Gleanings from the Text
Mark 10:46-52
Blind beggar. By the side of the road. Scolded by crowd for asking Jesus for mercy.
Jesus stops. “What do you want me to do for you?”
Interesting question. Bartimaus has already told Jesus what he wants. Twice. He wants Jesus to have mercy on him. To show him some pity.
But Jesus senses that there is more that Bartimaus wants. Or needs. So Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Can you be more specific?
Food for Thought
One way to do church renewal is to ask the community, as the body of Christ, ”What do you want us to do for you?” It’s called identifying the community’s felt needs.
The critics of this approach say that if your congregational strategy stops at meeting felt needs, you end up with self centered Christians who are in church only for what the church can do for them, rather than what they can do for Christ. Maybe identifying and meeting felt needs is only the first step of a multiple step process.
The text suggests that the second step is following Jesus. That’s what Bartimaus did. He went from being by the side of the road, to being on the road, following Jesus. If we stop here, this is a story about making a new disciple. Identifying and meeting felt needs, and the person, having his or her needs met, decides to follow Jesus.
Let me tell you about Steve, an Episcopal priest in a small county seat town in Louisiana. Steve was all about having his church met felt needs in the 1980’s and 90’s. They started with a LOGOS ministry on Wednesday afternoons, and that grew so much that they decided to start an elementary school, and that grew so much they decided to start a high school.
But something happened to Steve in the midst of his “success” as a minister. One day, in his prayers, he heard Jesus say to him, “Steve, what do you want me to do for you?” The question startled him. He was not ready for it. So he responded, “Lord, I don’t need anything from you. I just want to something for you.” But Jesus ignored his protestations, and replied, “Steve, what do you want me to do for you?”
Since that encounter, Steve turned his ministry around. The outward success of that parish continued, but not because of what Steve was doing. He shifted to working on people’s spiritual growth, on their relationship with the living Lord.
So maybe there is a third step in this process. The first step is to meet people where they are and to help them with their presenting issues. To meet their felt needs.
The second step is to help them see the joy of being a disciple and in following Jesus.
The third step is a revisiting of the first step but at a deeper level, when the fully devoted disciples of Christ get into giving so much that they lose sight of the source of the giving.
Sink Your Teeth Into This
A pastor went to his mentor crestfallen. After two rough pastorates, he had just been asked to leave his third church. In tears he blurted out, “All I ever wanted was to be used by God.” His mentor replied, “My friend, don’t you understand that Jesus doesn’t want to use you. Jesus just wants to love you.”
Jesus says to Bartimaus, and to my friend Steve, and to the recently fired pastor, and I suggest, to us, “What do you want me to do for you?”
What really, deep down, do you want Jesus to do for you? Get you a Cadillac? Help you in my marriage or child raising or money management? Is that what you really want? Or do you want a closer walk with the living Lord? Think about it.
Biographical Information
J. Richard Short is General Presbyter of The Presbytery of Eastern Virginia.
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