Full sermon can be found HERE (right at the beginning!).
Pentecost 22B/Lectionary 30
October 24, 2021
Mark 10:46-52
INTRODUCTION
I wanted to share with you a bit about the structure of Mark’s Gospel, because it matters for today’s Gospel story. This Gospel is sort of in two acts, with a hinge in the middle. The first half, the first 7 chapters, is all about healing and teaching. The last six chapters are the Passion story, which for Mark is the point of all of this. And in the middle, we get these three chapters, 8-10, which are really at the heart of saying who Jesus is. These three chapters include Jesus’ three passion predictions, and several difficult teachings about discipleship, which the disciples misunderstand every time. We’ve been working through these chapters the past 6 weeks or so.
Bookending this centerpiece, are two stories in which Jesus heals a blind man. In the first, it’s a bit of a false start (the guy says, “I see people, but they look like trees walking.”). In contrast, the second, which we’ll hear today, Bartimaeus immediately gets it and springs up to follow Jesus. Immediately following this story, Jesus will walk triumphantly into Jerusalem, as Mark begins telling the story of Jesus’ Passion.
Though recovery from blindness can be a problematic metaphor, it is also a powerful one. The point of these bookending stories is that Jesus has, over these weeks, brought clarity to his mission and to the role of discipleship. And we will see today, not only in the story of Bartimaeus but in all of our readings, that such clarity brings restoration, renewal, understanding, healing, and hope.
Blind Bartimaeus hears Jesus coming – as you listen today, listen for Jesus’ hope and renewal for you. Restored Bartimaeus springs up to follow Jesus – as you listen today, consider how you will approach Jesus. Let’s listen.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Fun fact about today’s Gospel story: many Lutherans hardly ever hear it in worship because this lectionary day and this set of texts usually fall on Reformation Day, and so we swap out these texts for the appointed texts for Reformation instead. Consequently, in 10 years I have never preached on it, and you’ve likely not heard it. And that’s too bad, because, my goodness, what a rich story this is!
Let’s walk through it, I’ll show you. First of all, Bartimaeus’s name. That he is named at all is remarkable; in fact, of all the people Jesus heals in Mark, he is the only one who is named. But just in case we missed that fact, Mark tells us twice what his name is: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus. The Aramaic prefix, “bar,” means “son of.” Hence, Bar-Timaeus. In other words: I am saying something important by telling you this guy’s name – so pay attention!
What is that important thing, you ask? There are lots of possibilities, but this is the one I find especially intriguing. It’s laid out in Gordon Lathrop’s book, Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology, if you want to read more. Now, if you know your Greek philosophy, you know that Plato wrote a work called Timaeus, in which he describes his understanding of cosmology, how the world began, how life began. It is still one of the most influential works of philosophical cosmology, and in the first century, any educated person would have read it. The Timaeus even played a role in formulations of the Nicene Creed in the 4th century. Now here we have a man named, “Son of Timaeus,” son of Platonic philosophical cosmology, a philosophy that claims to describe life. And yet, this man is blind – often used as a metaphor for lacking understand – and he is a beggar, one who lacks, who does not enjoy the fullness of life. And Bartimaeus knows it: when he hears Jesus coming, he calls out to him, “Have mercy on me!” His life is not full. He is lamenting.
In Plato’s Timaeus, such a lament goes unanswered. For Plato, this is simply the way things are. Some people see, and get it (namely, educated, upper class men). In fact, Timaeus says that the blind man is incapable of such sophisticated thought as philosophy. And some (like, everyone else) just can’t see, and they don’t get it. (Quick aside to say, for good measure: this is a problematic, ableist, classist view. Someone who cannot see can certainly enjoy fullness of life, and someone with sight is not in any way better than someone without. Similarly, people of any class or gender are equally valuable in the eyes of God and hopefully in the eyes of all God’s children. I’m sure you know that. Just making sure.) Anyway…
So, here sits Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, calling out for help, lamenting. He is blind and a beggar, and has been taught by prevailing philosophy that there is no hope, no life for him beyond what he currently experiences. Yet despite his blindness, he sees, something different in Jesus. And so he calls out. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” It is a lament he has called before, and heard no answer. But before, he was not calling to Jesus, the true source of all life. And this is what he recognizes in his lament when he says, “Jesus, son of David!” Bar-timaeus is the son of Timaeus, but Jesus is the son of David, the one who has been promised by the prophets to come from David’s messianic line, the conquering king, the Messiah! The one who can save me – Jesus! Those nearby shush him, because this is a politically charged statement and Romans could be in earshot. You see, to imply Jesus is the Davidic Messiah they’ve been waiting for is to say that he will overturn Roman rule. That’s the sort of thing that can get a guy killed. But Bartimaeus will not be shushed. He calls out all the louder, insistent that this giver of life, this savior, will finally hear his lament and show him the way to life.
