Open...to Others

Prayer

Closed to Others?

Occasionally, we’ll lock each other out at our house.

It usually happens when one of us goes out later in the evening, to go running when it’s cooler (that’s not me, by the way), or to do some walking and praying.

In our house, you walk right by the front door on your way upstairs - often you’ll see it unlocked so you lock it. Make sure you’re secure for evening. Gotta say, it’s always off-putting when you get locked out of your own home!

Apt metaphor - do we lock others out, perhaps without even being aware of it, or meaning to? And by locking others out, I mean, are we being closed to them relationally? We keep them distant, close our hearts off to them?

Started our sermon series, Open, last week, asking the question of how open we are to God - using this same metaphor which Jesus himself uses in Revelation 3:20…Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

Image of Jesus standing at the door of our lives, knocking, inviting us to invite him in so that he can be with us, and we can be with him. Specifically, so Jesus can disciple us, lead us, teach us.

It poses the question for us, how open (or closed) are we to Jesus being the leader of our lives?

Today, we want to shift our direction and ask the question of how open we are to others? To being with them, knowing them, loving them? And being known and loved by them? By being in open and full relationship with them?

Jesus wants to move us toward a greater openness to him - and to a greater openness to one another.

As I hope you’ll see - love cannot happen without openness. In order to love God and to love our neighbors - which are the two greatest commandments - everything God teaches is included in those two. And in order to love God and others, we have to be open to them. Jesus shows us exactly what that openness to others looks like.

Jesus’ Openness to Others - Mark 10:46-52...

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him. So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Context of this story is important to understand the dynamics - Jesus and his disciples are leaving Jericho, taking the main road out of town - and I want you to notice that there is a large crowd accompanying them.

Which tells us that Jesus is popular. This crowd is here for him, they want to be around him - they want to see Jesus, hear him teach, and likely most of all, they want to see him perform a miracle (wouldn’t you?!)

Somebody - who is clearly not popular, or seen as important - starts yelling at Jesus. A man by the name of Bartimaeus. He’s blind - and because he’s blind, he’s a beggar. This is how he survives, he sits day in and day out along this roadside asking for help as people walk in and and out of the city of Jericho.

In those days, to give to the poor was seen as an act of righteousness, something good and faithful and honorable Jews would do. So people would want to be seen doing it, being generous…but that’s it, it wasn’t that people would want to be connected to Bartimaeus for himself - they wouldn’t want to have a conversation with him - but simply for the role he played in giving people an opportunity to appear generous and righteous (look what a righteous person I am)

But now, when Bartimaeus learns that it’s Jesus of Nazareth walking by, he starts going way beyond himself. I mean he’s a beggar, he’s blind - probably because of some sin in his life. He’s a man of no importance - who is he to demand time and attention of Jesus, who clearly is very important?

Apparently Bartimaeus doesn’t know his place, and so he yells out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

See response of the crowd - they rebuke him. Tell him to be quiet. Hey, buddy, shut your trap. Even though they don’t say it explicitly, what they’re saying is: Jesus doesn’t have time for you. You’re just a blind beggar. He’s an important Rabbi.

Now, I don’t know if it’s just sheer desperation - or, that Bartimaeus really has a better sense of who Jesus is - but Bartimaeus just ignores them and keeps on yelling for Jesus.

So essential to see Jesus’ response here, what it says about his openness to others. What it teaches us about being open to others, to loving them.

What’s the very first thing Jesus does? He stops. Jesus stopped. Quits walking. Always himself to be interrupted by this seemingly unimportant man yelling obnoxiously at him.

He stops in order to pay attention to Bartimaeus. Which is actually what is required, if we’re going to be open to others. We have to close ourselves off from other things (task we’re doing, screen in front of our face), whatever we’re doing, whatever is preoccupying our attention.

This is why we say, “pay” attention. There’s a cost involved in order to be attentive, to be present. We’ve talked about what it means to be an emotionally healthy disciple - very first thing is to “slow down in order to be with Jesus.” We have to stop - that’s what spiritual disciplines are all about, stopping to be with Jesus. And this is exactly true for us to be open to others as well.

We can be closed to others because we make our tasks, our agendas, the text message we just got or notification that just beeped on our phone - more important than people. They preoccupy our time and attention.

