Unfinished Mark 16:1-8

It’s a trait I think we all share to some degree,
the need to have things come to a satisfying resolution.
There’s a certain symmetry to life
and it can be annoying to have things unfinished.

For example, it makes me crazy to be telling a story
and all of a sudden I can’t remember a name.
A few of you may have had that experience.
It could be my best friend I’m talking about
but the rolodex in my head is just closed.
I eventually have to move on with the story
but at some level it continues to eat at me.
Then, two hours later in the middle of another conversation with a different person
it’ll come to me and I’ll just blurt it out.
ABRAHAM Lincoln!
Ahhh...the universe is back in alignment.

We like to have things finished, have them resolved.
I can remember in my lifetime a national crisis of non-resolution.
I’m not talking about any particular war.
I’m talking about the "Heidi Game" of November, 1968.
The New York Jets, led by Broadway Joe Namath, with a record of 7 and 2
were playing the Oakland Raiders, also with a record of 7 and 2.
It had been an aerial show by the quarterback and a slugfest in the trenches
and the game had stretched on and on due to many penalties on each side.
With 1:05 left, the Jets kicked a field goal to take a 3 point lead.
NBC broke for a commercial, but when they came back it was not to football
but to a made-for-tv movie about that tough little alpine goat herder Heidi!
Millions of men rose from their chairs at that moment
convinced that somehow when they weren’t looking
their wives had come through and changed the channel.
I think it was only Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon the following July
that allowed football fans to get over the shock
of being marooned in such deep incompleteness.

So, all the joy of Easter morning and the beauty of the lilies notwithstanding,
any of you who listened to the scripture reading from Mark’s 16th chapter
are no doubt, right at this moment, feeling a little uneasy and unresolved.
It’s only natural.
Whereas all the other gospel writers end their gospels
with a flourish of angel wings and rejoicing and post resurrection appearances,
Mark ends his story on a discordant, minor note of fear.
He doesn’t really end it at all.
He just leaves us wondering if somebody snuck in and changed the channel
when we weren’t looking.

As chapter 16 of his gospel opens it LOOKS like Mark is going to finish in good form.
Chapter 16 opens with three brave women,
Mary from Magdala, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Salome,
by tradition thought to be the wife of Zebedee, the mother of James and John.
They had seen Jesus taken from the cross, wrapped quickly in a linen cloth
and stuck into a borrowed tomb only minutes before the shofar blew
marking the beginning of the Sabbath.

Their self-appointed mission was to go to the tomb after the Sabbath
unwrap Jesus’ body and prepare it properly and respectfully for entombment.
It was their way of achieving closure,
of bringing an end to this roller coaster ride they’d been on with Jesus.
Their only question is, "Who can we get to roll the heavy stone away?"
So, they get to the tomb, and the stone has already been rolled away.
It’s the first indication they have that the story is NOT going to end as they expected.

All along the road from Galilee to Jerusalem
Jesus had spoken his troubling predictions
about being delivered into the hands of his enemies,
about being convicted, abused, and hung on a cross,
about being raised on the third day.
Everyone had listened politely but then quickly changed the subject.
It wasn’t unusual for them to not really understand what he was talking about,
and this seemed so far fetched, especially the "being raised" part
that they had just blocked it out.
But all of a sudden here they were.
Jesus HAD been arrested, HAD been convicted, HAD been crucified
and now the very tomb where, with their own eyes, they had seen him laid
this very tomb was STANDING WIDE OPEN!

We look over their shoulders as they peer cautiously through the door of the cave.
We know what’s coming but it’s still a tense moment.
Sure enough, the stone ledge is bare.
And standing on the right hand side of the ledge is a young man in a white robe
grinning like a Cheshire cat!
Seeing the looks on the women’s faces the young man speaks
"Do not be alarmed!"
"You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here."
The young man pats the ledge, "Look, here is the place they laid him."
"But go! Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee;
there you will see him, just as he told you."

