It's the Little Things

10-25-15 (Proper 25/Ordinary 30 B, Semi-Continuous)

Psalm 34; Mark 10:46-52

It’s the Little Things

The musical, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” takes a number of classic strips from Charles M. Schultz’ Peanuts and adapts them to the stage.  We follow Charlie Brown and the gang through a number of different scenes and mis-adventures before coming to the end of the day.  In the final scene of the show, Charlie Brown walks on stage with a pencil dropped by his ever-elusive “little red-headed girl.”  He comments, “I’m so happy!  That little red-headed girl dropped her pencil.”  He observes that it has teeth-marks all over it and that she chews her pencil, then his face lights up as he realizes and exclaims “She’s human!”  and then muses that it hasn’t been such a bad day after all.  The closing song of the show is then all of the characters singing the song “Happiness,” which lists all the things that they think happiness is: finding a pencil, pizza with sausage, tying shoes for the first time, walking hand in hand, two kinds of ice cream, climbing a tree, catching fireflies, etc.  The whole song is just a series of little things, things that we often take completely for granted, but that give joy and pleasure to the people who are singing about them.

There’s something about the little things, and all too often we do take them for granted.  Things like pizza, pencils, fireflies, and tying shoes don’t tend to be that important to us, especially compared to electric bills, student loans, car payments, war, crime, and the responsibilities of our lives and jobs.  So what’s incredible as we come to this passage from Mark, then, is what the Gospel passage actually focuses on.  The passage opens up and we’re immediately encountered with the first of many little things that are all too easy to overlook.  Jesus and the disciples go, alone, into Jericho.  They go into a massively important city, and as soon as we hear that name we should be expecting big things: just as Joshua brought down the walls, we’re already expecting Jesus to do something just as incredible.  But Jesus’ entire ministry in Jericho happens in a period.  Listen to that first verse again: “They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.”  Did you catch it this time?  Jesus and the disciples come into Jericho by themselves.  They come out with a crowd.  Jesus’ ministry in Jericho seems like it must have been a great success, and yet its entirety is contained within the space of a period.  We don’t know what happened, who was healed, what demons may have been cast out, or anything else about Jesus’ actions in Jericho.  He comes, he goes, crowds follow.

Instead of an account of Jesus’ ministry in Jericho, however, we hear the story of a little moment - nothing more than a blind beggar sitting on the road outside of one of the great historical cities of the time.  And yet it is in this little moment that big things happen, isn’t it?  Jesus and the crowds leave from Jericho.  The crowds must be buzzing about what all Jesus has done and just did in Jericho, because Bartimaeus hears what they’re saying and who is coming down the road.  Their excitement is contagious and Bartimaeus is quick to catch it, himself.  He knows who this Jesus is - he’s a perceptive man.  The news has passed him on the road many times by now of the things that Jesus has done, the miracles that he has performed.  And Bartimaeus knows: this may be the only chance he’ll ever get to ask the Son of David for the healing he so desperately wants.  So as he hears the crowd approaching, the people pressing around Christ, eager to see just the barest glimpse of this man, and he takes his own chance: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

It’s a little moment, an action by an insignificant beggar-man.  For the crowd gathered, it’s more an annoyance than anything else - this unclean beggar, this outcast on the outer edges of the town who wasn’t worth the time of day to them, was crying out to Jesus for a handout.  They sternly order him to be quiet, to not bother the Messiah with petty beggary and panhandling.  Surely Jesus has much more important things to be doing, especially after his time in Jericho and the work he must have accomplished there.  This blind man wasn’t worth his time, and if he kept yelling like that, they might miss a golden moment of Jesus’ teaching.  He should just know his place, sit back down on his mat with his hand out, and wait for some other dupe to give him some alms here or there…

But Bartimaeus isn’t hindered - he cries out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”  And in the commotion, in the little act of a blind man crying out, Jesus steps in.  He calls for Bartimaeus to be brought to him, and suddenly this little thing is given validation and importance.  Now that Jesus is paying attention to Bartimaeus, the blind man is suddenly significant.  The crowd changes their tune on a dime:  instead of sternly ordering him to be quiet, they now tell him “Take heart; get up.  He’s calling you!”  Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, springs up, and makes his way forward in the crowd to meet Jesus and receive his healing.

It’s such a little thing - that moment of crying out, of persistence in faith and being unwilling to back down despite the pressures of the crowd around him… but for Bartimaeus, that little moment was also the moment where his entire life changed, all for the fact of having met Jesus.  The blind man whom so many took for granted as they passed him on the road suddenly becomes a person of great significance, an exemplar of faith leading to great things.  One little moment, one little thing is all that it took for Bartimaeus…

And that’s when we should perhaps stop for a moment to think about the little things that we ourselves take for granted, the places in our own lives where God is at work without our even thinking about it.  How many little moments do we have that might actually be more impactful than we could possibly ever imagine?  How many times might that inconvenient interruption that we experience - the person who calls with a question just as you’re about to head out the door, or the conversation you have with someone even though you know there are errands you still need to get done - how many times might those experiences have actually been moments where you changed a person’s life without even knowing it?

God works in these little moments just as much as God works in the huge and important ones.  In fact, the entire Gospel is built out of these little moments, moments where the unexpected turns into the magnificent and the world is given a glimpse of what the Kingdom must be like.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the bigger things, to overlook the moments in our lives that are truly important in favor of the things that we think are more important, but we need to be open to remember that it is often in the “pit stops” of our day to day that life, and God, truly happens.  As John Lennon sings in a song, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”  So let us be open to those moments when life starts to happen.  Let us take time each day to be actively mindful, to be open to whatever God may be showing us, and to ask God to help us see those moments for what they are, instead of what we think they might be.  Let us go out and have a moment, and may it be always to the Glory of God.  Amen.