What Do You Want?

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Mark 10:35-52.

Do you pray regularly?

I hope you do.  If you’ve ever been to any church anywhere, you know how much churches believe in prayer.  We believe everyone should pray.  But here’s the question:  why?

Do you ever think about that?  When you come right down to it, why do we really need to pray?  After all, the Bible says that God knows our every thought.  The Bible says God knows what we need before we ask.  So, if God already knows how we feel, and if God already knows what we need, why should we bother to pray?”

            It's a legitimate question, but I think there is an answer to it.  Actually, there's probably more than one answer, but there's one I want to give tonight.  Even though God already knows what how we feel and what we need, we still need to pray because one of the things the act of praying does for us is it clarifies our own faith.  It reveals to us what we really think about God.

             I think our Bible reading for tonight shows that.  We heard two little stories.  Those stories are often dealt with separately, and there's value from doing that, but I also think they come back-to-back in the gospel of Mark for a reason.  There are things the two stories have in common, and so I think there's also value to be gained by looking at them together.

             In both of them, we have people asking Jesus for something.  James and John come up to Jesus and ask for something, and Bartimaeus comes up to Jesus and asks for something.

            But of course, the way they ask is completely different, right?  James and John come up to Jesus and almost demand that he do something for them.  They say to Jesus, “We want you to do whatever we ask.”  Bartimaeus, on the other hand, goes to Jesus and says, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”

            Now, that's two totally different ways of approaching Jesus.  James and John seem to feel like they’re entitled to Jesus' help.  They call him “Teacher”, but at the same time, they talk to him more like he's their servant.  That's sometimes called the vending machine approach to prayer.  We make our requests, we push the button, and boom, God is supposed to give us what we asked for.

            Bartimaeus, on the other hand, does not seem to feel entitled to anything.  He's begging.  He's pleading.  He's hoping desperately that Jesus will hear him and will do what he asks.  He does not act like Jesus owes it to him to help.  But he knows that the only chance he has is if Jesus somehow, for some reason, decides to have mercy on him and help him.

            Two completely different ways of asking.  And yet, Jesus' response to them is exactly the same.  In both cases, he asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”

            Does that seem like kind of an odd question to you?  It does to me.  “What do you want me to do for you?”  Jesus surely knew what they wanted, right?  Jesus is God, the divine Son.  It seems like he'd have known what they were going to say before they said it.

            And yet, Jesus asked the question.  Even though he already knew what they wanted, he wanted to hear it from their own lips.  Why?

            I don't know the whole answer.  But here's something for us to think about.

            Have you ever had a thought or an idea or something like that in your head, and it made sense to you while it was in your head, but then you went to tell somebody else about it, and when you did it sounded totally different when you said it out loud than it did when it was still in your head?  I've done that.  I've gone to say something, and all of a sudden this thought or this idea, this thing that seemed like it was totally reasonable and sensible when it was in my head, sounded really stupid or arrogant or hurtful when I put it into words and said it to somebody else.  It happens because I really have not thought through all the meanings and implications of what I'm thinking.  And when I have to explain it to someone else, all of a sudden those meanings and implications become clear.  And it's not always a very pleasant experience.

I think that's one of the reasons Jesus asked “What do you want me to do for you?”  It's one of the reasons we need to pray, too.  We need to put our feelings into words.  We need to put our requests of God into words.  We need to do that so we can fully understand them.  We need to do that so we can really understand the meanings and implications of what we're asking of God.

I wonder, when James and John actually said to Jesus, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory,” how did they feel?  When they actually said that out loud, when they had to put it into words and say it to Jesus, were they proud of themselves?  Or were they a little ashamed of themselves, suddenly hearing what it sounded like when they said it?  Did they realize that this demand, which sounded so good and reasonable in their heads, sounded really arrogant and almost condescending to Jesus when they said it out loud?  I mean, here they were, telling Jesus they wanted him to put them above all the other disciples and to put them into positions of power and glory.  Did they realize how that was going to sound to Jesus and to the others?  The act of having to put their request into words revealed what they really thought about Jesus, and it did not sound particularly good.

Now, Bartimaeus did not have that same problem.  What he asked for did not sound stupid or arrogant or hurtful.  Still, it revealed what he really thought about Jesus, too.

Bartimaeus does not say to Jesus, “I want you to do whatever I ask.”  He just says, “Have mercy on me.”  Bartimaeus does not think Jesus owes him anything.  He has no real reason to think Jesus will do anything for him.  He does not even know whether Jesus will pay any attention to him.  After all, he'd never met Jesus.  As far as Jesus was concerned, he'd just be some guy on the side of the road, trying desperately to get Jesus to notice him.

When Jesus stopped and said he'd talk to Bartimaeus, how do you think Bartimaeus felt?  Was he excited?  Was he scared?  Probably both, and some other things, too.  He had no idea what Jesus was going to say.  For all he knew, Jesus might be going to chew him out.  He might be going to say, “Who do you think you are, yelling at me like this?  Get out of here.”

But Bartimaeus came up to Jesus.  And Jesus asked him the same question.  “What do you want me to do for you?”

That must have seemed to Bartimaeus like a really odd thing for Jesus to say.  I wonder if anybody'd ever asked him that question before.  You know, blind people were not treated very well in that society.  They were pretty much shunned by everyone.  They were considered to have been cursed by God in some way.  Once in a while someone might've take pity on Bartimaeus and given him something, but no one, at least no one respectable, would become his friend.  No one would've cared about Bartimaeus to ask him what he wanted.

But Jesus did.  Bartimaeus must have been stunned.  It probably took him a second or two to react at all.  He'd been so desperate just to get Jesus' attention that he probably had not really thought about what he'd actually say to Jesus if he got the chance.  He probably had an idea, but he'd never put it into words before, even in his head.  What did he really want Jesus to do for him?

Finally, he stammered it out.  He said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

Again, the act of having to put his request into words revealed what he really thought about Jesus.  He believed that Jesus had power that came from God.  He may not have known exactly what that meant, he may not have known that Jesus was truly the divine Son of God and all that, but he knew that Jesus was a man of God in some way.  He truly believed that Jesus could make him see.  And he knew that the only reason Jesus would do that is if Jesus had mercy on him.

So, what do you want Jesus to do for you?  And what do I want Jesus to do for me?  Our answer to that question reveals what you and I really think about Jesus.

Do we come to Jesus arrogantly?  Do we come to him demanding that Jesus give us whatever we ask, acting as if Jesus somehow owes that to us?  Or do we come to Jesus desperately, knowing that Jesus owes us nothing, and that the only reason Jesus would pay any attention to us at all, much less do what we ask, is because of the great love and mercy that Jesus has for us?

            Jesus did not give James and John what they asked for.  In fact, he said he could not give it to them.  He did not get mad at them, and he did not give up on them.  But he did use the chance to give them a lesson about humility and what greatness is really all about. 

            Jesus did give Bartimaeus what he asked for.  I have to think that Bartimaeus’ attitude, which truly was an attitude of humility, had something to do with that.

            Yes, God knows our every thought, and God knows what we need before we ask.  But our prayers reveal what we think about God.  They clarify what we actually believe and what we really want.  And that’s one of the reasons why we need to pray.