Year B Proper 25 Job 42:1-6, 10-17 Mark 10:46-52

And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before

After forty-two chapters, after Job’s suffering and relentless beseeching of God, after God’s response and questioning, Job’s story has a happy ending.

This epilogue to the book of Job is, for many readers, hard to accept. Up to this point, the whole book has been (apparently) an argument against the doctrine of retributive justice; that is, the idea that God always rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. Now, at the end of the book, that belief seems to be upheld: Job is rewarded for his piety (or at least reimbursed for his losses). His friends seem to have been right all along.

That God restores Job’s fortunes, giving him twice as much wealth as before, and ten more children, seems to many readers a cheap ending to the book. But we need to look closely at the details of this restoration: Job’s three daughters are the most beautiful women in the land, and Job gives them an inheritance along with their brothers, an unheard-of act in the ancient Near East.

It seems that Job has learned to govern his world as God does. This cautious patriarch, the Job we met at the very beginning of the book, the man who offered “preemptive sacrifices” for his children, has become a parent after God’s own heart. He gives his children the same freedom that God gives His creation, and, like God, Job delights in their freedom and in their beauty.

This is the man of faith, the man who said in his suffering, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another”

But this was also a man who before God allowed Satan to torment him was very much in control of his world. The book of Job poses us with a question, a challenge. Can we accept and live by that which Job learned from God as God spoke to him out of the whirlwind? Can we love what we do not control? Think about it. Can you love what you do not control: this wild and beautiful creation, its wild and beautiful Creator, your own children? We are human, and we long for order, and for control.

As Jesus and His disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside

In today’s Gospel we meet another person who has very limited control over his world. Bartimaeus is blind, and to be blind in Jesus’ time meant to be worth next to nothing. One could not hold a job, or learn to read, thus one could not read or speak in the synagogue. If one became blind early in life, marrying and having a family was out of the question. Bartimaeus has done what anyone in his position would have been forced to do by such circumstances. He has become a beggar, dependent on the generousity of strangers he cannot even see.

In our Gospel today, Jesus is travelling with His friends on the road out of Jericho. Jericho was an amazing city. It was the important stop on the road to Jerusalem, and built, as it was, at an oasis, it was a crossroads for merchants, soldiers, and travelers of all kinds. It was a winter resort for rulers and rich people from Palestine. Wealthy Romans had winter homes there, and it was there that Herod built his winter palace. We can almost imagine the crowds that must have flocked in and out of that bustling city, and each day, among those who traveled to and through Jericho, a blind man managed to find his way to the side of the road.

Thieves and ruffians also preyed on unsuspecting wealthy travelers along the Jericho road, because the class of people passing by had plenty of spare change to steal or give away. But the Jericho road was an excellent location for a beggar and so somehow Bartimaeus managed to get there each morning. Bartimaeus, blind and a beggar, was the sort of person no one noticed. He was nobody, the lowest of the low. If the wealthy travelers took the time to notice him, they might toss a copper penny or two into his begging bowl enough to insure he could eat for an entire day.

The trouble with being a beggar, even on a road where the rich travelled daily, was that, as they are today, beggars were somewhat invisible. Busy people with business or pleasure on their minds took no notice of beggars, didn’t “waste their time” to notice or acknowledge these lowly undesirables. But perhaps Bartimaeus had relatives or friends, because somehow he learned about Jesus, and he heard that the Rabbi would be traveling to Jerusalem, which meant that at some point, Jesus would pass through Jericho.

Bartimaeus would not have known for certain the exact day or time Jesus would be there, but he must have heard the commotion on the road as Jesus left the city on that day and asked what was happening. We know someone had to have told him that the Rabbi Jesus, the healer, the miracle worker, was on the road right at that moment and they must have said to him, “Here He is – Jesus is passing by now.”

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Bartimaeus uses Jesus title, “Son of David”, and, uncharacteristically, Jesus does not tell him to tell no one. The secret need no longer be hid. Jesus time is drawing near; He is coming close to Jerusalem and to the cross.

