Sermon for the Last Sunday after Trinity: Blind Bartimaeus – preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey, on Sunday 27 October 2024 by Canon Charles Mitchell-Innes.  (Hebrews Ch 7: v 23 – 28; Mark Ch 10: v 46 – 52)

There is a verse in today’s Epistle (Hebrews Ch 7: v 28) which can make slightly uncomfortable reading, especially for priests: ‘the law appoints people in their weakness as priests.’ We have to have the humility and the self-awareness to see and recognize our own faults, says the author of this epistle, and that can be a challenge. We cannot, for sure, emulate Christ’s sinless nature; but we can try to echo his self-giving and humility.

The story is told of an elderly retired Canon – such people still exist! – who’d given the parish good and selfless service during a long vacancy. Now it was time for a new Vicar to be instituted, and the Canon to shed his responsibilities. It was an Urban Priority Area, with much deprivation and vandalism. Many of the church windows were broken and had been boarded up. In his farewell sermon he used this as an illustration in his genuinely modest way. ‘These pieces of hardboard covering the windows,’ he said, ‘are only a substitute for panes of glass, just as I have only been a substitute for a proper parish priest; but now, praise the Lord, the real thing will soon be here.’ After the service many of the congregation came up to tell him how much they’d appreciated him and his ministry, including one who tried to thank him by referring to the words of his sermon. ‘Canon,’ he said, ‘we have never thought of you as a substitute: we have always found you to be a real pane.’

Our Epistle contrasts earthly priests, who can mediate between their people and God, with Jesus himself, who, we hear, ‘is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him’ (v 25). Which points us on to Blind Bartimaeus in our Gospel. He has lots of faith in Jesus’ powers to heal, calling out to him by the roadside, quite undeterred by the bystanders telling him to shut up. And Jesus, rather than sweeping past him in a lordly way, stops and summons Bartimaeus to him, to talk to him; in a humble way he engages with him. Note what he asks him: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Now it must be clear to Jesus what he does want, but it is important for Bartimaeus to articulate and make his urgent request: ‘Master, let me receive my sight.’ Jesus, as it were, meets him half-way; but it has been Bartimaeus’ initiative. It’s also significant how Jesus replies to him. In our version (NRSV) he says, ‘Your faith has made you well.’ But that only translates half the sense – the physical healing and restoration of sight. The Greek word in Mark’s Gospel is σέσωκέν σε – has saved you – a spiritual healing, too. No wonder Bartimaeus threw off his cloak and ‘sprang up as he came to Jesus.’ No wonder also that ‘he followed Jesus on the way’ afterwards, for he had found salvation, along with his sight, in his encounter with the Saviour of the world, his Saviour.

There is a lesson here in the way we approach God through our prayers. Jesus often spoke of the need to persist in our prayers ‘and not lose heart.’ In Luke, he illustrates this with the story of an idle, self-absorbed judge, who cannot be bothered to hear the case of a poor widow who needs justice for herself. But because she persists and will not let her suit go, the judge relents, hears her case and grants her what she is due. It is hardly an exact parallel, but the importance of meeting God in prayer and taking the initiative is made very clear.

Those of us who knew Robert Willis have been saddened by the news of his unexpected death a few days ago. I first heard him preach from this pulpit – I think at a school service – while he was Rector of Tisbury and before he became Vicar here. On that occasion he told a humorously modest story about himself aged 3. He may well have used it on other occasions, and some here may have heard him tell it. Since his reminiscence is pertinent to what we have been thinking just now about prayer and the need to rely on God’s grace, I am taking the liberty of finishing with it, in Robert’s memory.

As I recall, it involved a time when he, as a small boy, and his father were digging in the garden to a make a pond (or something similar). They worked hard, digging and toiling away, and Robert was proud of his considerable achievement in enabling the job to be completed. Years later, he came across a photograph taken at the time, and dated 1950, which showed his father having loaded a huge barrowful of earth – probably one of many – and Robert contentedly holding the fruits of his labour, a tiny bucket.

The message: if we play our part and do as much as we are able, through our faith in Jesus, God will do the heavy lifting.

Or, in the words of today’s Epistle once again: ‘So Jesus is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.’ (Hebrews Ch 7: v 25)