“Dancing in the Dark”

Mark 10:46-52

Mark 10:52b: Immediately [Bartimaeus] regained his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.

[prayer]

My dad told a story about an outdoor baptism service he attended in his younger days. A certain lady was being baptized by immersion in a pond near a church. As she came up out of the water she began shouting at the top of her lungs, “I’ve seen it! I’ve seen it!” To which a somewhat intellectually challenged young man sitting on the bank replied, “Huh. I’ve seen it too. It wasn’t nothin’ but a durned old mud turtle.”

Two people with two very different visions. The woman saw some indescribable something. The boy only saw a mud turtle. Rationally speaking a mud turtle was probably all there was to see. But faith experiences are not rational. The eyes of faith look beyond what the world says is real to see God’s truth.

In today’s text Jesus was dealing with one man who was physically blind, but whose eyes of faith very clearly saw the reality of who Jesus was. Jesus was also dealing with a host of folks, including his disciples, who though not blind, could not comprehend Jesus for who and what he really was.

Bartimaeus, or Bart for simplicity’s sake, looking through the eyes of faith, saw the hope, healing, and salvation that Jesus offered. The others only saw the mud turtles of conventional wisdom. They saw Jesus as either just another faith healer or as the new David come to set them free from Roman oppression.

Jesus saw Bart as a man willing to put his faith on the line. The others only saw him as a nuisance, a distraction, a bump in the road on the way to Jerusalem. They had no time for blind beggars. They assumed that Jesus didn’t either. After all, he was an important man on an important mission.

And now as Paul Harvey would say, comes the rest of the story. Bart cried out in faith. Jesus heard him and asked him what he wanted. Bart told him, “I want to see again.” And what did Jesus say? “Go; your faith has made you well.”

Bart was healed, but that still wasn’t the end of the story. Bart was so moved by the truth of who Jesus really was that he “followed him on the way.” Some translations simply tell us that he followed Jesus down the road – and he did. More importantly he became one of the true people of “The Way” as he followed Jesus in the way of the cross.

What about the rest of the folks, including the disciples? They too followed Jesus down the road, but for all the wrong reasons. It was not until after the resurrection that they finally figured out what was going on, why Jesus came to be the Suffering Servant Messiah who died on a cross. Bart followed in faith. They, false expectations and all, just kept on dancing in the dark.

In recent issues of The Presbyterian Outlook, Harry Chronis, pastor of a church in New Mexico, has written a series of reflections on the Gospel of Mark titled, “The Virtue of Mark’s ‘Little People’.” These so-called little people were not disciples. Nor were they among the religious leaders of the day. They were not politically or theologically sophisticated. They were people like Bart, who saw Jesus with eyes of faith, understood who he truly was, trusted him to be who he said he was, and then responded appropriately. While others only saw mud turtles they saw the glory of heaven. While others kept on dancing in the dark, they saw the light.

In the words of the Reverend Mr. Chronis, “What unites these ‘little people’ is a common narrative role. They model faith… What these ‘little people” do matters more than what they say. Indeed, their narrative role turns, not on what they confess with their lips, but on what they confess with their lives.” They didn’t just talk the talk, they walked the walk.

On this Reformation Sunday 2006 we remember and celebrate the risks of faith taken by men like John Calvin and Martin Luther. Both were priests. Neither held positions of power in the Roman Catholic Church. They were counted, so to speak, with the “little people” of their day. But because of their faith, courage, and willingness to follow Jesus in “The Way,” they helped spark not only the Protestant Reformation, but also a later Roman Catholic Counter Reformation.

While all around them people saw only the mud turtles they were taught to see, they caught a vision of something better, purer, and more holy. While all others were happy dancing in the dark, they took the risk of stepping out into the light of God’s Truth. While most of their contemporaries accepted the conventional wisdom of the day, they sought and followed the Divine Wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Before I entered seminary I spent a year doing social work in Montgomery County, Virginia. My title was Intake Technician. At a regional training session, in response to a statement made by the trainer, I made the mistake of saying to her, “But I’m just a technician.” She landed on me with both feet. Using me as her principal target she passionately reminded us all that none of us were “just” anything. We couldn’t use our job titles or descriptions as excuses for not serving our clients with competence and compassion. No matter what our job, our work was important.

In the Virginia State Welfare System I truly was one of those little people. I had little or no political or administrative power or clout. That reality, however, did not prevent me from doing good work or using my intuition and imagination to come up with creative solutions to difficult problems. I counted. I made a difference.

In the face of all the difficulties that bedevil our branch of John Calvin’s reformed church, we modern Presbyterians may be tempted to say, “But I’m just a [fill in the blank]. I’m just a deacon. I’m just an elder. I’m just a small church pastor. I’m just one member of Grace Presbyterian Church. I’m just one of those little people. What can I do to reform, renew, or transform the wider church or even Grace Church?”

As one of our praise songs puts it, we can “open the eyes of our hearts.” Our vision does not have to be limited to this sinful world’s mud turtles. We don’t have to keep dancing in the dark. Like Bart and all those other “little people” found in Mark’s Gospel we can study Scripture and pray with the eyes of faith. We can see Jesus for who he truly is. We can trust him to be who God’s Word says he is. Guided by the Holy Spirit we can more faithfully follow Jesus on “The Way” of discipleship. We can proclaim and live the Gospel even in the face of ridicule or persecution, or as is the usual case with our present culture, the accusation of irrelevancy.

Maybe we can’t do much to halt the PC(USA)’s slide into oblivion, but we can use our time, talents, and resources to help grow and renew this congregation. Maybe we can’t convert our entire culture to Christ, but each of us can renew and transform our individual lives and ministries. Maybe none of us can be a modern John Calvin or Martin Luther, someone who can reform the whole church, but we can inject some biblically faithful spiritual energy into our Bible studies and Sunday school classes. Maybe we can’t do great things for the Lord and his Church, but we can faithfully do a whole lot of those very important little things. Maybe no single one of us has the financial resources to solve Grace’s financial crisis, but all of us have been blessed with enough of God’s bounty to corporately solve it - if we will not stay hung up on our monetary mud turtles.

Bart didn’t let his blindness keep him from seeing Jesus. Nor did he use the excuse of being just one of those little people keep him from following Jesus on “The Way.” Neither John Calvin nor Martin Luther allowed themselves to be labeled “just a priest.” You and I are not “just” insignificant members of society or even the church. We are God’s people; the people called, authorized, and empowered to share the life-changing, church-renewing, and world-transforming gift that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It’s time to look beyond the mud turtles and see the glory. It’s time for us to stop dancing in the dark. Amen.