10-25-18 - What Do You Want?

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

“What do you want me to do for you?” What a beautiful question! How often does someone ask us that? Think about it; what would you answer if someone stood before you now and said, “What do you want me to do for you?”

I can think of a billion things, mostly having to do with my to-do list. Find me some time off. Bless my congregations with a deeper thirst for the Spirit. Increase my metabolism.

What if the person asking you that could do anything, even move heaven and earth? That’s what Bartimaeus experienced in this week’s story.

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. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’

It might seem a ridiculous question – isn’t it obvious a blind man wants to see? Yet Jesus did Bartimaeus the honor of asking him to speak his desire. He didn’t assume, he didn’t impose. He asked, inviting relationship.

Jesus gives us the same honor, and the same freedom. Yes, God knows what we need, better than we do. And God wants us to ask, just as we want our children to ask for what they desire. Prayer is not about getting what we want, three wishes granted by a genie. Prayer is about drawing closer in relationship to the God who loves us. As we can ask in freedom, God responds in freedom.

Of course, we don’t always understand the response. Just as we don’t give our children everything they ask, for reasons that are mysterious to them, we sometimes experience a “no” from God. I assume that if Bartimaeus had said, “I want you to smite those who harass me,” Jesus would not have complied. We can be sure, though, that we worship a God who desires wholeness for us in body, mind and spirit.

I have preached on this story in nursing homes, to people in wheelchairs, some of them young, many quick of mind, trapped in a failing body. That tested my faith: “What do you want me to do for you?” Still I went about praying for God’s healing love to be released in each one as I shared the eucharist. Though I longed to see quickened limbs and straightened spines, I hold fast the conviction that Jesus’ power is undiminished and his presence real.

It's not always instant. Yet I will proclaim his goodness and love, and keep telling him what I would like him to do for me, and for this beautiful, hurting world.

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