"That’s right! Go!" we chime in like a Greek chorus.
"Go to Galilee! He’s not here! He has risen!
Go to Galilee! Tell the others!"
We’ve heard it before. We’ve read Matthew and Luke and John
and know how the ending is supposed to go.
But I look into Salome’s eyes and I know we’re in trouble.
The two Marys also have shocked looks, looks of terror.
I want take one of them by the shoulder,
snap my fingers in front of her eyes until she can focus again,
assure her that this really is a GOOD thing.
"Look," I want to say,
"It’s not the ending you expected, but it’s an even BETTER ending!
Go ahead, laugh if you want to, it’s OK!
Shout praises to God!
Put down those death spices, you don’t need them anymore!"

That’s the kind of happy ending I want,
the kind of resolution I crave, all wrapped up, nice and tidy.
I want these brave and faithful women to enjoy the moment,
to be rewarded for sticking by Jesus even after Peter and the others
have run and hid.
They get to be the first witnesses to the resurrection, of Jesus’ victory over death.
They get the honor of bearing the message to the others,
of deciding just how they’re going to break the news.
Maybe they’ll decide to have a little fun with it,
creep up to the door of the room where the others are hiding
bang on the door and yell, "Police, open up!"
Then they’ll burst in and yell, "Surprise!"

THAT’S the kind of ending I want, the kind, in fact, I think Mark owes us
after taking us through the agony of the cross!
All along, Mark has crafted his story to make his reader, to make US,
expect his main characters to falter and his little people to triumph.

Part of what I love about Mark’s storytelling style
is that in his account, the head religious leaders come across as clueless
and the main disciples look like bumbling fools.
In Mark’s account it’s the demon possessed who recognize Jesus as God’s son.
It’s the blind who see his mission most clearly.
And, it’s women who consistently display the kind of devotion and loyalty
one would expect of a disciple.

That’s why chapter 16 starts off as the perfect scenario,
a great set-up for a dynamite climax.
The chief priests and Romans think they’ve won by crucifying Jesus.
Peter, James, and John are closeted away,
having deserted Jesus at a crucial moment.
And now these three women step forward.
Unclean by cultural designation, second class by social standing,
these women are about to defile themselves further by touching a dead body.
They are the perfect candidates to be Mark’s heroines,
the perfect ones to be Mark’s ultimate examples of true discipleship.
"He is not here, the young man says.
"Go, tell the others that he is going ahead of you to Galilee."

Ahh...We just need one more note to bring this story to resolution,
just one more turn of the dial and all the tumblers will click into place....
But what do we get? We get this!
"So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them.
And they said nothing to anyone for they were AFRAID."
It’s the "Heidi Game" all over again!

Nobody likes Mark’s ending.
Matthew and Luke, who used Mark as an outline for their own gospels
come to his ending and they do some heavy editing and adding on.
Some of the earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel in existence
have added more verses to chapter 16 hoping to bring his story
to a more satisfying conclusion.

But the very earliest manuscripts show Mark stopping awkwardly at verse 8
almost as if his teakettle whistled and he put down his pencil to make tea
and then forgot to pick it up again.
But maybe the answer to this problem is not to be embarrassed for Mark
that he botched the ending to an otherwise gripping story.
Maybe the answer is to realize that Mark’s ending is not meant to be an ending at all.
Maybe two thousand years before computers
Mark decided to write the first interactive story.

Seen this way, the first eight verses of chapter 16 are very clever.
Mark dupes us into anticipating an heroic triumph.
He makes us THINK we’re going to be able to just sit back and watch it unfold,
passively watch the three women hear the news of the resurrection
and then run and skip and laugh and rejoice all the way to tell the others
the fabulous news.

Mark has us believing we’re going to be able to walk away from his story
without having to get involved, without having to invest ourselves.
But then, all of a sudden, they’re gone.
The women, the anticipated stars of the story, have vanished.
They heard the young man say that their Risen Lord had gone ahead of them
and was expecting to meet them in Galilee
but all they can do is clam up and run away leaving US holding the bag.
They’re scared out of their wits, they ain’t sayin’ nuthin’ to nobody!
They’ve dumped the news in OUR laps,
And if anything’s going to be done it’s got to be you and me who does it!

