Proper 25, Year B (2012)
The Rev. Martha Brimm
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22
Mark 10:46-52
In the name of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Amen.
The readings for today from Job, Psalm 34, and Mark all contain references to
the senses. Such references enliven the text for us because it is mostly through our
five senses---taste, touch, hearing, sight, and smell---that we perceive and make
sense of the world. It is interesting to note that the world can actually be known
very differently by some species of animals---they are able to sense the world in a
way that humans cannot--- with some species able to sense electrical and magnetic
fields, and detect water pressure and currents.
In the lesson from Job, we come upon Job answering God just after God has
spoken to him from the whirlwind. We heard a portion of God’s speech from the
whirlwind last Sunday. The whole speech is in itself a whirlwind of rhetorical
questions that swirled around Job, contrasting the might and creative power of God
with that of Job. “Where were you,” God demands of Job, “when I laid the
foundations of the earth?” Did you see the creation of the world and all its myriad
and wonderful creatures?” Today we hear Job’s answer. “I know you can do all
things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted…I have uttered what I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…I had heard of you
by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you…” In her commentary on the
book of Job, Carol Newsom observes that “what Job has just heard in the divine
speeches…is a devastating undermining of his understanding of the unproblematic
moral continuity between himself, the world, and God” (p 255). Job had heard
about God, but now he sees “something about God, the world, and himself that
surpasses anything he has been able to grasp before” (p 693, Ballentine’s Job).
While the traditional sense of order may be hoped for, chaos is also part of
existence. Job’s understanding has been radically transformed, his perspective
enlarged, and he can never “un-see” his new understanding.
Throughout his terrible ordeal of suffering, Job had implored, entreated and
demanded that God answer him---answer why he, Job, a blameless and upright
man, was suffering so unjustly---answer why violence and wickedness flourished in
the world---answer why God permitted such suffering and misery. Even in the face
of great physical and mental torment, Job refused to curse God and die. Instead he
remained actively engaged in argument with God and adamantly maintained his
own righteousness and integrity. He argues that he has done absolutely nothing to
deserve such treatment. He longs for judicial relief from God’s injustice, saying “But
I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God” (13:3).
At last, God does answer Job--- not in an orderly courtroom as Job had
proposed, but from the chaos of a whirlwind. Job is stunned to dust and ashes. He is
left with new vision and a transformed perspective. And we who have heard and
seen Job’s bitter complaints and God’s answering challenges to him are left to
grapple with new questions about God, the world, and ourselves.
When we turn to Psalm 34, we encounter a song of thanksgiving that teaches
us about God by engaging our senses. Listen to the psalmist’s emphasis on hearing,
speaking, sight, and taste:
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall ever be in my mouth.
I will glory in the Lord;
let the humble hear and rejoice.
Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord;
let us exalt his Name together.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me out of all my terror.
Look upon him and be radiant,
and let not your faces be ashamed.
I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me
and saved me from all my troubles…
Taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are they who trust in him!,,,
The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous
And his ears are open to their cry…
The righteous cry, and the Lord hears them
and delivers them from all their troubles.
This psalm teaches us about a God who hears, sees, and protects the
righteous. Here our human senses engage a world in which there is what Carol
Newsom called an “unproblematic moral continuity between (ourselves), the world,
and God.” The psalm reveals not the absent or tormenting God, about whom Job
complained, but rather a God who “encompasses those who fear him and he will
deliver him” (v. 7). What are we to make of this incongruence? Once we see it, of
course we can choose to ignore or gloss over it. Or we can choose to wrestle with it,
an exercise that will undoubtedly lead to further questions, doubt, perhaps a
stronger faith, and still more struggle.
In the Gospel reading, we meet Bartimaeus, bluntly referred to by the writer
of Mark as blind and a beggar. He is literally and figuratively on the fringe of society
as he sits beside the road leading away from Jericho. Jesus and his disciples had
come to Jericho, on their way to Jerusalem and the cross. What they did there is not
recorded. But now they and a large crowd are leaving. Suddenly a loud cry rings
out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People are annoyed at the disturbance
and try to silence Bartimaeus----for it is he who is shouting. But Bartimaeus is not to
be silenced. He cries out even more loudly, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on
me!” Jesus, who had been teaching or engaging in conversation as he walked, stood
still and said, “Call him here.” The people who had shushed Bartimaeus were
probably embarrassed by their own rudeness and they compensate now by saying
extra-helpfully to Bartimaeus, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” Bartimaeus
doesn’t hesitate. Throwing off his cloak, perhaps his only possession, he springs up
and comes to Jesus. Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind
man says simply, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus says, “Go; your faith has made
you well.” Mark tells us that immediately Bartimaeus regains his sight and follows
Jesus on the way.
Bartimaeus stands in such contrast to the disciples. In Mark, the disciples are
mostly clueless. They never seem to get what Jesus is telling them about himself---and if they do manage to understand, it is only briefly. Last Sunday, we heard the
story of James and John, sons of Zebedee, who confronted Jesus and said, “Teacher,
we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus asked them the same
question he asks of Bartimaeus: “What do you want me to do for you?” Unlike
Bartimaeus, James and John are not asking to see. Why should they? They are not
blind----or are they? They have come to ask for power and position in what they
envision to be the kingdom of God. They are completely blind to Jesus’ teaching
about himself and God’s kingdom. Jesus patiently reminds them that “whoever
wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first
among you must be slave of all.”
What a contrast with the story of Bartimaeus! He is blind and he asks Jesus
to let him see. Jesus heals him. But look closer. What does Bartimaeus do when his
sight is restored? He does not go off on his own, rejoicing in his personal good
fortune---rather he leaves everything familiar in his life and follows Jesus on the
way. And where does this way lead, but to the cross? Even when he was blind,
Bartimaeus sees more clearly than the disciples when he calls out, “Jesus, Son of
David, have mercy on me!” He recognizes the truth of who Jesus is. This clear
vision does not desert him when his sense of sight is restored and he follows Jesus--on the way.
It is actually a very dangerous request Bartimaeus makes---“let me see”--because seeing can reveal not only stunning beauty in the world, but all manner of
awful things perhaps best left cloaked in darkness---things like the aching reality of
poverty, the ugliness of injustice, the brokenness of hatred. And once seen, these
cannot be un-seen. We cannot un-know our knowledge or un-see our insights. We
can turn away from them, certainly, but they haunt the edges of our consciousness.
Seeing, literal and figurative, inevitably leads to struggle, conflict, and doubt as we
begin to question what Thomas Merton calls “the spurious “faith” of everyday life,
the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional
opinion.” The request, “let me see” can lead into the shadowed darkness of the way
of the cross.
We all know that Jesus said that to follow him, we should love our neighbors.
In Whistling in the Dark, Frederick Buechner observed, “If we are to love our
neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our
imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say …, we must see not just their faces but
the life behind and within their faces.” We must see the world with transformed
vision.
After he asked Jesus for sight, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way. Do we
have the courage to follow Bartimaeus’ example and ask to see? Really see? It’s a
huge risk---and we don’t know where the way will lead once we have our sight. Dare
we step out in faith---trusting that even a faith as small as a mustard seed will do--and ask to see? Can we trust that wherever the way leads, Jesus will all ready be
there?
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Amen.