When Jesus bids him to come near, something remarkable happens. Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, throws off his cloak. A cloak is the garment of philosophy – for Bartimaeus, it is the garment symbolic of that which has not allotted him the life he craves. Lathrop suggests that in casting off his cloak, he is casting aside his philosopher’s robe, that way of life that was not bringing life. Now freed from that burden, Bartimaeus springs up, and comes eagerly before Jesus completely bared and ready to receive Jesus’ teachings and his grace.
Jesus then asks him the same question he had only just before asked James and John: “What do you want me to do for you?” James and John had asked to sit at his right hand and his left in his glory. But Bartimaeus does not ask for glory or power. He asks for life. “Teacher,” he says, identifying his new allegiance, “Teacher, let me see again.”
I am so taken by this exchange. Any time Jesus asks this question, “What do you want me to do for you?” I am drawn into wondering: how would I answer that? What indeed is my deepest longing? It can be difficult to name, I know! Occasionally I will go through the church directory and call people and say, “Hey I’m thinking about you this week, and wondered if there is something I can be praying for you?” I usually get a list of people they are praying for – “Yes, my sister is having surgery, my kid is struggling,” etc. But when I say, “I’m happy to pray for them, but what can I pray for you?” people say, “Oh I’m fine.” We are not always in tune with our own needs, our deepest longings, or, we’re not willing to share them. Or, we are more focused on how others need to change, rather than how we need God’s grace. And yet Jesus asks us to name them. He “stands still,” Mark tells us, and listens, ready to hear the desires of our hearts. Are we prepared to share them?
Bartimaeus is. He has had plenty of time to sit there on the side of the road on the edge of Jericho, thinking about what he lacks, what he desires. And what he desires is not merely sight. He longs for meaning, for insight, for understanding. He desires reconnection, belonging, and dignity. “Teacher,” he says, “Let me see again.” Let me find the way to life, the way that you offer. Bring me to life again.
Once restored, Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way. But the narrative location of this story is crucial, for the very next thing that happens is Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He enters the last week of his life, and his march toward the cross. And Bartimaeus follows him, follows him along the way that leads through death but ultimately to life. There is scholarship that links Bartimaeus to the unnamed man Jesus encounters as he carries his cross to Golgotha, who runs away naked (it’s a character only Mark includes), and then also to the man who is waiting for the women in the empty tomb, who is now wearing a white robe, the traditional baptismal garment. Could it be that Bartimaeus saw and walked the life of discipleship, the one Jesus’ own disciples couldn’t quite grasp, literally walked alongside him to the cross, and then having witnessed it, traded in his beggar’s cloak, his philosopher’s robe, for a baptismal garment, so that he might walk in newness of life, and be the first to announce the resurrection?
And what about us? Are we able to cast aside our cloaks – those beliefs and ways of understanding the world and our relationships and ourselves in the world, ways that we thought were serving us, but really they are draining us of life? Are we able to cast them aside, to bare ourselves to Jesus, and to articulate our deepest longings? Are we prepared to spring into a new way of living, putting aside the ways of the world to follow in the way Christ has laid out, the way that leads to death, yes, but ultimately brings us to life? Can we pray, in earnest, “Teacher, let me see again,” and then truly look through the new eyes God gives us? Are we ready to see again?
Let us pray… God of life, we often fall victim to the ways of the world that would rob us of life. Turn our ears toward you so that we would hear you coming, and, casting off our cloaks, would share with you our heart’s desire, and follow in your way. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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