Mark’s ending is that there is no ending.
Mark’s ending is that though victory over death has been won,
Our Risen Lord is always going to be going ahead of us, calling us to follow.
We’re like those disciples huddled behind the closed door.
We can’t depend on the two Mary’s and Salome to do the work for us.
Mark wants us to know that following Jesus is going to go against our need
to have things all wrapped up in a tidy package,
neatly resolved and conveniently closed.

Following Jesus is always going to be a challenge
It will always require us to step beyond what’s comfortable.
always ask us to keep the door open, our hands extended.
It’s not the ending we may have expected,
but maybe it’s an even better ending.
We’ve come to the tomb but he is not here. He’s in Galilee and Charlottesville,
and Afton, and Lynchburg.
He’s always going ahead of you and he wants to meet you there.

An Early Morning Chill Mark 14:53-72

On the island of Islay, just off the West coast of Scotland
there is a church that is absolutely round.
It’s called, the Round Church.
It was built that way islanders say so that there would be no corners
in which the Devil can hide.

I’m guessing that in the predawn hours there in that rectangular courtyard
just outside Caiaphas house
it must have seemed to Peter that there were plenty of places
for Old Scratch to find cover.
The evil of that place must have been palpable
as Peter sat within earshot of the open windows
listening to the outrageous accusations and false testimonies
spewed out by the so-called holiest men of Jerusalem.
As he hunched over the fire, keeping to the shadows
he could keep away the chill of the early morning mist
but nothing could take away the chill of fear and confusion he felt inside.

It had all turned so quickly.
Just two days earlier they had been on top of the world!
There on the Mount of Olives Jesus had sent for a donkey!
He never rode a donkey.
He hadn’t ridden a donkey in the three years Peter had known him!
It was Nathaniel, their biblical scholar, who realized it first.
He quoted the prophet Zechariah,
"Behold, your king shall come to you, humble and riding on a donkey."

So Jesus sent for a donkey and then, with the twelve of them following behind.
Jesus rode that donkey down the Mount of Olives
as pilgrims on their way into Jerusalem for the Passover feast caught the spirit.
Whether it was out of playfulness or true devotion Peter couldn’t tell, but
those along the way began to spread their cloaks and tree branches in front of Jesus
and they took up the chant of "Hosanna"
and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

Everything was so upbeat and positive until they stopped on the hillside
and Jesus’ mood suddenly darkened.
He climbed off the donkey and sat on a rock looking directly across the valley
at the holy temple.
He buried his face in his hands and his shoulders began to shake
and they noticed he was crying - sobbing in great heaving sobs.
Finally, he pulled himself together and he said out loud though to no one in particular
"If you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!"

He sent Philip to take the donkey back to it’s owner
and Jesus and the others traveled on across the Kidron valley to the Temple mount.
They paid their half-shekel temple tax, took a ritual bath in the public baths
and then climbed the high steps, through the Hulda gate
and emerged from the tunnel in the court of the Gentiles.
That’s where Jesus lost it.
The merchants who sold doves for sacrifice
and the money changers who exchanged Jewish shekels for the Roman coins
the pilgrims brought with them
usually set up shop outside the temple mount.
But during Passover they had to add extra tables to take care of the crowds
so they set them up in the Court of the Gentiles.
It was a convenient spot, close to the temple yet under the portico out of the weather.
But for Jesus it must have seemed like the last straw,
an encroachment of the profane marketplace on the temple’s holy space.
He went nuts, turning over tables, kicking open cages.
He even fashioned a whip of sorts and started whipping the merchants,
driving them away.
Nobody got hurt, but you can bet they were plenty sore.
And you can bet word got back to Caiaphas, the high priest,
about the crazy county Rabbi and his band of Galilean hicks.
It wouldn’t have been so bad except that Jesus then went on to tell all within earshot
that the temple was going to be destroyed!
That not one stone would be left on top of another.
And in three days it would be built again, though not with human hands.

