"Seeing with the Eyes of Faith" San Williams
Mark 10:46-52
This episode in Mark’s gospel is hard to pigeonhole. It can’t be neatly placed in any single category. It’s obviously a miracle story. It fits the three-fold formula that is typical of miracles in the Gospels. It includes a problem: blindness. A solution: Jesus’ word, “Your faith has made you well.” And finally, evidence of a cure: Bartimaeus received his sight and followed Jesus. So, yes, the healing of Bartimaeus qualifies as a miracle story.
But it can also be heard as a call story. Jesus’ call to discipleship is hammered home, because one verse contains three references to call. “Call him here,” Jesus tells the crowd. “And they called the blind man, saying to him, 'Take heart; get up, he is calling you.'” Note that Jesus’ call to Bartimaeus, and Bartimaeus’ response, echo the call and response of the first disciples. In both cases, Jesus calls, and immediately they get up and follow him. So this story is also a call to discipleship.
Yet it can also be read as a story of contrast. The profound faith of Bartimaus stands in contrast with the self-serving behavior—and failure of understanding—demonstrated by the disciples in previous chapters. Though blind, Bartimaeus sees while the disciples, who have the gift of sight, remain blind. So Mark has told the story of Bartimaeus as a way of pointing up the spiritual blindness of the disciples.
Going still further, it's clear that the healing of Bartimaeus is a transition story, in the literary sense, for the story concludes the whole two-chapter discipleship section and also prepares us for the passion narrative that immediately follows. Bartimaeus' cry to Jesus as “son of David” foreshadows the shouts of the crowds as Jesus enters Jerusalem: “Hosanna, blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor, David!”
Thus today’s episode of Jesus’ healing of Bartimaeus is a miracle story, a call story, a story of contrast, and a transitional story. That’s all well and good, but how do we make it our story? How do we make the healing of Bartimaeus our healing, the call to discipleship our own call, and Bartimaeus’ response to follow Jesus our personal response?
To begin, we have to face up to our own blindness. Since today is Reformation Sunday on the Church calendar, it’s appropriate that we hear what Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, has to say. Luther wrote about this passage, “This blind man represents the spiritually blind, the state of every person born of Adam, who neither sees nor knows the Kingdom of God.” Luther would have us believe that we all human beings are spiritually blind.
Yet therein lies the problem. We don’t “see” that we are blind. We hear the story of blind Bartimaeus and instinctively feel distance between his situation and our own. He is helpless, while we think of ourselves as capable. He’s literally in the gutter, while we sit in a comfortable pew. Bartimaeus is a poor beggar, but we take pride in paying our own way. And while Bartimaeus had to rely on others, we value our self-sufficiency. He was despised and scorned, while we here this morning enjoy a certain respectability
I imagine most of you heard all the stories last week about the so-called balloon boy. It happened this way: a married couple launched a balloon and then spread the word that their six-year-old son was in the balloon. As it turns out, the whole thing was a publicity stunt, brought off in hopes of gaining some notoriety. The parents thought perhaps they would be rewarded with their own reality show on television. It sounds crazy, but then I suppose we all have ways of trying to attract attention, to rise above others and be awarded a place of honor. We’re not so dissimilar from James and John. When Jesus asked those two disciples what they wanted him to do, they responded, “Grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But these human attempts to elevate ourselves above others blind us to the way of Jesus—a way of service, humility, and selflessness. Once we recognize the ways that we, too, are spiritually blind, Bartimaeus no longer seems so distant or strange.
And Bartimaeus’ story becomes even more personal as he shows us that following Jesus requires a leap of faith. At the heart of today’s scripture is a challenge for us to embark on a new way of life. Recall that when Bartimaeus heard Jesus call him, he threw off his cloak, sprang to his feet, and came to Jesus. That cloak was Bartimaeus’ most highly valued possession. After all, it was his bed at night, his only protection from the rain and the cold, and the covering that shielded him from ridicule and scorn. Its pockets held the meager spoils of his begging. Imagine the leap of faith symbolized by his discarded cloak. The moment he heard Jesus’ call, Bartimaeus left his old life behind and eagerly welcomed his new life as a disciple of Jesus.
Some of you have probably followed the publicity that has surrounded the young woman named Jaycee Dugard. She was kidnapped as an eleven-year-old child, after which she lived in captivity for eighteen years. Only recently has she been freed from her captors and reunited with her family. Thankfully, she’s thrown off her old life of captivity, abuse and neglect. Now, at age twenty-nine, she’s attempting to reorient herself to a whole new way of life. Something at least that dramatic is suggested when Bartimaeus flings off his cloak, comes to Jesus for healing, and follows Jesus on the way.
In the early days of the church, candidates for baptism would stand at the edge of the baptismal pool, disrobe, step into the water, receive baptism, and, as they stepped out on the other side, they would each be wrapped in a white robe as a symbol of their new life in Christ. In a similar way, this image of Bartimaeus throwing off his cloak is a challenge to us. What self-serving attitudes and goals do we need to leave behind in order to live more fully into our baptismal identity? Or, to use the words of our stewardship theme, how do we become a people who are growing in the image of Christ?
The book called Space and Sight, is a fascinating account about the first people who underwent successful cataract surgery. All blind from birth, these people suddenly received sight. It was a wonderful gift, but it wasn’t easy for them. Unable to judge distances, they often fell as they tried to reach things that were too far away. Or they cracked their shins on pieces of furniture they perceived only as patches of color. One young woman wrote that she was tempted to keep her eyes closed, because it took such courage and hard work to adjust to her new life. She admitted that it was easier to go on pretending that she was still blind. Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth-century Christian Bishop, taught that the basic human sin is the refusal to grow—the decision to remain as safe as possible and to hide in our familiar cloaks of blindness. How tempting it is for all of us to cling to the familiar. We’d rather linger in shadows with which we are acquainted than to move toward the light that is unknown to us.
But take heart. Christ calls each one of us just as we are. Remember that Bartimaeus came to Jesus before he could clearly see him. Bartimaeus believed in Jesus even though he had not yet seen him. It must be the same for us. Our spiritual vision is not yet 20/20. None of us fully understands the mystery of the cross or the promise of the resurrection. We know only in part and we see in a mirror dimly. But that didn’t stop Bartimaeus, and it need not stop us.
If you are willing—despite all reservations and doubts—to believe and trust in that which you have not seen…if you are willing to follow Jesus even though the way leads to a cross and beyond…if you are willing to trust that God will be where we thought God could not be—turning our places of death into places of life…if you are willing to hear the cries of those people who plead for mercy, compassion and justice…if you are willing to leave behind everything except your desire to know and follow Jesus, then take heart, get up, go with Bartimaeus. Your faith has made you well!