“Mercy & Healing” Colchester Federated Church, October 27, 2024, Reformation Sunday (Mark 10:46-52)

Today’s Gospel story portrays Jesus and his followers in Jericho, about twenty miles from Jerusalem.  Jesus is getting ready to leave (with his disciples and a sizeable crowd) and a blind beggar named Bartimaeus happened to be sitting beside the road.  Bartimaeus hears that Jesus of Nazareth is there and begins to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, show me mercy!”[1]  People began to scold the blind man, telling him to be quiet.  Their scolding just makes Bartimaeus shout all the louder, “Son of David, show me mercy!”[2]  Mark tells us that Jesus stops and calls him forward.  Bartimaeus throws his coat to the side, jumps up, and stands before Jesus.  Meanwhile, Jesus looks at this blind beggar, this man who was just shushed by the crowds as he was calling out for help.  Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Bartimaeus tells Jesus his heart’s desire, “Teacher, I want to see you.”[3]  Such a simple and direct response to Jesus’ question—I want to see you.  Jesus is moved with compassion, “Go, your faith has healed you.”[4]  At once, Bartimaeus can see, and Mark tells us that he began to follow Jesus on the way.

This is a story about hope and healing.  Jesus was (and is) many things to many people, and Jesus was a healer.  There are many Gospel stories about Jesus healing people—people who were blind, people who suffered from leprosy, people plagued by mental illnesses, a man with a withered hand, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, and so on.  Jesus practiced what he preached when he spoke about God’s mercy and compassion.  Mark tells us in Chapter 1 of the Gospel that Jesus “healed many who were sick with all kinds of diseases, and he threw out many demons.”[5]  Healing wasn’t just some abstract concept that Jesus spoke about.  Jesus saw people on the margins others ignored or pushed aside or shushed.  Jesus healed people, and these stories of healing are not just about the physical aspects of being made well.  The healing stories often have a component of restoration to one’s family or community.  Even with this story about Bartimaeus’ sight restored, we can notice that he was able to follow Jesus on the way.  His faith healed him, and Bartimaeus becomes a disciple of Jesus the Christ.

There’s a book by Theology Professor Harvey Cox called When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today, and in that book, there is a terrific explanation about Jesus as a healer.  For some background, Professor Cox joined the faculty at Harvard University and began to teach a course on Jesus in the newly introduced Moral Reasoning part of Harvard’s undergraduate curriculum.  Harvard couldn’t ignore a growing embarrassment—that they were hearing about “insider trading, sleazy legal practices, doctors more interested in profits than patients, and scientists who fudged data” from some of their own graduates.[6]  The faculty pondered if something was missing in this Ivy League education since it appeared that their graduates were becoming experts on facts but not on values.  The faculty decided that their students needed to take at least one class on moral reasoning in order to graduate.  Hence Professor Cox came to Harvard (from Andover Newton, my alma mater) to teach Jesus and the Moral Life.

Professor Cox taught his students the stories that Jesus taught and the stories that were told about Jesus.  Of course, he taught about the healing stories that we can find throughout the New Testament.  Now some of us may understand these stories literally and others metaphorically.  Though let’s imagine how these stories of miraculous healings might sound to someone who has never heard them before. 

Professor Cox explained to his students that he felt Jesus’ approach to healing was the right one.  Because Jesus didn’t refuse help to anyone who needed it.  Jesus was motivated by compassion, not by publicity.  Jesus often told those who were healed to keep it a secret.  Jesus didn’t scold someone whose lifestyle could have contributed to their ailment.  Jesus didn’t even charge anything, healing was free!  Because maybe Jesus understood that social isolation is one of the worst things about being sick.  Part of Jesus’ healing technique was helping the person become part of society again.  Jesus recognized that disease was part of a larger disorder that affected the individual person, yet he didn’t speculate about that.  Jesus just went ahead and healed anybody who came for help.  Finally, Jesus didn’t understand his healing to be isolated miracles solely for that person in need.  He saw healings as glimpses of God’s realm—a whole new order of things that can be understood by those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear what is before them.[7]

So Professor Cox taught these undergraduate students at Harvard all about Jesus’ healing stories.  What amazed him was how it was the premedical and public health students who often were the most eager to discuss these stories of miraculous healings.  The students were far more receptive than he imagined they would be.  In fact, some students even began to share their own stories of sickness and healing once they started talking about what Jesus was up to.  Professor Cox reflected, “Even the students with the wheelchairs and the guide dogs joined in.  Some said this was their first chance to talk about something quite personal to them, but which many of their friends avoided bringing up because they were afraid it might seem awkward.  All in all, I came to see that trying to understand what Jesus was stating and doing without paying attention to the healing that played such a central role in his work short-circuits the meaning of his life.”[8]

The healing stories of Jesus are about individuals.  Though it’s also true that Jesus did not understand his healings as isolated miracles just for that person who needed help.  Jesus saw these healings as glimpses of God’s Kingdom—where the first would be last and the last would be first, where the meek will inherit the earth, and the merciful will receive mercy.  The healings were also about restoring people to their families and communities so that hope would abound.

We know that today is also Reformation Sunday.  When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church on October 31st in 1517, he did not know that this would lead to a split within Christianity and the formation of hundreds of Protestant denominations.  Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic priest and professor of theology at Wittenberg University.  Therefore, his critique came from within the ranks.  Luther was opposed to the Catholic Church (his church) selling papal indulgences for the forgiveness of sins.  People would literally give what little money they had to the Church so that their sins would be forgiven and they would supposedly be guaranteed a place in heaven.  The poor kept getting poorer, and the Church and its leaders kept getting richer.  Martin Luther felt that Church leaders were becoming further removed from their own flock.  Luther posted the 95 Theses as an invitation to have a scholarly debate on selling indulgences.  We know how the story goes from there, as this invitation for a debate ended up with excommunication and separation and Protestants like us.  One could argue that the divisions within Christianity were inevitable and here to stay.

Though in the end, maybe we are invited to hold the tensions with stories of healing and restoration and hope and the reality of divisions we see all around us today.  Of course there are divisions when it comes to religion and politics, and there could be divisions within our places of work, our schools, our communities, our families.  We are not always going to agree.  And even so, we are invited to not lose sight of the humanity of the other (whoever that “other” may be).  Because we can look to Jesus who called Bartimaeus to him when others shunned and shushed him.  We can consider who may be on the margins now and how we can reach out a hand to help.  We can take to heart that Jesus was a healer who saw people that others ignored and who invited people to be made fully well, even us.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Mark 10:47, CEB.
[2] Mark 10:48.
[3] Mark 10:51.
[4] Mark 10:52.
[5] Mark 1:34.
[6] Harvey Cox, When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today, 3.
[7] Cox, When Jesus Came to Harvard, 183.
[8] Cox, When Jesus Came to Harvard, 183-184.

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash