lauren laughs

Preached at St. Martin’s in-the-Field, Severna Park 

October 27, 2024: Proper 25 Year B 

Today’s healing story in the Gospel of Mark is one you have heard before, though there is a chance that this particular story has blurred into some of the other stories we know of Jesus restoring sight to the blind. 

I remember as a child the story of restored sight that most stuck with me was the one where Jesus spits into the dirt to make mud and puts the mud on the eyes of the blind man.  It is a vivid depiction not only for its use of spit, but also for its use of touch.  It is earthy and tactile, and it felt like a story I could get my hands on. 

This story, the story of Bartimaeus, is memorable for other reasons.  For one, the person being healed is named.  Usually, we just hear about the unnamed girl, or the unnamed man, or the unnamed woman… people who are identified only by their ailment.  But this story names the person: Bartimaeus.   

This story is also memorable for the question Jesus asks: What do you want me to do for you? 

I love this question because I think it is one we are often too afraid to answer.  What do you want Jesus to do for you? 

It might feel selfish to respond. 

It’s so much easier to pray on behalf of someone else: a job for the friend that just got let go, successful treatment for the parent with Parkison’s, friendships for the kid who doesn’t fit in, healing for the sister with cancer—we can pray for these things again and again and again and know that Jesus never tires of our asks for someone else. 

A friend asked me this week if it was okay to pray for a certain candidate to win the election, realizing others would likely pray for a different candidate to win.  It reminded me of another person asking me years ago if it was ok to pray angry prayers about an evil person elsewhere in the world.   

Friends, let this week’s Gospel be an answer to the question: Is it okay to pray… [fill in the blank]??  Because I believe the answer is always yes.  It is always ok to pray.  It is always okay to ask Jesus for what you want, even when it feels inappropriate.   

Do you know why?  

Look at the Collect for Purity on page 4 of your leaflet—look at how that prayer begins: “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid…”   

Do you think your prayer is going to take God by surprise?  I can assure you it will not.   

God already knows the desires of your heart… the admirable ones and the ones you’d rather not name.   

But it’s not enough for God to know these things.  In order to be in relationship with God, you’ve got to name these desires and share your heart that God already sees.  That is the desire of God’s heart!  To be in relationship with you.   

Jesus asks the question of Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you,” not because Jesus can’t see the need before him.  Jesus knows Bartimaeus is blind.  He could have assumed Bartimaeus longed to see.   

But Jesus instead asks the question because that exchange—that question-and-answer—that is the stuff relationships are made of.   

Bartimaeus is not just answering a question, he’s accepting an invitation to be vulnerable, to name his need, to share the desire of his heart, and to be in relationship with Jesus.   

Are you willing to do the same?  Are you willing to throw off your cloak like Bartimaeus and come before Jesus with your own pain, fear, suffering, or need laid bare? 

I think our life with Christ might look a little different—perhaps a little more honest—if we were to imagine Jesus asking us the question every day: What do you want me to do for you?  And then answer that question honestly, no matter how fragile or embarrassing or “wrong” the answer might be.  To see that question as an invitation, and to accept the invitation by answering with the truth God already sees in your heart and mine. 

There is one more thing that struck me about this healing story—something I hadn’t noticed before: And that is the word “again.”  In the Gospel translation we read today, Bartimaeus says, “let me see again.” 

I looked up this particular verse in multiple translations, and some say “recover sight” or “regain sight” or “see again” while others say simply “to see.”  I then looked at the Greek translation, and it could go either way—let me see, or let me see again.  So, I think it’s interesting to consider the possibility, one that tradition seems to hold, that Bartimaeus was not born blind, but lost his sight sometime along the way. 

There is something about that word “again” that strikes a chord with me.  I think perhaps it is the idea that I might have to ask for the same thing again and again, not because God is deaf to my prayers, but because I’m prone to fall into the same patterns and the same blind spots again and again. “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it…” 

If that is you, too… if you are sometimes kicking yourself for what feels like a redundant prayer, know that God never tires of hearing from you.  Every prayer, every ask, no matter how selfish or imperfect or repetitive—every prayer is a “yes” to God’s invitation to be in relationship. 

So pray your prayers!  Pray with abandon!  Pray with the boldness of Bartimaeus, who didn’t just gain his sight, but gained a friend in Jesus.   

Amen.