If there was one thing Jews in Jerusalem could not abide
it was a threat of any kind against the temple.
It was like crying "Fire" in a crowded theater or saying "Bomb" on an airplane.
The temple was a touchy subject in the extreme
because twice in Jesus’ lifetime under Roman occupation
the temple had been defiled.

The first time, just about the time Jesus was born,
King Herod the Great had erected an imperial eagle over the temple gate.
The eagle was a symbol of Rome and of the Roman god Jupiter
and Herod was trying to curry Rome’s favor.
But to the Jews it was a flagrant desecration of the temple space
and several Jewish students climbed up and chopped the eagle down.
Herod was enraged and rose up off of his deathbed to sentence the students
and their teachers to death.
Ensuing riots left 5000 Jews dead.

Thirty years later the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate,
in an impulse of patriotic devotion erected huge banners bearing Ceasar’s likeness
over the Roman garrison.
The problem was that the Roman garrison was just outside the temple mount
and the huge banners appeared to be hanging over the temple.

A crowd of Jews marched 50 miles to Cesarea, Pilate’s home base,
and demonstrated for five days outside his house.
Finally, Pilate told the Jews to go into the amphitheater
and he would answer their complaint.
Instead, Roman soldiers rushed in and surrounded the Jews.
Pilate must have thought they would try to fight their way out,
but instead they just fell to their knees, bared their necks,
and begged to be killed instead of allow their temple to be defiled.

So, Jesus came into town at the height of the Passover festival
when the population of 100,000 typical inhabitants more than tripled,
he attacked the heart of the temple economic system,
and then he spoke of the temple itself being destroyed.
Nobody, not Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest, not Pilate, the Roman governor
could tolerate any such talk, especially during the intense, raucous Passover festival.
One ill-founded rumor, one wild accusation and the uneasy truce they enjoyed
could explode in their faces ending in a bloodbath nobody wanted.

Working off a tip from Judas, Caiaphas sent a small armed force
to pick Jesus up at Gethsemane, the old olive press at the foot of the Mt. of Olives.
They marched Jesus across the Kidron valley and up the winding path
to Caiaphas’ residence, a rambling stone house within site of the temple.
There they stood Jesus before a quickly assembled group of Jewish elite:
priests, elders and scribes.

In Mark’s account this group doesn’t seem to be an official judicial body,
just some of the movers and shakers
who had a vested interest in keeping the peace with Rome.
Besides, they were meeting at night which would have been illegal
had they been an official body.
Still, they called witnesses and encouraged anybody with any dirt on Jesus
to come forward and tesitfy.
Several people said they had heard Jesus threaten
to tear down the temple made with hands
and replace it in three days with a temple not made with hands.
But even Caiaphas couldn’t bring himself to take that crazy talk seriously.
So he baited Jesus, "Are you the Messiah, son of the Blessed One?"
Jesus, mindful of the trap, answered Caiaphas’s question with a question,
"Am I?"
Then he followed up with a cryptic quote from the book of Daniel
"You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,
and coming with the clouds of heaven."
It wasn’t a clear cut response but Caiaphas and his buddies were through listening.
They charged Jesus with blasphemy and lowered him into a dry cistern
under Caiaphas’ house to stay until they could take him to Pilate.

In the meantime, Peter is outside in the courtyard, warming himself, listening.
He must have felt utterly powerless.
Just a few hours earlier he had promised Jesus he would never desert him,
and now there he was, lying low, just listening, frozen in place.
Then one of Caiaphas’s maids, outside on a cigarette break,
takes a long drag and looks at him closely,
"Hey, I seen you before." She says.
"You’re one of them fellows with that man from Nazareth, ain’tcha?"
Panicky Peter says, "I don’t know what you’re talking about."
Hearing his accent she moves in closer,
"Yeah, I’d know that accent anywhere. You’re from Galilee alright."
Then a security guard who’d been half asleep chimes in,
"Hey, that’s right, my girlfriend’s from Galilee and you sound just like her brother."