It’s helpful to consider what keeps you from being attentive to others? To stopping and paying attention? The urgency of the task? Your busyness? You might not ever say it, but you don’t think they’re important enough…they’re boring, they have nothing to offer, they might ask more of me than I want to give them. Or it feels safer to keep distance.

But in this simple act - stopping, Jesus shows us his heart, how open it is, even to this seemingly unimportant blind beggar.

Next we see Jesus doing something here - it’s very subtle, but very significant. Jesus stops and then he says to those around Bartimaeus, “Call him.”

Think about what Jesus is doing here - he includes the very people - those jerks - who rebuked Bartimaeus. Jesus could have just dismissed them, called to Bartimaeus himself. Jesus could have just closed himself off to those folks who were feeling a little too self-important.

Think about how quickly we close ourselves off to people we don’t like. People who make us uncomfortable, people we think are smug or rude or smell bad or they dress weird or they live a lifestyle we don’t approve of or they’re lazy - whatever it is, we close ourselves off to them. In our minds, we have a perfectly good reason for doing so.

But not Jesus. Jesus is open to Bartimaeus - and he’s open to people who thought they were better than him. He doesn’t close himself off to those jerks.

Instead, he includes them by involving them. He’s giving them an opportunity to practice greater openness by involving them in responding to Bartimaeus - it’s a brilliant move! You call him, you be a part of bringing him to me. Jesus is demonstrating to them - I’m open to this man, join me in this, have this same heart.

So they do, they call him - cheer up! On your feet, he’s calling you!

And it changes the whole dynamic of the scene - instead of being the person rebuked, he’s being recognized, celebrated - and Bartimaeus’ response to that is immediate, throws off his cloak and he’s up on his feet, ready to go.

How much do you think it change things if we were more open to more people? If we broadened our scope? It could be so easy to do - just a little mindfulness in acknowledging the presence of others, who we greet, including others in conversation - who we even think we’re willing to be friends with.

I remember a man, Mal McSwain, who I worked with one summer at a Young Life camp and his whole perspective was, “make friends like you’re going to know them for the rest of your life.” Every person he met, that’s perspective he took. I remember him teaching that wisdom (30 years ago) - and other week, he was being quoted on that exact thing in the newsletter Young Life sends out every Monday morning!

It’s interesting to note that Jesus had as two of his closest disciples - a tax collector and a zealot (Simon the zealot). A tax collector was a Roman collaborator, a zealot was commited to overthrowing Roman rule. You couldn’t get more polar opposites. Remember the time disciples found Jesus having a conversation with a Samaritan woman? Do you think Jesus was trying to teach his disciples something about openness to others?

Early church - greatest struggles was blending groups of people who’d never interacted together -Jews & Gentiles, slave and free, across the economic spectrum, of all ethnic groups.

Do you think maybe Jesus wants to stretch your openness to others? Absolutely he does. Is it going to require getting over some discomfort and awkwardness - and getting over our prejudices? For sure. Are we going to be blessed and enriched by the broadness of the Kingdom of God? No doubt about it.

Here’s what we see from Jesus so far in regards to being open to others. Jesus stops...He includes even those who were jerks (open to Bartimaeus and to the others). And finally, he asks.

When I was in college, I took a Water Safety Instruction class. One of our lessons involved working with those who are disabled. As part of the lesson, we were around the pool, and our task was to help someone wheelchair bound into the water.

One of the students took on the role of the disabled person, sat in wheelchair, and the rest of us began deliberating about the best strategy to get the person in the pool. We went back and forth.

And at one point our teacher pointed out something to us, something that - to our shame, we had not considered. We never thought to ask the person in the wheelchair how they would want to be put in the water. Didn’t cross our minds - we were going to figure out what was best.

I’d probably done the same thing here, if I was Jesus. Poor guy, blind, has to beg to eke out a living - yelling for help. Of course he wants to be healed. “Come here…you’re healed.”

But that’s not what Jesus does, thankfully. He loves too much. He’s open to others. He’s open to Bartimaeus and to what it is that he might want. It’d be so easy to make that decision for him - of course he needs his sight. But Jesus takes him - as a precious human, created in image of God, seriously.

