Cheer Up! On Your Feet! He’s Calling You

Cheer Up! On Your Feet! He’s Calling You

Mark 10:46-52

In our Gospel Lesson for this morning, Jesus and His disciples, together with a large crowd are on their way to Jerusalem where Jesus will be arrested, mocked and put to death.

The disciples and the crowd have no idea that this is what they are headed.

They think Jesus is going to Jerusalem to conquer the Roman occupiers and set up His earthly Messianic Kingdom.

And they are excited, they want to get there quickly.

They can’t wait for Jesus to blast the Romans to kingdom come.

They can’t wait to be on the winning side.

And then, this annoying blind beggar starts calling for Jesus: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Doesn’t he know they have more important things to do than to waste time with an indigent man on the side of the road?

We are told that many of the disciples and people in the crowd “rebuked him”…in other words, they told him to “Shut up!”

But this guy, Bartimaeus wasn’t having any of it.

He just shouted even more.

Does it trouble you that the people following Jesus are trying to stop a person who is crying out for Jesus?

A few years ago, at the last church I served, a young high school age female started coming to our church.

She didn’t come with her family.

She just showed up.

When I asked her what brought her to our church she told me that she had grown up in the church down the street.

But recently, she told the Youth Director that she is gay.

The Youth Director told her to “go find Jesus somewhere else!”

And so, she did.

I had to give her a lot of credit for not giving up on the church altogether after having experienced that kind of treatment.

Sometimes, we who follow Jesus can make it difficult for others to get close to Him.

That seems to be what was happening in our Gospel Lesson for this morning.

But then, Jesus heard Bartimaeus shouting and He stopped in His tracks.

At that moment, nothing was more pressing to Jesus than attending to the blind man on the side of the road who was crying for mercy.

And so, Jesus told His followers to “Call” Bartimaeus.

And in that moment, the crowd is transformed.

They are no longer telling Bartimaeus to “be quite.”

As a matter of fact, their excitement is downright palpable: “Cheer up!,” they say to him, “On your feet! He’s calling you.”

And in this scene we see our job as Christ-followers.

Our job is to seek out those who do not know the love of Christ.

Those who have, perhaps, been hurt by the Church…

…or those who are poor and, on the margins, feeling as if no one cares for them…

…those who are lost…

…hopeless…

…feeling defeated by life…

We are to run to them saying: “Cheer up! On your feet! Jesus is calling you!”

And we do this by inviting people to sit with us at church.

Handing out the new invitation cards that proclaim that this Church is “A Safe Place for All.”

We do this by loving people that so many ignore.

(Pause)

I read that when Andrew Young was the Mayor of Atlanta, he was deeply disturbed by the number of homeless people on the streets and the city’s apparent inability to address the issue.

He told his staff that he wanted to better understand those who lived in the streets, the roots of their problems, and the city’s inadequate response.

So he decided he was going to put on old clothes and be with the homeless for three days and two nights.

His staff reacted a lot like Jesus’ followers when Bartimaeus was first calling for attention:

“Mayor, you are too busy,” they said.

“We need you in the office.”

Naysayers warned him, “Everyone knows you and you’ll be recognized, so you’ll learn nothing.”

He went anyway.

He walked, he talked, listened and learned.

When he returned his staff asked, “Well, what have you to teach us?”

Mayor Young’s reply was: “No one recognized me.”

No one looks into the eyes of the poor.

As mayor of a major American City, Young was on the evening news; he was a frequent speaker at political events, civic meetings, and churches.

“But this was different,” he explained.

“No one looks into the faces of the homeless.

There is no encounter.

We simply do not see the person.

We are blind to their humanity.

So it is with the hungry, the hurting, the hopeless, the jobless,” he concluded.

As Jesus spoke with and focused all His attention on Bartimaeus, I wonder if the listening crowd began to recognize their own blindness.