorities, he will be mocked and beaten and condemned to death.  Then James and John skip up to him and say, Ooh ooh, Teacher, we want you to give us what we want.  We want to be seated at your right and left hand in glory.  Talk about denial.

Did they still imagine that, in spite of everything Jesus was saying, he was going to call out his army at any moment and defeat the Romans?  Did they still think he was going to set up his kingdom right there in Jerusalem?  And that they were going to ride his coattails into the palace and be handed some sweet position like Secretary of State or Chief of Staff? 

Clearly, James and John had not been listening.  They did not understand the meaning of sacrificial leadership.  And I believe the others were just as clueless, because when they found out what happened they got angry. Were they angry at the presumptuousness of James and John?  We would like to think so, but I am afraid they were angry because they didn’t get there first. 

I am amazed at these men.  And a little appalled.  And I would be more annoyed than I am, except that I wonder if they were not so much cocky as they were afraid – afraid of what Jesus was really asking of them.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?  Can you receive the baptism with which I am baptized?  Can you go where I am going?

Are you able to drink this cup?  You know, if you are never asked, you never have to face it.  But once you are asked, the moment of decision has arrived.

Are you able to drink this cup?  This may have been the point at which James and John began to know the truth.  This may have been the moment when their denial began to crack open, just a little bit, and they began to realize they were not riding into victory, in the conventional sense.  But they were on a ride toward life, in the fullest sense.

The cup holds contradictions for disciples.  It is both a celebration and a sacrifice of blood.  It holds both freedom and obedience.  It holds both treasures but also persecutions.  It holds death – but it also holds life.

To drink the cup means drinking all of it.  You can’t push the bitterness over to one side, like you might push your Brussels sprouts over to the side of the plate.  You drink all of it.  Where do you find the courage to do that?

Henri Nouwen wrote the story of a man named Bill, who lived in a residential community for disabled adults where Nouwen worked.  The community is called L’Arche, the French word for ark.  Like Noah’s Ark, L’Arche is a container to hold God’s creatures safely through the storms.  Bill had Muscular Dystrophy; he had a weak heart, he had difficulty breathing, and he lived in constant fear of falling.  He had no family to visit him.  Bill’s parents had given him up at a young age because they were unable to care for him.  Bill’s life had plenty of storms.

Bill didn’t have any early memories when Nouwen first met him.  His youth, before entering the community, had been too painful, too lonely and difficult for him to want to recall.  But when he entered L’Arche at the age of 16, he began to experience love and friendship and an extended family, and he gradually began to trust and love in return.  In this community, this container of love and care, Bill slowly began to be able to recall some of his early life experiences, making them a part of his life story.  To recall the past was something that took courage.  But in recalling the past and sharing it, Bill was finally freed from the pain of having it locked up inside of him.

After 25 years, Bill began to put together his Life Story Book – a collection of photographs, anecdotes, and letters that told the story of Bill’s life – all of it.  Bill’s book held the pain along with the love, the sorrows along with the joys.  In this work, Bill was able to claim his life, all of it; and be grateful.

The cup that Jesus offers us is not easy to swallow.  It is not bland as water, but it is complex with the flavors of life – the bitter along with the sweet.  He asks Can you drink the cup?  And we must ask ourselves that same question.

Will we take a small sip and spit it out?  Will we push the cup away because we have no time for regrets, no taste for the harder things, the sorrowful things?  Will we turn away from the cup because we prefer to think positive?  Some might.

Others might like the bitterness of the cup!  To dwell on the sorrows, nurse the resentments with moldering anger, and ignore the blessings. 

To drink the cup that Jesus offers is to drink of both the sorrows and the joys; to acknowledge the fullness of life, to embrace the hardship and the pleasures.  Because to ignore one or the other is to choose to live only a half-life.

I often say that sorrow and joy are merely two sides of the same coin.  If you think of the coin as your life, you may like one side more than the other, but you can feel them both at the same time.  In fact, to grasp it in your hand you must hold on to both sides. 

I am reminded of words from the Heidelberg Catechism, possibly my favorite of all our confessions of faith:  That our God rules in such a way that leaves and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and unfruitful years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, and everything else, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.  And that we are to be patient in adversity, grateful in the midst of blessing, and to trust our faithful God and Father for the future, assured that no creature shall separate us from his love. 

Only in experiencing our sorrows deeply can we hope to find true joy. 

And so the cup that Jesus holds out to his disciples, holds out to us, is a complex mix of the stuff of life.  Can you take it?  Can you drink it and receive the fullness of life?

When we sit around a table with our friends and families, and we lift our cups, we do it as a celebration.  We drink to our hopes and deep desires; we drink in gratitude for the gifts of life.  We lift the cup and say, to health! To the newly married couple!  To life!

L’chaim.  To life – the life that, paradoxically, we find through death.  This is what we must remember – the life we are offered in Christ asks us to die to the old values and rise to the new, to be a servant of many, to be the last rather than the first.  Because the definition of sacrifice is to give up something good for the sake of something better.

The cup we receive through Christ is a profound and somber thing, but also a celebration of the life that is ours to claim if we are willing to receive it all – the joy and the sorrow, the pain and the pleasure, the death and the life.

So today I look back at that moment on my confirmation day, with Marilaine Anderson, who would go on a few years later to be captain of the cheerleading squad and homecoming queen, and think maybe Marilaine was on to something, something we hadn’t learned in our somber catechism classes.  The sacrament is a celebration of life.  The cup of Christ’s sacrifice is also the cup of salvation and the life we are saved for is fullness of life.  Not a half-life – a full life.

May you accept the cup that is offered. 

May you drink deeply of the cup, both the bitter and the sweet. 

And may you celebrate.

What Is Impossible

Mark 10:17-31           ¹⁷As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” ²⁰He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

²⁸Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

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A favorite films in our house is The Princess Bride, one of a handful of films we can watch together over and over and always enjoy.  It’s a story about a princess who has been kidnapped by some bad guys hoping to set off a war in the kingdom.  Either that or it’s a story about true love.  Or else it’s a story about a grandfather reading a fairy tale to his grandson.  Whatever it is, it’s funny and sweet. 

The character Vizzini, a Sicilian mastermind criminal, played by Wallace Shawn, has kidnapped the princess Buttercup.  Inigo Montoya, a Spanish swordsman and Fezzik, a giant, assist him in his criminal endeavors.  They are all being pursued by a mysterious man in black.  Vizzini tries to outwit the man in black, but every time they look back they discover he is still on their trail and gaining on them.  Each time Vizzini exclaims, “Inconceivable!”  Finally, after this has happened several times and Vizzini has pronounced it inconceivable, Inigo Montoya says,  “You keep using that word.  I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

Last summer I was in Chicago visiting family for a few days and we went to the Art Institute.  Joe and his girlfriend went down to the café for a cup of coffee and when they came back they said, “Guess who we saw in the café having coffee with his wife: Wallace Shawn.”  And I said, “Inconceivable.”  I couldn’t resist it.  I’ll bet he hears that word a lot more than he cares to.

The thing that is inconceivable to us, and to Jesus’ disciples, is the notion of a camel going through the eye of a needle.  I will admit that since I have grown somewhat farsighted, I have trouble enough getting even a thread through the eye of a needle.  Needless to say, I can’t envision a camel small enough or a needle large enough to allow this to happen.  And the critical implication of this fact is that as much as this is impossible, it is even more impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

There have been some valiant attempts to let us off the hook.  Some have suggested that the eye of the needle here referred to is a gate in Jerusalem, which was smaller than the other gates.  The size of it made it very challenging for travelers to get their camel through it.  Packs needed to be unloaded, a certain amount of gymnastics needed to be performed by the animal in order to get it through.  But it was possible.  Just difficult.

It has also been suggested that Jesus was misheard.  When they thought he was saying camel he was really saying rope.  That’s right, rope.  This makes for a slightly more fathomable image.  A rope is at least the right type of object to pass through the eye of the needle.  And I can imagine that it might be possible to get it through the eye of a needle, although with great difficulty.  Again, it’s possible.

If we were really bold we would say that Jesus is actually talking about rope, not camels, and furthermore, he is referring to the gate, not an actual needle.  So now we are looking at a length of rope passing through a small gate.  I don’t know what the big deal is about that. 

We have just managed to strip the story of any meaning, making at absolutely pointless.  But we can certainly breathe easier.

How does a camel get through the eye of a needle?

Some years ago I read about an art installation in a Las Vegas museum that showed a life-size camel, knitted out of wooly yarn and standing in a desert made of glued together matchsticks, facing a needle.  How does the camel get through?  I’ll bet you would like to know how.

