If you are new, welcome to Resurrection Parish, and for our regulars, welcome back.  This is the third week of our message series, “Confessions of a Control Freak.”  As we mention right from the start, if we are honest, we are all control freaks in one way or another about something. Each of us clutches onto something or several somethings that become an issue of trust for us that can actually get in the way of our relationship with God. The goal of this series is for us to learn to release our grip, just a little bit, on whatever it is we try to control so that the quality of our relationship with God, along with the quality of our lives, could actually increase.
    Last week we talked about letting go of our preconceptions of what a great life looks like. Turns out, a great life is found in serving others. Today, we are looking at our image; what others think about us and what we want others to think of us, what we’ll do to shape a desired image, what great lengths we’ll go to, achieving and maintaining our image.
    How do you know you are a control freak about your image or this might be an issue for you? If you’re a guy and you’ve ever lied about how much weight you can really bench at the gym, you might be a control freak. If you’re a gal and you have to put on make up before you go to the gym you might be a control freak. If every image you post on social media is photo shopped, you might be a control freak. If you have ever spent money you don’t have, on stuff you don’t want, to impress people you don’t like, you might be a control freak about your image.
    Yes there is some need for us to market ourselves and market our businesses. All of us value the good opinion of others, but we can also get way out of hand with it. If the disparity between our projected image and reality grows too wide it can become a serious source of stress.     Human opinion is so fleeting. It is also a snare. The Bible says, “The fear of what others think of you is a trap” (Proverbs 29:25).
    So how do we let go of worrying about our image? To help us out we are going to look at a passage from the Gospel of Mark. St. Mark writes: “As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging” (Mark 10:46).
    Jericho was a very old and wealthy city.  It was along the main road between the northern part of Palestine and Jerusalem, so it was a center of trade. Jesus and his crowd are making their way out of town, on their way to Jerusalem. Bartimaeus, as a blind man, had to beg for money. There was no other way for him to make a living. He was destitute and completely dependent on the charity of others.
    “On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me’” (Mark 10:47). Son of David was a Messianic title. In other words, it meant that Bartimaeus, blind as he was, recognized who Jesus really is. As Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus, people in the crowd tell him to shut up. Now if Bartimeaus had cared what people thought, if he was worried about his image he would have kept quiet. And he would have lost out on the greatest opportunity of his lifetime.
    “But he kept calling out all the more, ‘Son of David, have pity on me.’” (Mark 10:48). Persistent prayer can be quite powerful, because Jesus stopped and gave the instruction, “Call him” (Mark 10:49a).
    “So they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you’” (Mark 10:49b). The very crowd of people who had been so dismissive of the man, now evidence interest because Jesus has noticed him. The crowd can be fickle, you can be unpopular one minute and the center of attention the next.
    “Throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus” (Mark 10:50). This is a significant detail.  His cloak was how he made money. People would throw spare change onto it when they passed by. Throwing off the cloak meant he’d lose the coins. As a blind man, he had no hope to recover them. But he throws aside his cloak anyway as a sign in his faith that Jesus could heal him and that his life will now be different.
    “Jesus said to him in reply, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’” (Mark 10:51a). This is an important spiritual principle. Before Jesus will act on our behalf he wants us to be specific about what we want him to do for us. Be specific in your prayer. Of course Bartimaeus answers: “Master, I want to see” (Mark 10:51b).
    “Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way” (Mark 10:52).
    When we are control freaks about our image, we are following the crowd instead of following Jesus. The crowd is fickle. The crowd doesn’t care about us. How do we begin to wean ourselves off of being control freaks about our image? Fasting.
    Fast from the things that are feeding our desire to control our image. Maybe there are web sites we need to stay away because they just fuel our insecurities about our image and cloths. Maybe there is a crowd at school we need to step back from. Maybe there is a bar we frequent where the regulars are taking us in the wrong direction. Maybe we need to fast from Facebook, swear off Snapchat, ignore Instagram.
    With all the extra time we will have on our hands, we can devote a few more minutes a day to our quiet time in which, like blind Bartimeaus, we will recognize more clearly the presence of the Lord in our life. When we do acknowledge his presence, rely on prayer, and persist in prayer with our specific requests we will, like Bartimeaus, experience his power.
    When it comes to cultivating an image, play to an audience of one – God.