Ain't Too Proud to Beg
Scripture Reading: Mark 10:46-52
I don’t have that many memories of my Uncle Bob, the husband of my mother’s younger sister Linda. He died when I was just six years old. Mostly what I have are vague impressions. He was, as I recall, cheerful and gregarious, a perfect foil for my Aunt Linda’s more cynical outlook on life.
Actually, I do have one memory of Uncle Bob. I must have been four or five years old. I was in the backyard playing baseball with my cousin Kevin, Uncle Bob’s son, who is one year older than I am. We were taking turns batting while Uncle Bob was pitching to us. I remember him smiling and saying something like, “Are you ready, John? Here it comes.”
That’s it. That’s the memory. I don’t remember whether I hit the ball or swung and missed. I just remember seeing Uncle Bob with his neatly parted black hair and his aviator sunglasses that he wore all the time, indoors as well as outdoors. I don’t think I even realized it at the time, but Uncle Bob was blind. He hadn’t been born blind; he lost his vision due to diabetes, the disease that ended his life far too prematurely at just 37 years of age. I honestly don’t know much more than that about my uncle.
We know even less about Bartimaeus, the man in today’s reading whom Mark describes as a “blind beggar.” Like my uncle, Bartimaeus may be blind, but he wasn’t born that way. We know that because when he is given the opportunity to speak to Jesus, he says, “My teacher, let me see again.” That again tells us that he had once been able to see.
What must it have been like for Bartimaeus to lose his sight in a society that made few, if any, accommodations for the disabled? I imagine that it was his blindness that compelled him to rely upon the charity of strangers.
And yet Bartimaeus encounters no charity whatsoever from the large crowd that passes him as he sits by the roadside. The crowd hasn’t come to see Bartimaeus but rather Jesus, who has traveled all the way from Galilee in the north of Israel down to Jericho. It won’t be long until he reaches Jerusalem, where the grand messianic expectations of his followers will meet the punishing reality of the cross.
As the large crowd bustles by the blind beggar, Bartimaeus gets wind that Jesus of Nazareth is near. Bartimaeus may not be able to see, but he has heard of Jesus and his power to heal all manner of illness, infirmity, and affliction. If only he could somehow get before Jesus. But how will he know where Jesus is? How will he know if Jesus is to the left or the right?
Bartimaeus makes a determination. A blind man in first-century Judean society may go unseen by the general public, but he will not go unheard. And so like a foghorn bellowing across a rocky coastline to a nearby ship, the blind man shouts above the din of the crowd hoping to reach Jesus: “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The crowd is unmoved by his pleadings. “Hey! Keep it down, would you? No one wants to hear your wailing.”
“Yeah, shut up for God’s sake! I can’t hear myself think.”
Mark writes that “many sternly ordered him to be quiet.” But Bartimaeus isn’t having it. Not today. He will not be silenced. He will not be ashamed to be a nuisance or make a spectacle of himself, not if it means that Jesus might hear him. He’s not too proud to beg. Desperation can do that to a person. Therefore, despite the reproaches from many in the crowd, Bartimaeus cries even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
It works. Having heard Bartimaeus, Jesus stops in his tracks and says, “Call him here.”
Immediately there seems to be a shift in the attitude of the crowd. It’s as though in stopping to acknowledge the blind man, Jesus has conferred upon him a dignity that the crowd cannot help but recognize. They now speak to him in softer tones. “Take heart,” they say, “get up, he is calling you.”
Mark writes that Bartimaeus springs up from his seated position, throwing off his cloak in the process. The mere sound of Jesus’ voice, the knowledge that he has been seen and heard, has in a way already healed Bartimaeus. It has transformed this man who cannot see and has been seldom seen by his fellow men into someone whom the Messiah, the chosen one of Israel, recognizes and addresses.
In a way, Bartimaeus, although blind, sees what the disciples cannot.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.
Does that question sound familiar? It should. It’s the very same question that Jesus asked James and John in the reading from last week. They had approached Jesus in secret, apart from the other ten disciples, with a rather broad request. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
In response, Jesus asked the same question he now asks of Bartimaeus. “What do you want me to do for you?”
Jesus asks the same question to two very different requests. James and John had privately asked to be given special treatment. Thinking that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to be crowned king, they asked for the honor of sitting at his right and left when he came into his glory. They were after status and recognition. They completely misunderstood that for Jesus, glory would not come in the form of a crown but rather a cross.
Bartimaeus is coming from a much different place. He doesn’t approach Jesus in private; he shouts for Jesus most publicly. He’s not interested in receiving any special treatment or honor. All he wants is what everyone else has. He wants to be able to see. James and John believe that Jesus has the power to bestow honor and favors, but Bartimaeus believes that Jesus can show him mercy.
In a way, Bartimaeus, although blind, sees what the disciples cannot. James and John, in their ambition, believe that the kingdom of God is just like any other kingdom, in that the leader rewards those who have been loyal to him. To the victor go the spoils, as the expression goes.
But for Bartimaeus, his blindness has given him insight. Despite the weakness of his eyes, he can still see that the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims in word and enacts in deed is really all about mercy…for the weak, the lost, the helpless, and the hopeless. Mercy not only for Bartimaeus, who cannot see with his eyes, but also for James and John, who cannot see with their hearts or minds. So blinded are the brothers by personal ambition and aspirations to glory that they cannot see that the road to Jerusalem on which they are walking with Jesus is leading directly to the cross.
Yet they too will receive mercy…for their blind ambition, yes, but for more as well. When the cross makes cowards of them both, and all the other disciples to boot, especially Peter—when they flee as fast and as far as they can from the horror of the cross—the risen Lord will come to them and proclaim mercy in the form of forgiveness for sin…for all of it—their cowardice, their foolishness, their selfishness, and their blindness.
And Jesus proclaims that same word of mercy to all of us for all of our moral cowardice, our vain foolishness, our selfishness, and, yes, our blindness to the ways of God. Like James and John, we too can become so enamored with the ways of the world—with success and money and power and influence and winning—that we fail to see that God is working in ways and in places and among people that we would never expect. People like a blind beggar who was all but invisible to those who ignored his presence until it became a nuisance.
But Jesus hears the cries of the desperate. Jesus hears our pleas for mercy. Jesus knows that we desire help, and hope, and healing of both mind and body.
“Go, your faith has made you well,” he says to Bartimaeus. And with that the man immediately regains his sight. Colors come flooding back into his consciousness. Rivers of light reach his retinas…the cerulean sky, the golden sun, the deep greens of the palm leaves, and the patchwork of earthen tones that cover the terrain.
Your faith has made you well. What does that mean? Does it mean that if we have enough faith we too can be healed of whatever ails us? If I just believe with enough strength, with enough fervor, if I banish all doubt from my being and believe with—yes, a blind faith—will Jesus heal me just like he healed Bartimaeus?
That is one way of interpreting this passage, but it’s not the gospel. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith is not an act of will that requires superhuman strength. Nor is faith a magic trick by which we make cancer cells disappear.
I understand why it’s tempting to think that way. We want to be in control. We so badly want to seize control from God when things don’t go our way. If I believe, then God will heal me. If/then. We make the gospel conditional upon our action. We put Jesus in our debt.
But the gospel isn’t about what we must do but rather what Jesus does for us. He goes to the cross. He goes to the cross so that he can give us what we most desperately need—a faith that empowers us to see ourselves as we truly are—forgiven, loved, and set free, as Bartimaeus is, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.