Look how Jesus asks the question - it’s not a close-ended question, yes or no, do you want to be healed? Instead Jesus asks, what do you want me to do for you?

Bartimaeus might have said, well, I just wanted to meet you. Or I’d like some money, if you can spare it. As it turns out, he wants to be able to see. But Jesus didn’t assume that. He was open to what Bartimaeus wanted.

I want to invite you for a moment just to marvel that right then and there, in that moment, Jesus heals him. Gives him the gift of sight. Which is just unimaginable - what it would have been like to be in total darkness for who knows how long…and then, to see - colors and shapes and faces. A world of beauty opened up to him!

Interesting little note - we know his name. Bartimaeus. Jesus healed hundreds - maybe thousands of people, and we know the name of very few of them.

My guess is what we see at the very end…immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. He became a disciple, a follower, of Jesus’ - and not just because Jesus has this great healing power, but because Jesus was open to him. Because Jesus loved him.

Our Openness to Others

We see in this story Jesus’ beautiful display of openness to others. He takes the time to stop - to be present to Bartimaeus. He includes, involves - not just Bartimaeus, but those who were rebuking him! And by asking.

Why does Jesus do it?…Because he loves. You cannot love “closed.” Love, by its very nature, demands that we open ourselves up to the others - no matter how different they are, what they believe.

Here’s the thing we need to be aware of here - why we often close ourselves off from others…do you remember the classic rock song by band Nazareth?…Love Hurts.

You cannot love without the experience of suffering. It can’t be done. Love requires that we open ourselves to others - which means that we are then open to being wounded by others…disappointed…betrayed…judged…used. Love means that we suffer when those we love are suffering. Ask any parent, they’ll tell you. And we suffer when we experience loss - when someone we love dies or they move away.

In spite of the suffering, this is what Jesus is inviting us into. Because there’s a greater danger in not loving, not being open, in closing ourselves off.

Remember doing a funeral for a man who had a brief connection with the church years and years ago, long before I was involved.

And as I met with the family I learned that he enjoyed traveling and some of the finer things in life - dining and wines and so forth. But that’s about all the positives that they could come up with.

He was closed off to others, didn’t care for other people. It was clear even his own family felt no affection from him. Sad doing a funeral for a man that few truly mourned his death - it felt like a life wasted…because it was.

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis…There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

Lewis actually believed that having a heart closed off was worse than even what he called “lawless and inordinate (wrongly ordered loves). He called a closed heart a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. If our primary concern is protecting ourselves, our own hearts, we can’t love others, we can’t be open to them.

Lewis again: We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor.

God is inviting us to throw away our defensive armor. To be open, to love, to suffer. Just like Jesus. Jesus was open to others. Jesus loved. Jesus suffered. And just like it transformed the life of that blind beggar sitting along the roadside in Jericho, it still changes lives today.

Spiritual Disciplines - How do we put this into practice, being open to others?

Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, making love the measure of our spiritual maturity.

Spoke about the I-it vs I-You dynamic, our tendency to use others, as means to an end versus loving them as sacred others.

Ask himself the question: Am I being open or closed to this person? To their presence, to knowing them, to understanding how they think, what they believe?

Pray daily for someone to whom your heart is hardened, closed

It’s a remarkable thing to ponder the fact that every single person is precious to God. He delights in them. They bring joy to his heart…which is not to say that we all, to one degree or another, also sadden the heart of God with our choices, our sin...

But to ponder the fact that God’s heart is open to all. There’s not a person on the planet who, if out of genuine sorrow repented, God would not immediately respond in loving forgiveness, bringing them into the Kingdom. And all of heaven would rejoice.

Which means that our being closed to others - for whatever reason, takes us further from heart of God. Our dismissal of others, keeping distance, they’re not mattering to us - says much more about our hearts than who they are.

Inspiration. Open…to others. It all begins with God’s openness to us - exactly what we see in Jesus in this story.

That when you come in repentance to God, his arms will receive you gladly (the image of the younger son in the story of the Prodigal Son).

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. God is so ready to receive you - to receive your prayers (he’s stopped, he’s paying attention). You can find him -he won’t hide, avoid you. Ready to fling the door wide open.

The heart of God is wide open. May ours be as well.