22nd Sunday after Pentecost
It’s entirely appropriate that our faith life is often referred to as our faith journey. Within the context of faith, we journey from an old way of being to a new way of being. As we follow Jesus, we leave old worlds behind. The stories we read every week are really travelogues. A lot of the time they’re stories about the road less traveled. And if we pay attention to the stops along the way, we will discover that, little by little, the old world is collapsing behind us and a new one, filled with joy and possibility, is summoning us.
Today we are leaving Jericho. Just the name Jericho, alone, reminds us of other stories. The story in the Book of Joshua about the battle when the walls of Jericho fell demonstrates God’s power to destroy human barriers. Although the New Testament has references to Jericho in the story of the Good Samaritan as well as that of Zacchaeus, it is the Old Testament drama that is called to mind when the city name is mentioned, and it is that drama that forms the basis for the story in today's Gospel lesson.
Every culture has its outcasts: the people who live at the margins and don’t seem to belong anywhere. Sometimes outcasts were forced to live outside the city because they had some sort of infectious illness. In Jesus' day, outcasts were those who didn't measure up to the expectations of purity laws set by the religious authorities. The Essene writings, for example, make it clear that people with imperfections, those who were blind, deaf, mute, differently abled, or ill were not allowed in the community of the righteous. These people were excluded from families and society in general. They lived outside the city. They begged for donations. And they were typically nameless.
Which makes the man in our story, today, unusual because we know his name. We even know his father's name, Timaeus. Bar-timaeus, the son of Timaeus was blind. Jesus and his disciples are heading out of town where Bartimaeus sits beside the road. It’s an interesting story, made even more interesting by the fact that, along with another story about a blind man in Mark 8 it frames a section in which Jesus is teaching his disciples, but they don't seem to get the point. They’re unable to see what he is showing them. They don't see what the Transfiguration is about. They don't see why they couldn't drive out evil spirits as Jesus did. They don't see what he means about his betrayal and they're afraid to ask about it. They don't see why children should be brought to Jesus. They don't see why a rich man can't enter the Kingdom. James and John don't see why they can't be first in the Kingdom. There are all too many things that his disciples don't see because they are spiritually blind.
The author of Mark uses the two stories of the healing of the blind men as bookends for the section on spiritual blindness. We need to ask ourselves what the things are that we don’t see. When do we fail to see what is truly important in our relationships and in our priorities? When do we fail to see someone when it is perfectly obvious that he or she has been there all along?
The crowds following Jesus, listen, but don’t hear; they watch, but don’t see; they speak but say nothing. They pressed all around him as he left the city, leaving Bartimaeus in the weeds in a ditch by the side of the road. But he shouts, "Jesus, have mercy on me." Those around him, at first, tell him to shut up. After all, why would Jesus want anything to do with a blind beggar.
Bartimaeus was looking for mercy. Bartimaeus had nothing to give. Bartimaeus is told that Jesus is calling for him. Jesus calls for Bartimaeus to come through the crowd and share his need. God calls and claims us, too. In baptism, God calls us by name and says, "You are mine." When we feel abandoned and alone, God knows our name. When we struggle to make ends meet, God knows our name. When we try to reclaim a family from troubled dead-ends, God knows our name. When we’re not sure where our next meal is coming from, God knows our name. When we find out we’ve got cancer, God knows our name. We belong to God for all eternity.
When you really hear God calling, when the cross and the empty tomb shout that you are loved and that you belong to God, then you can do what Bartimaeus did. He threw his cloak aside and ran to Jesus. His cloak was his sole possession. It kept him warm. It was his blanket. It was his protection against the heat and cold. Compare that to the rich young man who went away grieving because he had many things.
Bartimaeus’s eyes are opened. Unlike the disciples and many of those who follow Jesus, Bartimaeus sees! It's easy to criticize Jesus' disciples for not seeing the truth he was showing them...but maybe their not seeing was protective, a defense. Maybe deep down they knew that once they really saw what Jesus was showing them, they wouldn't be able to unsee it. Once they got what he was saying about the reality of the world, their lives were going to have to change. Once they understood that following Jesus would lead them to suffering, betrayal, and death, their rose-colored-glasses of their worldly ambitions might not sustain them anymore. Maybe the disciples avoided seeing what Jesus was showing them because deep down they knew that seeing can be dangerous.
Consider photojournalist Kevin Carter's story. In 1993, while covering the famine in the Sudan, Carter took a picture of a small girl who had collapsed while walking to a food station. Just a few feet behind the starving girl, a vulture stalked her. In May of 1994, Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph. Two months later, he died suicide. A close friend of Carter's said that after shooting the photo of the starving girl, Kevin "sat under a tree and cried and chain-smoked" and could not distance himself from the horror of what he saw. He could not unsee what he had seen.
Yes, seeing can be dangerous. It can call into question everything we've ever believed. It can dismantle our faith, our theology, and our worldview. Seeing can devastate us. And yet a big part of following Jesus is seeing things as they really are. Why else would he try to show his disciples not once, not twice, but three times what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem?
Seeing is a vital part of the journey of faith. If seeing is important to the life of faith and also has the potential to devastate us, what are we supposed to do? Do we keep our hearts open, but our eyes closed? Do we keep our eyes open, but our hearts closed? Is there some way as a person of faith to keep both our eyes and our hearts open? How do we survive seeing?
Bartimaeus survived it by starting with Jesus: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Bartimaeus acknowledges Jesus. Bartimaeus is healed. Bartimaeus trusts in Jesus. Bartimaeus sees. But before Bartimaeus looks at anything, Jesus becomes the context for everything he will see. After his healing, Bartimaeus won't see anything without thinking of the one who healed him: Jesus. Before the first ray of light hits the first molecule of either retina, Jesus becomes the context in which Bartimaeus will see everything.
When we look at the world in the context of Jesus, it's true--we will see suffering. We'll see betrayal. We'll see death. It's unavoidable. The world is broken in so many places. A mature faith looks at those places and sees them. But, as Jesus tried to show his disciples again and again, when you look at the world--even at its ugliest, hardest, and most fragile--when you see the world in the context of Jesus, you also see resurrection. You might have to look at the ugly, hard, fragile things a long time before it happens, but eventually, always in the context of Jesus, you will see resurrection.
As we leave Jericho with Jesus and his disciples, it's powerful to reflect on what the author of Mark's Gospel is telling us. Bartimaeus "shouts" as the entourage leaves the city. Do you remember the last time this happened? Do you remember how shouting brought about the collapse of an old way of life at Jericho and a new beginning led to a land of promise? Do you remember when the walls came tumbling down? And didn’t that old Joshua at Jericho pre-figure a new Yeshua, the one who gives sight to the blind and hope to the despondent? This is an important moment in salvation history, this little detour at the ditch outside of Jericho. For Bartimaeus, his blindness ended. The walls of a restrictive and isolated world came to an end. More than that, however, he entered an emancipating and open-ended community led by the Son of David.
We’re invited into that same community. Jesus is calling us at this crossroads in life to move on from our Jericho – to throw our encumbering baggage aside and to let the walls of a world that restricts and confines us collapse behind us. He points us toward the future he has secured for us by dying to dead-end living and rising to a life that finds itself fulfilled in service to others. Jesus is calling us by name. But do we really want to have our eyes opened? Seeing, after all, can be dangerous. How do we people of faith survive the journey? How do we survive seeing the world around us? We follow the example of Bartimaeus: We begin with Jesus, knowing that it will end in resurrection. AMEN