Bartimaeus - Faith - Doubt

Sermon from 10.29.06

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar sitting on the side of the road said, yelled and screamed, until he caught Jesus’ attention, then said, “Teacher, let me see again.” People around him were telling him to hush, to keep it down, they didn’t want to disturb Jesus who was coming by with his disciples. But he persisted until he was heard.

What would it be like to be Bartimaeus? A blind man left to beg on the side of the road, waiting for money, waiting for someone to have compassion, waiting for anyone to care about him, to take mercy on him. In Jesus’ time, those who were handicapped were looked down on as the lowest of the low. No one was there for them, they had no one to care for them or even want to be around them. After all he had been through, he knew enough, that he had to get Jesus’ attention. What did it take for Bartimaeus to be healed - for him to see again? It took FAITH.

He says to Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again.” My friends, this could be something that any of us could say. We have all been blinded by what we choose not to see, we have been blinded by what the world doesn’t want us to see, and we can become blinded if we don’t look beyond our comfort zone. Bartimaeus was sitting in the street – he had been cast aside, and had to yell above the crowd to even get noticed and once he finally did, he asks to see again. Our blindnesses are many, money, politics, stress, not enough time, not looking deep enough, etc. We have to ask God to help us see, to help heal our blindnesses.

For Bartimaeus, all it took was FAITH. For us, it takes Faith.

Sounds simple enough, just have faith and you will be healed, your life will be made whole again. Jesus said, "Go, your faith has made you well." But what is faith?

Well, for some help on this, I turned to the good old dictionary - Websters says that it is "unquestioning belief, complete trust of confidence in a thing, deity, or person." To me this definition makes faith seem impossible because of the concise, absolute language. Faith is not impossible, but it does take work and it is not something that you get and always have. The only way to know faith is to experience it - and to experience that over and over again. Faith does not come easy, but it is not impossible. Bartimaeus' faith made him well, and it will do the same for all of us if we let it work and if we work at it each day.

So what does it take to work at your faith? For each person it is different, and for each person it is an experience that is lived.

In the movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, there is a great example of faith. If you haven’t seen the movie, here is a brief overview. Indiana Jones and his father, Dr. Jones, are on a quest to find the Holy Grail, the cup Jesus drank from at the last supper. It has been his father’s lifelong goal to have this relic. They reach the place where it is hidden, and discover that getting the grail will be more difficult than they thought. Dr. Jones has been shot and injured, so Indy must go on by himself to find the grail, because it is said to have healing powers and contain the key to eternal life. His father needs him to find this cup so that he may be healed. To get to the grail, Indy must pass three tests, going through a sort of maze. In this maze, he must become a penitent man who kneels before God, he must follow the word of God to move on to the next place and he must take a step of faith into the unknown. He passes the first two tests, but with time running out and with people chasing him, he has to summon all of his courage and step out in faith into a chasm that seemingly has no way across. On the other side of this chasm lies the grail. He takes a deep breath, and steps out to find that there is indeed a way across, it was just hidden from the human eye. His step of faith, lead him to the grail and led him closer to God.

Franz Werfel, a writer and a Jew during World War II said, "For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible." Faith cannot prove or be proven. It has to live, it has to grow, and it has to be lived out through doubts and struggles, through joy and belief. It takes faith to step out into the unknown, it takes faith to love and to live, it takes faith to serve, and like Bartimaeus, it takes faith to call to the Christ and be made well.

Faith is not easy to understand, but maybe it would help us all if we stopped thinking of faith as a noun and started thinking of it as a verb. It is a process not a possession. It is not something that you are born with and always have. It is something that you truly have to work for and work on. Faith is not being sure about where you are going, but going anyway. It is in our doubting and in our trusting that we come to discover faith. Belief is an element of faith, as is doubt. If we did not believe that we were going to make it from moment to moment in our lives how would our lives be? But we also must doubt and wonder about the future and the present and who God is and where God is in our lives in order to come to believe. Faith cannot happen without Doubt.

In a new TV show called, The Monastery, five guys go to live in a Benedictine monastery in the middle of New Mexico. Though watching a deeply religious group of men pray, sing, and walk the halls in silent reflection may not seem to make for good television, when you add a recovering addict, an ex-con, an aspiring priest, an injured Iraqi war vet, and a cynical paramedic, things get turned upside down for many of the participants – men and monks alike. Each of the five men are having a personal crisis and each is going there to supposedly find direction, to seek God, to find the faith that they have lost or that they have never found. Now, I’ve only watched one show, and it appears that some are having an easier time stepping out in faith than the others. Some of the men are constantly bumping up against the rules of the monastery, testing the monks, and seeing what they can get away with. They are testing and questioning and pushing because they are not ready to take that leap of faith. They are not ready to call out for help at least not yet. I think it will be interesting to see if they are all able to, at least at some point, take a leap of faith – even if it’s a tiny one.

I wonder if Bartimaeus ever doubted his decision to call to Jesus when he and the disciples came through. I wonder if he did not fear what Jesus would do and what may happen to him. Bartimaeus wondered and doubted just as we all do, but he believed and took the step forward. He took the step into the unknown and had faith in God, in Jesus, and in the Spirit. God did not hide from Bartimaeus and God does not hide from us. God is waiting for us to doubt and believe, God is waiting for us to go places that we have never been, God is waiting for us to leap from our comfortable places and feel the void in between so that we can learn and experience more of ourselves and our relationship with God. It is in the unknowing that we come to know, and it is in the experience that we become experienced. Faith will make you well, it will make us all well if we take the chance to explore and come to know ourselves and God in a new way.

Faith made Bartimaeus well, let God work in your life and see what happens. I have been surprised by faith before and I am sure that you have been too. I am convinced that the future will surprise us just as well. Faith in God is not easy, nor is it impossible. It is worth the struggle because within faith you will find more than what you thought. Doubt and believe. Step out in faith, and see what you might find.