On this Sunday closest to Reformation Day, the Oct. 31st anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 Theses in 1517 and inadvertently sparking the Protestant Reformation, I want to begin by recalling an event in the life of an earlier reformer, St. Francis of Assisi.
Francis was a typical youth of the burgeoning merchant class in 12th century Assisi. It is said that he liked fine clothes, enjoyed the romantic songs of the day and read poets who extolled the virtues of courtly love. His father, Pietro, was a successful cloth merchant who expected Francis to join the family business. But everything changed when Jesus called Francis.
One day, while Francis was praying in a small rundown church, before a large, colorful crucifix, he heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him from the cross: “Repair my church.” Francis took this to mean repairing the building he was in, but, in retrospect, many observers then and now see this as a call to repair the Church Universal by calling Christians back to a discipleship that imitates the example of Jesus. [Lawrence S. Cunningham, Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel Life, p. 55] Francis however took the command quite literally—Lawrence Cunningham has observed that Francis’ discipleship was characterized by a “startling naivete”—and set out to make the needed repairs. This set Francis on a collision course with his father. He started selling the family’s cloth and using the money to repair the church. His father, who tried but failed to stop Francis multiple times, became so exasperated that he locked the young man in his house. Finally, having exhausted seemingly all possible corrective actions, he took Francis to see the local bishop, hoping this man of God could talk some sense into the wayward lad.
But things did not turn out as expected. When Pietro demanded that Francis stop giving away his possessions and money, Francis replied, “Up to now I have called you my father, but from now on I have only one Father in heaven.” At that, the young man cast off all his clothing and returned them to his father. The bishop covered Francis’ nakedness with a simple cloak and the young man walked out of Assisi to follow Jesus in a life of simplicity, compassion, humility and love.
Like St. Francis, Bartimaeus hears Jesus’ call and responds. Like Francis, Bartimaeus casts off his cloak so that he can follow Jesus on the way. Like Francis, Bartimaeus is leaving behind everything to follow. The beggar’s cloak may well have been his only possession. It was his shade from the sun, his umbrella in the rain, his blanket in the cool of the night. Yet, he gives it up. Bartimaeus does what, earlier in Mark chapter 10, the rich man could not do. The rich man had come to Jesus asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Learning that the man had kept all the commandments, Jesus tells him he must do one more thing: “sell all that you have, give the money to the poor and come follow me”—cast off that one thing that is holding you back and follow me on the way of compassionate, sacrificial love of God and neighbor. Hearing those words, the man’s face falls and he goes away sad, for he had many possessions and he could not bring himself to cast them off. But, Bartimaeus does what that rich man could not do. In faith, he casts everything aside—his fear, his past, his present—anything that might hold him back he throws off so that he can respond to Jesus’ call.
So, I wonder, what is it that you and I need to cast off in order to follow Jesus on the way?
Perhaps it is fear. Earlier in Chapter 10, Mark tells us that the crowd following Jesus is afraid. Jesus is marching to Jerusalem and telling them that he will be killed when he gets there. His followers’ fear is understandable: they don’t know quite what they are getting into, but it will be dangerous, and the outcome appears uncertain to them, despite Jesus’ talk of rising on the third day.
Fear can keep us from following; can cause us to turn back. As Bruce Springsteen asserts, “Fear is a dangerous thing / It’ll turn your heart black you can trust / It’ll take your God-shaped soul / Fill it with Devils and Dust.” [“Devils and Dust,” from the 2005 album of the same title] Fear, you see, keeps us from being who God calls us to be: both the person God calls us to be and the church God calls us to be. It fills the God-shaped hole in our hearts [Blaise Pascal; “God-shaped vacuum”] with anxiety for the future, self-concern, selfishness, distrust of others. Fear leaves no room in our hearts for trust of God or love and compassion for others.
Further, fear clouds our thinking and distorts our view of the world. In his 1993 book A Passion for the Possible: A Message for U.S. Churches, the late UCC affiliated minister William Sloane Coffin opined, "As I see it, the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight….You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts--either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind." Fear binds us—whether it is the fear of death, ghosts, life, disease, rejection, job loss, poverty, violence, hunger, homelessness, the loss of loved ones, or the presence of those who are different from us. Such fears bind us, control us, close our minds and hearts, distort our view of other people, limit our options, and warp the image of God within us—driving God out of our souls to be replaced by devils and dust.
But Bartimaeus does not let fear sway him. He cries out boldly for help and he responds when he is called, casting off all the fears that would hold him back. And so, he follows Jesus—follows him to Jerusalem and the cross. He follows at the very moment when following will cost him something, when following involves great risk: the risk of disappointment, the risk of personal loss, indeed the risk of his life. The future is uncertain, storm clouds are gathering on the horizon, but still he follows.
Bartimaeus exemplifies discipleship. He reminds us that, spiritually speaking, the opposite of fear is faith. Faith: active, abiding trust in God, a trust that leads us to concrete actions even when fear threatens to hold us back. Faith is the light that enables us to see the goodness and love of God even in the dark night of the soul, even in the shadow of the cross.