It’s a riddle that’s hard to answer.  It’s trying to make the impossible possible.  How does a camel get through the eye of a needle?  How does a ship get in a bottle?  How do the Chicago Cubs win the World Series?  Is the impossible ever possible?

The answer to the question might be on your lips right now – the answer Jesus gives the disciples:  with God, all things are possible.  Surely all things are possible with God, but that’s not the answer to the question that is really vexing us.  That question is –

How?

It’s a question that I need to have the answer to because there is a lot at stake for me.  I am that rich person. 

Most of us are the rich person in this story because we are all rich by world standards.  We may not feel that way when we compare ourselves to our bosses, our politicians and celebrities, or even our neighbors.  But when we look around the world and compare ourselves to our global neighbors, we are rich.  We have an awful lot to be grateful for, and an awful lot of room for generosity. 

There was an American woman living in Calcutta.  One day a local woman came to her door with a request.  She was going to be working in the mountains over the winter and she would need a pair of warm slacks.  She had no slacks, so she was asking this American woman to give her one of her pairs.  The American woman balked at the request because she only had two pairs, herself, not exactly a superfluous number of slacks.  Yet the woman standing in her doorway looked at her and said, “Yes, I understand.  You have two pairs.  I need one.  That will still leave you with one.  Won’t you share your extra pair with me?”

This was a level of giving the American woman never expected to be asked to do. I don’t think any of us expect to ever have to give quite so much.  Aren’t there reasonable limits?

I imagine the rich young man in the story also wondered, as he walked away from Jesus, about reasonable limits.  He knew the law and the law did not require him to give everything away.  Why would Jesus ask for so much more than what the law requires?

We wonder if there was something peculiar about this rich young man that made Jesus respond to him in that way.  Was there something about him that was different from us, which would make it reasonable to ask him to give everything away?  What I mean is, is there some way of seeing ourselves as exempt from this requirement?

If there is, the text doesn’t give us any clues.  Jesus simply says what he says:  it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.  So what is the solution?

His disciples are suddenly flooded with despair, because what Jesus said defies everything they have been taught about what it means to be in the Lord’s favor.  The Hebrew Bible teaches us to look at material blessings as a sign of God’s favor.  So if even those whom God has smiled upon cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, who in the world can be saved?

And Jesus answers them, “You cannot save yourselves – that’s impossible.  But for God, all things are possible.”

That takes us right back to the original question posed by the young man.  What must I do to inherit eternal life?  He wanted a list.  What must I do to earn my salvation? 

Jesus looked him in the eyes and he loved him. He loved this earnest young man who wanted to be as good as he could be, he wanted to make God proud.  Jesus loved him enough to want to save him, so he said there is one more thing: sell all your possessions and give them to the poor, then follow me.  Get rid of everything that is getting between your heart and your God.  Whatever is claiming any part of your loyalty, get rid of it because God wants all of you.

You see, our possessions are not bad things.  Every good thing we have is a gift from God, meant to be used for the glory of God.  But the problem is that all too often our possessions become our masters.  There is an addictive quality to material consumption.  Once you start, you can never have enough.

In a land of such great abundance, one of the hardest parts of being a Christ follower is to live as though you have enough.  Yes, there are blessings in material wealth but there are also dangers.  The land of material excess is also a spiritual desert.  The question we must ask ourselves is how shall we handle the blessings we have received?  This is not a casual question.  We must earnestly seek the answer to this question – just as earnestly as the rich man sought answers to his question.  And this is why I want an answer to the riddle: how does a camel get through the eye of a needle?

That wooly camel in the Las Vegas art gallery was being unraveled, a stitch at a time, and passed through the eye of the needle.  And as it passed through the needle it landed in a heap of yarn on the floor.  As it turns out, the camel can get through the eye of the needle quite easily, but it must come undone.  In the end, every bit of the original camel will be on the other side of the needle, but it will have an entirely different shape.

How about us camels?  Having been shaped by our material lifestyle, we will be reshaped.  Having been defined by our possessions, we will be redefined.  For any one of us to enter the kingdom of God we must be transformed – radically, humbly transformed – and this can only happen by the power of God.  We must open the hand that holds tightly to the things of this world to receive the kingdom of God.