Caught in a lie, caught in grief, caught in fear, Peter reacts like any of us would
whose mind and body have kicked into pure survival mode.
He blurts out, "Look, I don’t know him, OK?
I swear on Jacob’s ladder, I DO NOT KNOW HIM."

We have looked back on Peter and pitied him for this moment of weakness.
Maybe you, like I, have given thanks that we’ve never faced this kind of moment,
never been forced to decide between imprisonment or betrayal.
But I wonder if maybe in the long run it’s not Peter who should pity us instead.
I say that, because, as heart wrenching as that moment must have been for him,
it was at least a moment of clarity.
As that last denial left his lips and the rooster crowed that second time
there was for Peter no pretense left to hide behind,
not positive spin to put on the situation to hide who he really was.

And who was he?
A vulnerable, exposed, human being who had been reminded in no uncertain terms that he is incapable of saving himself.
All his posturing, all his bravado, all his self-deception had fallen away
and he was laid bare.
But the truth is, though he couldn’t see it at the time,
Peter, standing there outside in the morning chill,
was one step ahead of Caiaphas standing inside in all his priestly robes.

Because Jesus was going to the cross
not as some kind of grotesque sacrifice to an angry God
but to fulfill what he had begun at his birth.
His full identification with all humanity,
not with the humanity with all the disguises that we put on every day,
but with humanity au natural - that, from the beginning, is God’s good creation

Peter didn’t know it, but as he began a new day in that courtyard,
humbled and exposed he was being made new.
It was as Paul wrote twenty years later,
"If anyone is in Christ that person is a new creation.
The old has passed away, behold the new has come."

Holy Sight Isaiah 35, Mark 10:46-52

As holy sites go, it is among the holiest.
It is located in the Southern part of the country, rising up out of a city set on a hill.
Pilgrims journey to this holy site in due season rejoicing when they arrive
like those who have been days in the desert coming to an oasis,
they are parched, thirsty for what this shrine has to offer,
and they are rarely disappointed.
I’m speaking, of course, about the Dean Dome in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
What? You thought I meant something else?

The Dean Dome is the center of the Tarheel basketball universe
and North Carolina is one of the blue chip college basketball teams.
Of course, talk to a Spartan fan about Michigan State basketball
or to a University of Connecticut Husky about their hoops program
and they’ll speak of their teams in equally hushed and reverent tones.

These three teams are perennial favorites,
each a basketball powerhouse that strides like a Colossus across the NCAA.
If you filled out the brackets at the beginning of the NCAA mens basketball tournament
chances are you picked one of these three teams along with Duke, perhaps,
or Villanova to go to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament.
You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to make those picks.
But you would have to have a kind of holy sight indeed
to have predicted the George Mason Patriots
to be one of the four teams left breathing the rarified air in Indianapolis
when all but three other teams had been sent packing.

The Patriots are among what are charitably called "Mid-Major" level teams
and they play in the Colonial Conference with the likes of William & Mary and JMU.
Still, head coach Jim Larranaga, in his eighth season with the Patriots, had a vision
and he invited his team to join him in seeing not what had been but what could be.
He said to them, "When everyone thinks of the Final Four they see Duke.
But that’s not important.
What’s important is that when you think of the Final Four, you see yourselves."

In Israel we went to what seemed like a hundred holy sites, none like the Dean Dome,
but holy in their own way, yet we didn’t even scratch the surface.
For instance, we didn’t go to Jericho or venture on the infamous road
between Jericho and Jerusalem.
This twenty-three mile stretch of road climbs 3,300 ft
as it takes a traveler through the mountainous Judean Desert.
This is the treacherous road Jesus uses as the setting
for his parable of the Good Samaritan.
It’s also the last leg of the eighty-odd mile journey from Galilee to Jerusalem
following the Jordan river valley.

You probably remember the song about how "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho"
and how "the walls come a-tumblin’ down."
But 1500 years after Joshua, when Jesus and his disciples passed through
on their way one last time to Jerusalem for the Passover festival,
Jericho was a bustling Roman city,
the site of a winter palace built by King Herod the Great.