Perhaps it is fear we need to cast off. Or, maybe, it is the crowd. They too would hold Bartimaeus back. He doesn’t fit in—he’s an outcast, an annoyance, he lives on the fringe of society, he doesn’t have the qualifications, the status, the abilities to join them as they “follow” Jesus. He’s just trouble and an inconvenience who ought to be quite and stay in his place.
But, as Søren Kierkegaard told us, the crowd is “untruth,” for in a crowd, even good, responsible individuals can quickly lose their inhibitions and moral values, and engage in behavior they would never consider if not influenced by the crowd.[i] In this case, the people in the crowd appear to be following Jesus, but, when confronted by a blind beggar, they show no compassion. Without compassion—that is, active love of the hurting and outcast—one cannot truly follow Jesus. The crowd is untruth, but the church must be a community of compassion.
Yet notice how quickly the crowd changes its tune. As soon as Jesus shows concern for the man, they too show “concern.” But if they were really concerned, one of them would have gone immediately to Bartimaeus and said, “What do you need? How can I help you?” Or someone would have helped him to his feet and taken him to Jesus. Instead, they only act when Jesus acts, and then one suspects, it is only acting. They are not driven by compassion, by love for their neighbor. They are driven by, and need to cast off, self-concern. They are trying to stay in Jesus’ good graces, trying to appear good and righteous, trying to be religious. They are concerned not for Bartimeaus, but for keeping up the appearance of being a disciple. The crowd is untruth, but a disciple of Jesus does works of love because she loves, does deeds of compassion because she is compassionate, embraces the outcast because she recognizes him as a brother. A disciple is one who is being shaped by Jesus and thus naturally reflects Jesus’s love, compassion and welcome.
Bartimaeus ignores the crowd. He knows his need and boldly seeks help. If we would be disciples of Jesus, we too must admit our need and seek his gracious help. If we would be part of the community of Jesus’ disciples, we must step out of the comfort of the crowd. We must cease to let the crowd define us as unworthy, untalented, not good enough, too old or too young, too different. We must cease to hide behind conventional wisdom and acceptable behavior. Instead, we must let the Holy Spirit transform us, we must do what Jesus did, we must obey his commands, we must take up the cross and go to the needy and the outcast to share the Good News of God’s mercy in word and deed.
Or perhaps, in order to follow Jesus, there are certain biases or prejudices we need to cast off. Clearly, the crowd was biased against Bartimaeus, considered him unworthy. The disciples were amazed that the rich man could not enter the kingdom of heaven, because they viewed wealth as a sing of God’s favor. They were probably equally amazed that the blind beggar was so quickly welcomed into God’s family, because they viewed illness and poverty as punishments for those outside God’s will. Clearly, they were blind to the truth, blind to God’s compassionate love for all. Our prejudices are not God’s prejudices. Our enemies are not God’s enemies. Christ has come to call sinners into the kingdom—and all have sinned—and Christ welcomes whosoever may come.
St. Francis’ conversion was a process, a journey. The Christian life always is. Francis had deep aversion to lepers. So it was, that he took an important step on the day he was able to look a leper in the eye, to view him with love, to give the man his own cloak, and to embrace him. Who are we averse to? Who do we need to embrace? The poor, the foreigner, the homosexual, the transgender person, the Muslim, the Jew, the black, the Hispanic, the Haitian, the homeless, the mentally or physically handicapped? What do we need to cast off? Anti-Semitism; toxic hatred of our political opponents; the self-justifying tendency to see the other’s sin but ignore our own, to smugly condemn the other person or group’s violence or prejudice while proclaiming our own righteousness? Or maybe we need to cast of old stereotypes that lump every member of a group, race, ethnicity, religion or class together; stereotypes that allow us to dismiss them and their concerns, to collectively condemn all of them for the acts or beliefs of a few or even for acts and attitudes that are commonly found throughout all humanity.
When we exclude, we, like the crowd in our scripture, are keeping people from coming to Jesus, we are ordering them to be quiet and stay right where they are, on the side of the road, outside of our lives, outside of our society, outside of our church. But when we embrace the outcast, when we welcome the Bartimaeus’ of the world into God’s family, then we are truly following Jesus, then we are truly his disciples.
So, what must we do to follow Jesus? What must we cast off? Fear, prejudice, the opinions of the crowd, or something else? Whatever it may be, may God grant us the faith to cast off those cloaks, to spring up and to boldly follow Jesus on the way.
The crowd is untruth. Therefore was Christ crucified, because, although He addressed himself to all, He would have no dealings with the crowd, because He would not permit the crowd to aid him in any way, because in this regard He repelled people absolutely, would not found a party, did not permit balloting, but would be what He is, the Truth, which relates itself to the individual.
James and John, in last week’s reading, saw Jesus as an opportunity to be upwardly mobile: “grant us to sit at your right hand and your left when you come into your glory.” Peter, after confessing Jesus to be the Christ, apparently saw Jesus as a traditional political Messiah, not as one who suffers. The religious and political authorities saw Jesus as a threat who needed to be eliminated. Only blind Bartimaeus sees correctly: he sees Jesus as Savior, as hope, as a new beginning and so he cries out for help and, having received that help, follows Jesus.