"What Do You Want?"
Guest Sermon by the Rev. Derek Parker
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Readings
From the Gospel of Luke 18: 35 – 41
35 Then it happened, as Jesus was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging. 36 And hearing a multitude passing by, the beggar asked what it meant. 37 So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. 38 And the blind beggar cried out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
39 Then those who went before Jesus warned the beggar that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"
40 So Jesus stood still and commanded that the man crying out should be brought to Him. And when he had come near, Jesus asked him, 41 saying, "What do you want Me to do for you?"
The beggar said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight."
42 Then Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your own faith has made you well." 43 And immediately the beggar received his sight, and followed Jesus, glorifying the Father. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise.
From the Bahai Faith, The Hidden Words, Lesson #52
O Children of Humanity!
Should prosperity befall you, rejoice not. And should abasement come upon you, grieve not. Both pass away, and are one day no more.
Sermon
My grandfather on my father's side, was named Charles Wesley Parker. He suffered a stroke after he came home from my high school graduation. He was paralyzed on one side, with his right hand clenched into a fist. The stroke also changed his speech, leaving it slurred, and his word choices confused. Despite his speech problems, I could never understand why his ability to speak obscenities got "better", if you could call it that. He came up with words I had never heard of, and combinations of foul words that I had never imagined. A stroke is a horrible and confusing thing, both for the victim and for their loved ones.
Grandpa Parker died the Thursday before the September 11 terrorist attacks. We buried him at Detroit's Cadillac Gardens Cemetery, on the Monday before that day of overwhelming fear. Grandpa lived 9 years between the graduation party when the stroke disabled him, and that dreary September afternoon when he breathed out his last breath. Those years were hard. His golfing buddies never visited him after he was hospitalized for the stroke. Perhaps it was too difficult on their emotions, to see their friend Charlie trapped in his chair. My grandfather ceased to be their friend from the golf course, and he had become a reminder that all our flesh is mortal and fated to die. There were some other people who came to the house, and who even wanted to help. They would say, "I brought you a new shirt." Or, "I made you and your wife a pot of lentil soup." Or, "Here is a video of the last tournament at the Orchard Lake Golf Club." Nobody asked my grandfather what he wanted. The shirts were a style my grandfather hated. Grandpa didn't like the taste of lentils, and would have instead liked chicken noodle soup. The videotape he found pointless. He wanted to play golf, instead of watching other people playing golf. "Smothered!" he shouted at me, one day after two of those unwelcome helpers had gone home. Grandpa shouted it in reference to yet another lap blanket somebody had dropped off. How many lap blankets could one paralyzed man need? Then obscenities rolled off his tongue, including some choice words about which body parts could be wiped with what he called the BLANKITY-BLANK baby blanket. My Aunt Sandy replied, "Well Father, what would you rather have?"
"A glass of Southern Comfort," he barked. It was the name of his favorite form of liquor, now forbidden because of interactions with his medications.
When I was a chaplain at Deaconess Hospital of Evansville, we were warned about what was called the "infantilization" of our long-term patients. Family, friends, and even the hospital staff around somebody with a long-term illness often participate in a frenzy of care giving. In that frenzy of care, they often also strip the patient of their adulthood, treating the disabled and the sick like an infant with no reason, no goals, no aspirations, and no opinions of their own. Infantilization of patients makes care givers, including chaplains, feel needed and important. And infantilization makes the patient feel inferior, helpless, and robbed of their dignity.
With that in mind, we come to our first reading. It is one of many stories involving Jesus and the disabled. It is also one of many stories featuring Jesus as the asker of questions. And the question at the heart of this story is one of the riskiest questions asked by any of the teachers of the world's great religions.
So according to this version of the life and teachings of Jesus, the Son of Mary was on his way to the city of Jericho. Following along was one of the crowds that tended to mill around Jesus most of the places he traveled. By the side of the road was a blind man who did not know what the commotion was all about. And so the blind man asked what was going on, and a person replied, "Jesus of Nazareth is walking by."
And right off the bat, without a pause, with an urgent cry the blind man yelled out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." This, in the ancient world, was the cry of a beggar to an important person who was passing by. The customary response would have been the giving of alms: a coin, food, or an old piece of clothing. Then the people in the crowd told the blind man to be silent, because it was just as annoying then as it is now to have a street beggar demand money from you. But the blind man was not silent, and he cried out again, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"
This time Jesus heard the man, and stopped walking the road towards Jericho. Jesus demanded that the man who cried out, be brought through the crowds so they could meet. And when the blind man came forward, we reach the pivot-point of the story's plot. What has come before this, and what will come after this, pivots on a single and highly risky question spoken by Jesus. "What do you want me to do for you?"
The question is risky, and blatantly Humanistic. Unlike other questions, such as "Who do others say I am?" or "Are grapes gathered from thorns or thistle?" – which can be safely confined to speculation or spiritual allegory, the question in today's reading is profoundly concrete and rooted in very basic but difficult human experiences.
This question Jesus asked the blind man is a gamble, because the question is an act of radical humility. Any person who asks, "What do you want me to do for you?" takes the risk of losing control. The answer given to this type of question cannot be dictated by the questioner, and there is no single right answer. And the eventual answer decided upon could be difficult to bear.
There are additional risks, not only for the person who asks this question, but also for the person who answers the question. The blind man could have answered in just about any way, including in ways that are foolish or undignified. How do you answer a question open to an entire galaxy of answers both wise and foolish. What do you want me to do for you? I want you to make me rich. I want work that will keep out of poverty. I want you to make me a king. I want you to help me down the road. I want to live forever. –a galaxy of possible answers, both wise and foolish.
Questions with great open-ness are risky business. But this business is the work of radical humility, and nearly infinite possibility, yoked to a higher cause which is the dignity of every human being. In this risky business the one who asks the question can loose control, and the one who answers the question needs to find the most true and needful answer that the question is open to.
And how did the blind man answer? His answer is at first exactly what we expect, but which on further examination is very unusual. The blind man said, "Lord, let me receive my sight." Yes, he wanted to see. But instead of saying "make me see" or "heal my blindness", the blind man said he wanted to receive his sight. The method of his returned sight comes across as either mythical or mysterious. But with what I see as great self-respect, he was laying claim to what he felt rightly belonged to him.
Friends, there is much more here than just the disability of the eyes that do not see. If our eyes are opened we will realize that sometimes we are called to ask the risky question, "What do you want me to do for you?" We take the risk of giving up control, so that the person before us has the open space to claim with dignity that they most deeply need. In taking the risk of asking this question, we refuse to degrade the person asking for help.
This lesson is one of universal spiritual importance. While this lesson comes to us through a Christian story, it is not a lesson rooted in Christian doctrine or ritual practices. It is a lesson in basic human dignity. Sometimes we are the care-takers who need to be careful that we are not robbing the dignity of somebody in our care. Sometimes we are the person needing to be cared for, and so very vulnerable to the will of those who are caring for us. Sometimes we are in danger of taking a person's dignity through insensitive charity. And in times of need, sometimes we are in danger of having our own dignity taken away by insensitive helpers. Blindness is not always physical. It can also be spiritual, emotional, or ethical. The blindness can be inside us, or in the society around us, but the questions always involve who we are on the inside.
What do we want others to do for us? What do the great religious teachers, like Jesus or Moses or the Buddha, want us to do for each other? How do we uphold the dignity of one another in our times of greatest need and vulnerability?
Ask that question. Consider your own answers very carefully. Let us receive our sight.