Jericho would be a beggar’s mother-lode, a main thoroughfare for throngs of travelers making their trek to the temple, some as many as three times a year.
Furthermore, Jewish custom dictated what they called the giving of alms to the poor
as part of the preparation for going up to the temple.
So, a blind man could do a whole lot worse than sit by the Jericho road,
his cloak spread out around him to catch the shekel and half-shekel coins,
mumbling "toda raba" or "thank you very much"
each time he heard the soft thunk of coin hitting cloth.

Now, beggars were just part of the landscape in Jesus’ day
before the advent of social security disability payments.
They’re still very much a part of life in Jerusalem as they are in our larger cities.
For us the sight of a beggar raises questions we’d rather not have to confront,
questions like, "Why IS there such a gap between rich and poor?"
and "When does my charity hurt more than it helps?"
Though most cities try to keep beggars away from tourist centers
we’ve come to accept it to some degree as long as they don’t get pushy or obnoxious.

Bartimaeus certainly comes across in our story as one of the pushy kind.
At least, that’s what some people must have thought when Jesus passed by
and he started yelling, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
But when you read this episode of his encounter with Jesus in the larger context,
when you take note of where his story falls in Marks account,
it becomes clear than Mark means for Bartimaeus to serve as more
than just a rude intrusion.
For Mark, Bartimaeus becomes the final exclamation point
in his discourse on discipleship;
a final reversal of what everyone expected,
a man, who, though blind, is clearly blessed with holy sight.

If you read Mark straight through, you realize that the middle of chapter eight
signals a shift in emphasis and content.
Up until that point Jesus has been content to spend his time teaching and healing
in Galilee, attracting crowds, one-upping the Scribes and Pharisees,
But in chapter eight there is this odd vignette in Bethsaida
where some people bring Jesus a blind man and beg him to heal their friend.
He does so, but it’s a two stage healing which Jesus concludes by telling the man
to keep it quiet, not even to go into the village, but just to go home.

After that, Jesus asks the disciples who he is
and Peter boldly proclaims him the Messiah.
But quickly we realize how little Peter or the others
understand what that really means.
Then begins the two chapters in Mark where Jesus makes three predictions
of his own suffering and death,
and he begins to teach his followers in clear, unambiguous terms
what will be expected of them as his disciples.
There are two main instructions about discipleship repeated several times -
1. if you follow me it will mean not glory but sacrifice
2. if you follow me you will be expected to serve others
because in God’s kingdom things are reversed,
children become the chief examples of the attitude God favors
and the first will be last and the last first.

The past few weeks
I’ve preached on each of the three predictions of death Jesus makes
and the inevitable example of how the disciples either ignore or misunderstand
what Jesus is trying to say.
First, Peter and James and John see Jesus transfigured on the mountain top
and all Peter can think to ask is if he should build some shelters for Moses and Elijah.
Next, in Capernaum, Jesus overhears his followers arguing among themselves
about who is the greatest.
After his third prediction of death where Jesus actually describes how his accusers
will condemn him, mock him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him,
James and John STILL come to Jesus and ask him to give THEM the privilege
of sitting at his right and left hands when he comes into his glory.
Don’t forget, it’s also in this section that we’re introduced to a WOULD-BE follower,
a rich man who turns away sorrowful because he can’t part with his possessions.

Then Jesus and his followers come to Jericho,
and like the second bookend to his section on discipleship,
Mark introduces us to Bartimaeus, yet ANOTHER blind man.
Only this time, there’s no keeping the blind man quiet,
no attempt even to hide Jesus’ identity,
In fact, it’s as though Bartimaeus is Jesus self-appointed herald,
proclaiming to all within hearing distance that Jesus is the Son of David,
which is, by the way, a highly charged, ultra-political designation.
Back in Bethsaida it wasn’t the time for such proclamation.
But now, in Jericho,
Bartimaeus is like the sergeant-at-arms of the US House of Representatives
announcing the arrival of the President for the State of the Union Address.
This blind beggar, sitting beside the road is the first one of all who have met Jesus
to call him Son of David, and the time is right as he begins his climb to Jerusalem.