Whoever it was who alerted Bartimaeus to Jesus’ presence, probably hadn’t anticipated the beggar’s reaction. That day, the crowd following Jesus, like all of us gathered here today, responded in a totally human way. They told the loud mouthed blind man to shut up. They wanted to ignore him, and if possible, for him to go away, to quickly resume his accepted role and become invisible again. But this was Bartimaeus’ one chance and he knew it. Because he couldn’t see, he shouted loudly, thus insuring he would be heard and noticed.

Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you." So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

The casting off a cloak has symbolic meaning. It represents the giving up of the old order. So as Bartimaeus rises to reach Jesus, he throws off the old ways, and accepts Jesus as Lord. It is likely that at that point someone would have taken him by the hand and led him to Jesus. And then there he was, in the Presence of our Lord. This man who for most of his life was invisible, this man who no one recognized, this nobody was standing before of Jesus. The words tumbled out of his mouth faster than his brain could process them; “My teacher, let me see again.” And with just seven words from Jesus, Bartimaeus could see!

What could that have been like for him? We immediately assume that, as it was for Job, it must have been for Bartimaeus, a thrilling, joyous return to life, but not life as it was before, rather to life renewed, life changed. The Gospel reading tells us that once he could see, Bartimaeus followed Jesus, but, in Mark’s clipped way of writing, we don’t know the details. We don’t know what Bartimaeus was feeling after the miracle, but are left to guess, to put our own stamp on the conclusion of the story.

We assume that to receive sight must have filled Bartimaeus with joy, but interestingly, not all blind people think of the return of sight as a blessing. In some rare cases, where sight has been given to those who have been blind, the reaction is anything but positive. One grows accustomed to one’s situation in life, and a sudden change, especially one so dramatic, is not always welcome. A doctor wrote of one patient who had been given sight late in life, that he was so upset by the difficulty he had in learning to translate what he saw into something he could understand, he couldn’t tolerate sight anymore and that he wanted to tear out his eyes.

This is hardly what we expect, but if we think about it, it really isn’t that surprising. How startling, even awful, to suddenly have one’s life totally altered. The blind patient cannot make the adjustment. Are there situations in life where we do not fare any better than he? Today’s Bible readings call on us to consider that question.

From the story of both Job and Bartimaeus we understand that bad things can and do sometimes happen to good people, that faith should be constant, and that God always hears us, our cries, our prayers. We also learn that when we in some way have a personal experience of God, our lives change.

Most of us have good lives and all of us have been touched by tragedies and sorrows, and through them we have kept our faith. All of us have prayed, and whether we realize it or not, all our prayers have been heard and answered. . And there’s the rub! Prayer is answered – God does touch our lives, and therefore our lives change, or they will change if we can accept the answers we receive, the action of God, in our lives.

The problem for all of us is that the answers we receive invariably call on us to change and to relinquish control. Neither of those solutions to whatever our problems may be is ever cheerfully accepted. By our very human nature we are stubborn, self-centered, self-righteous folks who neither want nor embrace change, and who cling to control in the mistaken belief our lives depend on our having it.

The Psalmist today sings, Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they who trust in Him! And that is really difficult for us to do – trust in God. Job must have had his doubts, but he never lost his faith. Bartimaeus shouted for Jesus until he was heard. God touched their lives, and as a result they were changed forever.

We who pray, who call ourselves Jesus’ followers, God’s adopted children, we are called to live in the Light of Christ. We are called to let that Light shine on our way and to follow where It leads, whether or not we like and have approved the path.

Following Jesus really does mean to walk the Way of the Cross. Following Jesus really does mean letting go of our control and surrendering to Him. We may never like change, we will always find surrender, i.e. trusting Him, difficult, that is who we are and how we are. But our calling, our gift from God, is to follow Jesus on the path He has chosen for us, living lives filled with joy and strength in Him, overflowing with His grace and peace and love.

Let us pray:

O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.