29B Q 24
In the Sermon on the Mount and also in his discourse at the Last Supper, Our Lord invites his disciples to make requests. We are to ask the Father for what we want. In Chapter 10 of St Mark’s gospel we are presented with two examples of disciples making requests. Today we heard the apostles James and John make their petition; next week it will be the turn of the Son of Timaeus.
Jesus receives both requests with kind words: What do you want me to do for you? The kindness of the initial response opens the way for Jesus to help James and John to consider what they are really looking for in their discipleship. If they are set on getting to some imagined top places, they are going to make themselves very unhappy; Jesus doesn’t have top positions to fill. He himself has renounced the panoply of divinity to serve and atone for the sins of the world. His ministry is mapped out: he is to die for sinners and to be raised to glory. The only ambition worthy of the disciple is to follow the Master lovingly in renunciation of self and in humility.
We try to do our duty by the grace of God, and in fulfilling this privileged service we acknowledge ourselves to be unworthy servants. We have freedom of spirit as long as we do not lift a finger to seek self advancement, so that if called to Holy Orders, or some position in the Church we may rely on God’s grace in the awareness that we are accepting God’s will and not our own. In this respect, the monastery is a far cry from the army: among soldiers, once you have learnt to do your own job properly you set about learning the job of the man one up from you. Fair enough in the attrition of war, but not the way of the monastic community, where we all have what is essentially the same job: to seek God. We strive to make progress in our journey to God, to grow in humility and to encourage and support one another. Seeking our own advancement has no place.
In conclusion let us look again at the text which follows today’s Gospel. We hear Bartimaeus proclaim Jesus as Son of David. Our minds go back to Absolom’s rebellion and to the curses heaped on David as he fled Jerusalem by the Benjaminite Shimei. David fled an unjust death, leaving the city by the descent to Jericho. Our Lord went up from Jericho to Jerusalem to fulfil the Father’s will. As he went he was acclaimed by blind Bartimaeus. The blind man perceives what kings and prophets had longed to see, the coming of the Son of Man, the Son of David. Blind Bartimaeus has the spiritual insight to acclaim the Saviour. It is he who shows James and John and all of us how to be disciples: simply by following Jesus on the way.