In a foreshadowing of crowds to come, the crowd around Jesus
tries to hush Bartimaeus, quiet the truth about who Jesus is.
But he will not be hushed. He just yells all the louder.
And when Jesus calls him to come, he doesn’t hesitate like the rich man
but throws off his cloak scattering all his coins, all he owns in the dust.
"What is it you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks Bartimaeus.
Do you remember? That’s the same question Jesus asked of James and John
when they approached him to apply for the job of his chiefs of staff.
But, whereas James and John had their sights set on glory,
Bartimaeus just wanted to regain his sight, period.
Jesus proclaims him healed and, without hesitation,
Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way - on the way to Jerusalem,
on the way to the cross.

Bartimaeus is the embodiment, the living object lesson
of what Jesus has been trying to teach his disciples on the road.
He is the least who becomes first.
He is the one willing to give all he has to follow.
He is the one who, though blind, sees more clearly than anyone who Jesus is.
If Presbyterians had patron saints,
Bartimaeus would be the patron saint of all who have been humbled in life.
Those who have been brought low by grief,
or sideswiped by the kind of illness or infirmity
that makes ones own body a stranger, ones own mind the adversary.
He would be the patron saint of every child picked on at school,
every human being held back by discrimination,
every honest worker who refuses to compromise ethics just to climb the ladder.

Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere,
we stand around God’s table and under God’s cross as equals.
It’s just that those, like Bartimaeus, who have been humbled are more likely
to have gained the kind of holy sight required to perceive that equality.
The Dean Dome will always be a holy site to Tarheel fans, but the George Mason Patriots can tell you it’s not the location but ones vision that really matters.

Present Kingdoms, Future Potsherds 1 Sam. 8, Mark 10:32-45

What is your image of glory?
What event or what circumstance would make your life glorious?
Go ahead, think about it. I’ll wait.
We each have an image of glory,
Walter Mitty fantasies that make us the star of our own daydreams.
I’ve had those kind of images all my life.

When I was eight years old and taking piano lessons
I fantasized about how glorious it would be to play in a great concert hall.
But, after three years of tedious practicing and nerve-wracking recitals
I did myself AND my teacher a favor and asked that I be allowed to stop.
In high school I dreamed of being a basketball star,
of going to UNC and playing for Dean Smith on a national championship team.
But my stamina was so poor my high school coach once sarcastically ordered me
to leave practice immediately and go call my mother.
In seminary I saw myself in the shadow of great missionaries of the church,
a beloved humanitarian bringing hope and comfort to the masses.
The problem was I couldn’t seem to learn any language other than English
and I realized few missionaries go to the field without some practical skill,
medicine or agriculture or engineering, something I didn’t have.

I expect we all have dreams of glory,
even if it’s nothing more than having an adult child finally come up and say,
"You know, Mom and Dad, you were right all along."

James and John were no different -
no different from us, no different from the other disciples.
They had their dreams - of power, of recognition, of respect - of GLORY.
They were two local fishermen, mere spokes in the wheel of the Roman fish industry,
but since they’d been with Jesus, they seemed destined for bigger things.
Now they were nearing Jerusalem, the Jewish seat of power.
For days Jesus had been talking about death -
of an inevitable collusion between Roman guard and temple elite
to condemn, mock, spit, flog, and kill.
But HEY! Jesus had spoken in parables for three years now,
and while his language was creepy and a little weird
they figured he must STILL be speaking in metaphors.

They were jumpy as grasshoppers to tell the truth.
They knew Jerusalem would be mobbed,
a great, teeming, sweating mass of pray-ers and peddlers,
of vigilant pharisees and nervous soldiers.
James and John were men of the lakeside, spacious and green
but they were ready to move to the crowded streets and high walls of Jerusalem
if that’s what it took.
But they had one thing they needed to do before things got crazy.
They needed to approach Jesus about a promotion -
well not a promotion exactly,
but a clear, unambiguous affirmation of them as first among equals.
"Jesus," they asked, "Will you do us a favor?"
"What’s that?"
"Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory."

