November 30, 2008:  WHAT DO YOU SEE? Mark 10:46-52; Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church

            It’s about time we got to Advent.  Christmas carols have been playing in the stores for weeks, reminding us ‘tis the season to be jolly, so shop ‘til you drop.  Black Friday and the shopping mobs are over, it’s finally Advent, so why isn’t the pastor preaching something Christmas-y?  What’s with a healing story for four weeks?
            The first Sunday of Advent marks the start of a new liturgical year.  This year we’re reading the gospel of Mark, a well-written, tightly crafted gospel pitched to encourage readers to embrace God’s Kingdom.  Mark isn’t so much interested in his readers knowing about Jesus as he is in wanting them to imitate Jesus.   As far as Mark is concerned, healing is about the Kingdom of God, which is characterized by lives of mutual service, free from oppression.  Oppression in Mark seems to come mostly from the religious power elite, who are always actively engaged against God’s Kingdom.  Throughout the gospel, as typified in the healing of Blind Bartimaeus, Jesus embodies (incarnates, puts flesh on) God’s Kingdom by offering life, sight, and empowerment to others.  The irony of a blind man who alone sees Jesus for who he really is, should not be lost on readers. 
            Up to this point in the gospel, Jesus has healed discretely and told those he heals not to tell.  But this one is different.  This healing engages the crowd, first to shush the beggar, then to invite him to Jesus.  Bart’s statement of need is public and loud, and when he tags along to Jerusalem, the crowd there echoes what Bart has screamed in Jericho—Son of David!  Could this really be the Messiah?  Even with unseeing eyes, Bartimaeus can see that what Jesus is revealing is so thrilling he gives up his one and only possession to follow him.  He has nothing to offer Jesus but his persistence and faith.
            Bartimaeus isn’t significant for the supernatural powers of perception which allow a blind man to “see” Jesus.  He’s loud and insistent, he will not be quieted, he demands attention and he demands it now—not exactly characteristics your mother instilled in you.  What strikes me as Advent-y about Bartimaeus is his acknowledged sense of need.  He knows he needs mercy.  Self-reliance and independence apparently are not Kingdom values in Mark.  If we have no need of healing and hope, if we can handle this ourselves, why do we pray for forgiveness, week after week?  Why do we find so much comfort in receiving the Words of Assurance?  All Bartimaeus wanted was some of the relief this Rescuer was passing around to everyone else. 
             Sounds like Advent to me.  But don’t just take my word for it.  See it with your own eyes.  Melanie Weidner is loaning us this painting for the season.  She calls it “Revealing.”  When I saw this painting last week, it was as if all the hard exegetical work I’d done on this text had been made visible by Melanie.  As you can see, the painting is a series of colored concentric edges, moving inward to an image of deep, mystic lapis sprinkled with what might be stars.  Each successive layer can be lifted away, so that the yellow-orange Revealing becomes the red of Passion, becoming the purple Surrender, becoming the green Vulnerability.  Finally, Presence is revealed, looking more like a starting point than an end goal.  To me, Melanie’s “Revealing” makes visual the mystery of the Incarnation of God, the movement of Advent, what God is Revealing through the story of Bartimaeus.  The painting’s invitation is for us to experience in our own stories God’s persistent Revealing. 
I’m not sure how to display this painting as it serves as our Advent companion.  It speaks both as a whole and as movement through its layers.  The layers speak to each other, and I’m not sure they stand on their own.  Today I’d like to unpack how I see the layers relating to the story of Bart’s regained sight.  Perhaps there will be insights for your life of discipleship as well.
             God initiates the revealing, God always starts it.  My mentor in Waunakee says that, what makes Christianity different from other faiths is that we don’t have to “find” God.  God always seeks us first.  Thus, we begin with God’s Revealing, God’s initiative, which invites us deeper.  The deep, intense red of Passion is next.  Perhaps this is God’s passion for us, the Good Friday and Easter passion of Christ.  Perhaps it is the mountains quaking in today’s Isaiah passage, the anger of God and the hiding of transgressors.  Perhaps it is Bartimaeus’ desperate love cries.  “Son of David!  Have mercy!  Help!”  Insistent, persistent, bold, Passion will have its way.  Passion reveals our need of mercy, and our protective barriers collapse in the purple of Surrender.  This is not “submit,” not a bent and broken will.  This is a willing absorption and receiving of all God gives and invites.  This is Isaiah admitting “we are the clay, and you are our potter,” joyfully acquiescing to being “the work of [God’s] hands.”  Clay doesn’t insist on its own way, Bartimaeus jumps at Jesus’ invitation.  The way is clear, the door is open.
             What appears as a green edge next reveals itself as Vulnerability. For Bartimaeus, this is the public statement of what he wants of Jesus.  For Isaiah it is, “We all fade like a leaf . . . Do not be [angry], O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever.”  Surely, this is creation’s Vulnerability, but this is a two-way relationship, and God, too, is vulnerable.  Time after time, God entrusts the plan of salvation to humans.  Even on the verge of the Incarnation, God is vulnerable to a peasant girl’s “yes,” vulnerable as a mewling infant dependent on breast and the arms of others.  
             From chaos to the cross and empty tomb, scripture reveals God as an insistent risk-taker.  All for the sake of Presence, the final layer.  Presence is what God has been promising all along.  Starting with Adam and Eve in the Garden, Divine vulnerability longs to be present to Creature.  After the bungle in Eden, this vulnerable God again staked everything on particular humans, this time Abram and Sarai, promising them posterity and place and above all else, Presence.  Sidetracked in Egypt, Presence is how God equips Moses, Israel’s deliverer.  Presence is how Joshua brings the tribe into the Promised Land.  Their first king, Saul, tries to control Presence, David strips down to his skivvies and dances before it, the exiles learn it isn’t geographically bound, prophets name it Messiah, Mary receives it in the most intimate way and gives birth to it.   Presence is why Bartimaeus is willing to give up his one and only possession to follow. 
             Presence is what God is ever more ready to reveal than we are to receive.  And yet, that God is revealing it is the compelling and irresistible movement of our lives.  This story of the healing of Blind Bartimaeus is a story of “regaining,” as if sight is God’s means of Kingdom come.  All the healings in Mark are about restoring or regaining, about returning to right community, bringing God’s Kingdom.  Isn’t it funny?  A blind man sees the Kingdom more clearly than the educated and powerful piety crowd.  His perception of God’s revealing shows keener vision than that of the disciples who have been living with and learning from Jesus for years.  This obnoxious man begging for mercy can see that a sinful, broken state is only an opportunity for God’s salvation. 
             If Jesus called you over right now and asked you, “What do you want me to do for you?” could you say?  So many of us are blind to our need of mercy, our need for vision.  We think we’re supposed to be competent and accomplished and successful.  And we are!  The fearful thing about Presence is that you can’t get there without going through surrender and vulnerability.  This Advent, be open to what God is revealing to you, if only you could see.  Friends, this is our journey [the painting].  God starts it, God initiates, with the self-revealing incarnation, the one we call Jesus.  This is God’s invitation to lives of abundance and passion and power in God’s own Presence.  Receive it now.

David Rhoads, Reading Mark:  Engaging the Gospel, chapter 3.

View this and more of Melanie Weidner’s work at www.listenforjoy.com