This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, February 28, 2021. The Bible verses used are Mark 10:46-52.
Most of us are basically what would be commonly
thought of as good people. We do our best. We care about
people. We try to do what we can for them. When we see someone who
needs help, we try to give it to them.
But the tricky bit about that is that phrase “when we see
someone”. Because too often, we don’t. A lot of the time, we kind
of go through life with blinders on. We don’t see the people around us
who need help, and so we don’t help them. It’s not that we don’t want to
help them. It’s just that we did not see them. We did not notice
them.
And that’s not because we’re intentionally being mean or
selfish or anything. It’s just that, well, we get involved in our own
stuff. Our work takes our time. Our families take our time.
If we’re involved in the community, or in the church, that takes our
time. And then, too, we’ve all got concerns in our lives. We’ve all
got worries. We’ve all got problems. And so, it’s really easy for
us to get completely wrapped up in all those things going on in our own
lives. Again, not because we want to be selfish--it can happen to us
without us even realizing it. And because we don’t realize it, we can
walk right past someone who needs help, and not even see them.
In our Bible reading for today, Jesus is on his way to
Jerusalem. As we noted last week, this is the last trip of Jesus’
life. He knows that when he gets to Jerusalem, Judas is going to betray
him to the authorities. He’s going to be arrested, he’s going to be
beaten, and he’s going to be killed.
Have you ever thought about what that was like for
Jesus? To walk along, knowing that every step he takes brings him closer
to the end of his life on earth? I would think there must have been a
part of him that wanted to turn around, wanted to go back to Nazareth, or just
go somewhere else, anywhere else. Yes, Jesus knew this was how things were
supposed to go. He knew it was part of his destiny on earth to be
crucified. But still, Jesus was fully human as well as fully
divine. There had to be a part of him that did not want to go through
with this.
And you know, he could’ve justified it to himself. He
could’ve said, you know, if I just put this off a while, think of all the good
I could do. Think of all the people I could heal. Think of all the
people I could preach the good news to. There’s a lot more I could do if
I did not go to Jerusalem right now. I’ll still do it--I know I’m
supposed to die for the sins of human beings--but not just now. Maybe
next year. Or the year after. But not yet. Not now.
Jesus has all this to deal with as he’s walking along,
walking toward Jerusalem. If there was ever someone who had an excuse to
not notice the needs of others, to get wrapped up in his own stuff, it would be
Jesus at this point. And yet, Jesus did not do that. He did not
walk along with blinders on. Jesus saw the needs of others. And he
took the time to help them.
Jesus is leaving a town called Jericho. There’s a
large crowd around him. And any time there’s a large crowd, there’s lots
of noise, lots of confusion. But then, above the noise of the crowd,
there’s a voice. It’s a voice so loud that everyone hears it. A man
cries out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!”
Everyone’s kind of shocked. The people around him try
to shush him, but he pays no attention. He cries out all the louder, “Son
of David, have mercy on me!”
It would’ve been so easy for Jesus to just keep walking
along. Again, he was walking toward his death. He’d already healed
hundreds of people, probably thousands of people. Maybe even tens of
thousands of people, we don’t know. He’d been there and done that.
Does he really have to deal with this guy now, when he’s in the last week of
his life on earth, walking toward his death? What was in it for Jesus,
for him to do that? Can this guy not just leave him alone?
But Jesus did not think that way. You or I might
have, but Jesus did not. Jesus stopped. And he said of the man,
whose name was Bartimaeus, “Call him.”
They do. And Bartimaeus comes to Jesus as fast as he
can. He even throws aside his cloak, which to a blind beggar might have
been the most important thing he owned. We don’t know if people had to
lead him to Jesus, if he followed the voice, or what, but somehow Bartimaeus
makes his way to Jesus. And Jesus says, “What do you want me to do for
you?”
It seems like, when people came to Jesus to be healed,
Jesus asked that question a lot. I wonder why. I mean, it seems
obvious, right? The guy’s blind. He knows Jesus has healing
powers. What do you think he wants, tickets to the coliseum? Of
course, he wants to be healed. He wants to see. But for whatever
reason, Jesus makes him say it.
This is kind of an aside, but that’s a lesson for us,
too. Sometimes we wonder why, in our prayers, we need to tell God what’s
going on and what we want. After all, He’s God, right? God knows
everything. God knows everything about us. God knows everything
we’re going through. Why should we have to tell Him?
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because putting it into
words clarifies things in our own minds. Maybe God wants us to say it to
Him so that we’ll know, when things get better, that it was God who did
it. There may be all kinds of reasons why God wants us to tell Him these
things. But a lot of times God does, just as Jesus wanted the people he
healed to put into words what they wanted.
So of course, Bartimaeus says he wants to see. And
Jesus gives him his sight, telling him, as he often did, “Your faith has healed
you.” And Bartimaeus then started following Jesus on the road to
Jerusalem.
Jesus had so much on his mind. He had so much going
on. It would’ve been so easy for Jesus to just keep walking, to just
ignore this blind beggar, to pretend he hadn’t even heard him over the buzz of
the crowd. No one would’ve thought less of him. No one probably
would’ve thought anything. This story would never have appeared in the
Bible. No one would’ve ever heard of Bartimaeus. No one would’ve
known anything about it.
But Jesus did not have blinders on. He did not let
his own stuff, his own worries, his own concerns, keep him from helping someone
who needed him. Jesus did not just walk past someone who needed
help. Jesus stopped, and Jesus helped him.
There are a lot of times when life is not easy. Now,
I’m not saying we should sit around saying “poor little me”. You and I
have a lot advantages that many people in the world don’t. Just living in
the United States of America is a huge advantage. We all have a place to
sleep and food to eat and clothes to wear, and those are huge advantages.
But even saying that, there are a lot of times when life is
not easy. We may not be worried about basic survival--although I don’t
know that about everyone for sure--but we have other worries, other
concerns. There are plenty of people in our churches, and in our
communities, who have health problems, or financial problems, or relationship
problems, or problems at their jobs, or any number of other things. I
don’t know anyone who can say their life is easy, that they have nothing to
worry about, that everything is lollipops and rainbows. We all have
plenty of stuff going on in our lives, and they can feel overwhelming to
us. Life is not easy.
But what is easy, and happens far too often, is that we let
that stuff take over our lives. And I don’t mean this as an
accusation. I do it as much as anyone. But when our own worries,
our own concerns, take over our lives, that’s when we put the blinders
on. We probably don’t even realize that we’ve done it, but we do
it. And we miss chances to help people, because we simply don’t see them
and don’t see their needs.
This is the time of Lent. This is the time we repent
of our sins, ask for forgiveness, and ask God to change our lives. Let’s
ask God to change our lives in this way. Let’s ask God to take off our
blinders. Let’s ask God to help us see the needs of the people around us,
so we can do whatever we can to help them.
We really want to be good people. We really do care
about people. We really want to try to do what we can for them.
When we see someone who needs help, we really do want to try help them.
So let’s ask God to help us follow Jesus’ example. No matter how much is
going on in our lives, let’s not go through life with blinders on. Let’s
see the people around us. And let’s help them. That’s how we can
show God’s love to people. It’s what Jesus did. It’s what Jesus
wants us to do, too.
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