I have this picture of Jesus when hearing this request,
a mental image of his face, his body language.
He doesn’t say anything right away.
He just looks at them - looks deeply into first one’s eyes and then the other’s.
His look holds in it love, also sadness, and a hint of irritation.
I imagine he sighs, shakes his head a bit, and then, staring into the distance, he says
"You do not know what you are asking."
Sure they know what they’re asking. They’re asking for glory!
They’re asking what any of us ask - to have our life count for something,
to make our mark so that somebody’s going to sit up and take notice,
to find a way out of mediocrity, out of mundane existence into immortality.
What they really DON’T know are the steps it will take
to achieve the kind of glory which is Jesus’ destiny.

I wanted to play Carnegie Hall.
I had no idea what kind of talent and dedication it took to achieve that.
I wanted to be Dean Smith’s go-to guy.
I was clueless about the drive and self sacrifice that would take.
I wanted to be Albert Schweitzer in darkest Africa.
I just didn’t want to go to medical school.
James and John want to achieve genuine power.
They just don’t want to exercise the kind of humility Jesus’ kind of power requires.

"You do not know what you are asking," Jesus tells them.
"Are you able to drink the cup from which I drink?"
"Are you able to be baptized with my baptism?"
In this exchange Jesus looks back to his baptism which began their adventure together
and he looks ahead to the cup of salvation they will share at the climax.
He challenges James and John to place themselves on the continuum,
to join him on that ALTERNATIVE path to glory.

James and John dreamed of riding Jesus’ coattails,
of being in the right place at the right time when Jesus marshaled his forces
and pulled off a coup,
replacing the current dominant power with his own dominant power.
They were tired of being low men on the power pole
and looked forward to reversing positions.
What they didn’t understand was that Jesus was not following that path.
People had been doing that from the beginning of time -
dominating with force, lording it over each other as tyrants.
Jesus’ plan was to break that cycle, to demonstrate with his own life
that true power is found not in violence but in service,
not in political manipulation and intimidation but in costly love.

It does run counter to our impulses doesn’t it -
to exercise strength through intentional weakness,
to find power in humility and sacrifice.
We look for glory in conquest, in acquisitions,
but that kind of glory is sure to fade.

One of the stops we made in Israel was at Tel Maresha.
There we spent an afternoon digging up broken bits of pottery
that had been covered in underground caves for 2000 years.
Most of the pieces we found were non-descript but every now and then
someone would find an interestingly shaped handle or a special glazing.
It was great fun.
The temptation, of course, was to slip one of those fragments into my pocket
when no one was looking
but we were told very clearly that everything we uncovered must be examined
by the archeological team and, if important, catalogued and preserved.
As it turned out, we didn’t have to worry about souvenirs.
On the way back to the bus we passed a large pile of discarded potsherds
other groups had dug up before us.
Our guide told us we could take as many as we wished to carry.

I don’t think anyone could come away from the experience
of digging through someone else’s rubble
without wondering what it is that has lasting significance in life,
what truly brings glory.
Just like those potsherds we dug up
somebody someday in the distant future may be hoeing through a mound of dirt
and find the head of a putter or a Rolex watch.
They may find a state of the art laptop computer
or the hood ornament from a Mercedes Benz.
They’ll put it in a bucket for sorting and maybe catalogue it for a museum of antiquities
or toss it out on the scrap heap to be picked through by tourists.

Jesus’ path to glory is a different path than we’re accustomed to.
It has it’s rewards but they’re not the kind of rewards our culture values very much.
And as for the right side and the left side of Jesus,
James and John REALLY had no idea what they were asking for.
The next time Mark refers to the right side and left side of Jesus is in the15th chapter.
He writes, "It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.
The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews."
And with him they crucified two bandits,
one on his right and one on this left."