Today is Reformation Sunday. It’s a weird little holiday in Protestant churches. There are no greeting cards or mattress sales or big family dinners. But some Lutherans make a big deal out of it. And some Reformed churches make a big deal out of it. And some Anglicans make a big deal out of it.
And some congregations of the United Church of Christ—being, as we are, heirs to many of the traditions that came out of the Reformation—dress the altar in red and take a Sunday to acknowledge that five-hundred-and-one years ago, on October 31st, a thirty-odd-year-old monk and priest named Martin Luther nailed an invitation to a discussion to a church door and started a revolution.
Sometimes, it’s the little things—an invitation posted on a door—that change the world.
Today’s reading is not a reading about reformation. The story that Mark tells us isn’t about changing the world. Except that it is, a little bit.
And the thing about this story is that it shows up again and again. Jesus sees someone who needs healing and he heals them. And he tells them, “Go. Your faith has made you well.” There are a hundred variations on that story. Jesus had a habit of doing this sort of thing.
In this variation, Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd are leaving Jericho. And, as they’re leaving, the camera pans over to a man with an unusual name: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus. Now, that’s a weird name because Bartimaeus means ‘son of Timaeus’. So, maybe Mark is telling us that this guy is named ‘Son of Timaeus, son of Timaeus,’ like Timaeus really needed to make a point. Or maybe Mark is translating for us, which he sometimes does: this guy is called Bartimaeus, which means ‘son of Timaeus.’
And that’s not important to the story, but it is why I’m going to call this guy Bart.
Now, Bart is a beggar… and Bart is blind… and Bart has heard of Jesus. Maybe he had heard about the time that Jesus healed the paralyzed man who had been lowered through the roof of a house that Jesus was preaching at in Capernaum.
Or maybe he had heard about the time that Jesus had met a man with a withered hand and restored it.
Or maybe he had heard about the time that a woman who had hemorrhages for twelve years, and who had spent all of her money on doctors, touched the hem of his Jesus’s cloak and been healed.
The fact is that Jesus has been healing people and exorcising demons. And his name has gotten around. And Bart has heard of him. And Bart is a beggar… and Bart is blind… and Bart has faith that Jesus can change all of that.
So, as Jesus and his disciples and the large crowd pass by on their way out of Jericho, he shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
And people turn to him… and shush him. “Be quiet,” they say, “don’t bother him. That’s Jesus.”
So Bart shouts louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
And in that moment, Jesus stops, and looks over, and says to some people in the crowd, “Tell that man to come here.”
And when Bart hears this, he jumps up and runs to Jesus. And Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And Bart answers, “I want you to let me see again.” And Jesus says, “Go. Your faith has made you well.” And, suddenly, Bart’s sight is restored!
Now, there are people who will tell you that faith can cure everything. If you just pray, God will cure your cold. If you just believe, God will send your cancer into remission. If you just send $29.95 to a PO Box in Delaware, someone will send you some healing oil straight from the Holy Land that has been blessed by your favorite televangelist right there on TV, and that oil will cure your depression and your anxiety. And those people are wrong.
I’m not going to say that it never happens. But I will tell you that I’ve never seen it happen. And I know that an ancient Jewish scholar named Sirach wrote that God had made physicians and pharmacists and medicines. And while his book isn’t part of the Jewish Bible or our Bible, it is part of the Catholic Bible and the Eastern Orthodox Bible and the Oriental Orthodox Bible. So, maybe we should take it seriously.
So, have faith. And pray. And listen to your healthcare professionals.
And pay attention to the story. Because Bart is a beggar… and Bart is blind… but Bart can already see something that too many people cannot. He has heard the stories, and he can see that Jesus can change his life.
And that change started with Bart shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Sometimes, it’s the little things—a shout coming out of a crowd—that change the world.
Now, I’ll be honest, it hardly seems like the world changes when Bart regains his sight. The foundations of the world don’t shift, oceans don’t rise, empires don’t fall. It seems like almost everything is exactly the same as it was a few minutes earlier.
But the fact is that Bart’s world has changed. He can see. He has added a whole sense to his life: the sun shines, a friend smiles, colors exist, in a way that none of them did before.
And, I’ll be honest, it hardly seemed like the world changed when Martin Luther nailed an invitation to a church door. The foundations of the world didn’t shift, oceans didn’t rise, empires didn’t fall. It seemed like almost everything was exactly the same as it was a few minutes earlier.
But the fact is that Martin’s world had changed. He had an argument to make. And, little by little, that argument went out into the world. One person heard it, and then another, and then another, and the whole world changed.
And it doesn’t end there.
When Bart regains his sight, he doesn’t walk away. He regains his sight and he joins the crowd that follows Jesus on the way. When Martin nails an invitation to that church door, he cannot walk away. He is now part of a debate that will see him excommunicated, that will see new churches rise up, and that will see important reforms in the Catholic church.
You see, the foundations of the world almost never shift all at once, oceans almost never rise all at once, and empires almost never fall all at once. What happens is one little thing after another. One act of hate or anger or greed making the world a little worse and rippling out into the world. One act of love or mercy or generosity making the world a little better and rippling out into the world.
It’s the little things that change the world.
Bart’s shout from the crowd–“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”–changed his world. And it changed his world so much that he could not live the way he had been living. He had to follow Jesus into a new world. And someone saw that, and someone told the story, and someone wrote it down.
And people read that story. And they saw the world in a new way. And they built a community around the Jesus who had mercy. And the world changed. One person at a time.
And when a thirty-odd-year-old monk and priest thought that community had gotten a bit off tack, he nailed an invitation to a church door. And people talked. And people argued. And the world changed. One person at a time.
It’s the little things that change the world.
Today is Reformation Sunday. It’s a weird little holiday in Protestant churches. There are no greeting cards or mattress sales or big family dinners. But some congregations in the United Church of Christ dress the altar in red and take a Sunday to acknowledge that five-hundred-and-one years ago, a little thing changed the world.
And the beauty of it is that it didn’t stop there. There was not a single moment when things changed and then stopped. The world kept moving and changing. The church reformed and kept reforming. And we are part of that.
You see, we are Bart. We cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus calls us to him. And our eyes are opened. We see the world in a new way. And we follow Jesus on his way into the future.
And when we get tired, when we get off track, when we grow weary, when we lose our way… we can cry out again, “Jesus, have mercy on us.” And Jesus will call us to him, and open our eyes so that we can see the world in a new way. And we will follow him further… one step at a time, one day at a time.
One kind word at a time. One act of compassion at a time. One outstretched hand at a time.
And by the grace of God, one little thing at a time, we will make the world a place of justice and mercy and abundance. Amen.