Stephen
Terry, Director
Teaching
Disciples: Part II
Commentary
for the August 24, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
"'What do you want me to do for you?' he asked." 
Mark 10:36, NIV
Half a century ago, I was living
a different life than I do today. While this may be true for most who reach
their seventh decade, I am referring to the contrast between life in the
military and life as a civilian. A civilian is free to come and go more than a
military person. Of course there are certain tradeoffs for that freedom. Freedom
brings with it the possibility of failure and loss if bad choices are made. In
the army, I never had to worry about a place to sleep, food to eat, clothes to
wear, or a small basic income to spend as I chose. This meant that when I did
make bad choices, the consequences were blunted. But a civilian could lose all
those things so every choice could come to mean life or death over even seemingly
trivial matters. Most governments understand that taking care of the military
is vital to the interests of the country and provide well for their
servicemembers. Young people who have not yet decided on a direction in life
find the security and stability of a military career an inviting opportunity to
learn maturity and responsibility while learning about the social contract
between the state and its citizens. Lessons are learned there that will profit
a person throughout their life.
While I was stationed in Alaska,
I learned some important lessons. I had met a young woman at church, and as
things do between a young man and a young woman, we progressed to engagement
and marriage. When I was single and had no one to spend my meager salary on
except myself and my whims, it was enough. But now we were going to start a
home together. I decided to attend paratrooper training at the army base near
Anchorage. That would qualify me for jump pay of fifty-five dollars per month.
I know that does not seem like much today but remember this was half a century
ago.
We had a large class of would-be
paratroopers for the four-week course. This included one week of settling in
and three weeks of actual training. The first two weeks was physical
conditioning with running and pushups at every opportunity. From our large
class, over half dropped out at this stage. For the third week we jumped from towers
with harnesses hooked to guide cables. The jolt, when we were pulled up short
as the slack came out of the harnesses left dish-sized bruises on our collar
bones. We had to endure that pain as we were required to make a specified
number of successful tower jumps before we would be allowed to do the real
thing. The most painful of the tower jumps were the ones we were required to do
with full back packs. That made the harness buckles slam into our collarbones
with even more force. We had more drop out at that point.
The final week was Jump Week.
During that week, we jumped from Chinook helicopters and C-130 Hercules cargo
planes, the primary aircraft for airborne assaults. With the C-130s, there was
not a lot of thinking involved about making the jump, the air currents along
the side of the plane created a vacuum that tended to suck you out the doorway
into the open sky where your static line would deploy your chute. The Chinooks
were a little more intimidating. They would lower their rear ramp, and you
would walk out that ramp into the sky, trusting that your static line was fine and your chute would deploy as planned. During the
Chinook jumps, one soldier had two chute malfunctions. The first one was called
a Mae West, after a buxom actress, where a riser is caught over the top of the
chute separating the air chamber into two smaller chambers that do not as
effectively check descent speed. That would be enough to give a person second
thoughts about becoming a paratrooper, but on his second jump he had a streamer
where the chute does not open at all, streaming like a ribbon behind the
falling paratrooper. Fortunately, he was able to deploy his reserve chute. It was
smaller but it adequately checked his descent. He went on to earn his paratrooper
badge with the rest of us. I was fortunate enough to have no such incidents,
the worst being twisting my ankle when the wind carried me into some small
trees. One of the disadvantages of military parachutes is that they are difficult
to steer. Civilian chutes have greater control and some of my fellow
paratroopers decided to take up civilian jumping to experience that. Since I
was not there to seek thrills, I was happy with my badge and my fifty-five
dollars per month.
When we graduated from
paratrooper school only one in four of us who began earned the badge. To accomplish
that goal, we had to have faith in the process that was guiding us and we had
to be committed to that process. We could not entertain thoughts of failure, or
we would find ourselves among the seventy-five percent who washed out. All of
us had been sent off to paratrooper school with fanfare by the units we were
part of. Those who washed out tended to slink back with the stigma of being
losers. Granted, it took physical and mental strength to succeed, but more
importantly it took faith in the possibility of success despite sacrifice.
The Gospel of Mark, chapter 10,
illustrates that contrast with two stories. One story is that of the wealthy
young man who came to Jesus for guidance. He saw the opportunity Jesus
represented and decided to approach Jesus without self-examination of what he
was willing to commit to for a future following the Messiah. Like a soldier
that sees the elan of the paratrooper and the respect they are accorded and
decides to enroll in training without considering his level of commitment, this
wealthy young man, when Jesus opened his eyes to that commitment, washed out
before he could even begin the training he must face as a disciple. In his
case, he had placed all his faith and commitment in his wealth and could not
then transfer that faith and commitment to Jesus. He failed to see the
advantage he was passing by because of the advantages he had.
The contrasting story is the one
involving Jesus healing a blind man. While the wealthy young man was unaware of
his spiritual blindness, Bartimaeus, through his experience with physical
blindness, knew how important sight was. When he heard of Jesus' healing
miracles, he committed himself through faith in those stories and committed to
seek Jesus out when he could and ask for his sight. Despite all the nay sayers
who tried to shout him down, he would not be deterred. When he called out to
Jesus, Jesus called out to him. He had nothing to offer but his faith. Everything
else popularized by institutional religion melts away before that simple,
direct, and innocent plea for healing. We like to think that if we do this or
that based on what the church tells us, we will find favor with God. But we do
not understand that God already loves us, and we do not need to be something we
are not to feel that love. We are all blind, lepers, perverse, thoughtless, and
uncaring, and the church tells us to stay in our lane, as the people tried to
do with blind Bartimaeus. But Jesus does not operate like that. Rather than
condemn us for our failings, he comes to heal us, to save us from our
brokenness. (John
3:17) Unlike what the church has done so many times before, he does not
turn his back on us. (John
6:37)
Like Jesus' words about divorce
earlier in this chapter in Mark, it is only because of the hardness of our
hearts that churches disfellowship members. But removing someone from the membership
rolls of a church never removes them from God's flock or from the Book of Life.
Only God can do that and there are not enough tears in all of humanity to equal
the sorrow of God that would accompany such an action. Blithely, we push and
shove one another from the flock unaware or willingly ignorant of the heartbreak
this brings to God. There is hope for everyone in the arms of the Savior. Our
life may have been a constant experience of Mae Wests and streamers despite our
faith and commitment, but if we remain true to the relationship despite all,
there will come a graduation, a glorious day of redemption and transformation
and all heaven will rejoice together with us as we rise to become all that God
intended humanity to be, bound together with one overriding principle - love.
We have lost the image of God, but it is safely held in his keeping to be restored
to all who are willing to open their hearts in faith. Blind Bartimaeus received
his sight. There is so much more that God will heal in us if we only stay the
course. He asks us now as he asked then, "What do you want me to do for you?"