Mark 10:46-52
In today’s Gospel passage we receive a real-world illustration of the teaching Jesus has been trying to instill in his disciples over the last few weeks of readings. He told them to let the little children come to him, that those who wish to enter the kingdom must be like those children. He told them that for God all things are possible, even when they are impossible for us. He told them that the first will be last and the last will be first. And he told them that those who wish to become great must serve, and whoever wishes to be first must be servant of all. Jesus has been telling them again and again that it will be the marginalized, the overlooked, the humble and the meek and the forgotten who will be first in the new kingdom they are building together. The poor, the children, the servants and slaves, these are the people to whom God’s kingdom comes first in Jesus. And then Jesus passes through Jericho, accumulating followers and fascinated onlookers. We don’t know what Jesus taught them during his short stay in the ancient city, but clearly some of the crowd still aren’t getting the message about his inside-out kingdom. A blind man sitting by the road, impoverished and forced to beg for sustenance, cries out to Jesus, begging him for mercy. The crowd fuss at him and try to silence him, but Bartimaeus only gets louder. He has heard about Jesus of Nazareth, and he will not be passed over for a moment with the miraculous healer and wise teacher he’s heard about from passersby on the road.
The son of Timaeus is a beggar, which in the ancient world implies he has no one left to care for him or provide for him. He has no family to house and feed and clothe him, and he has not been given many options for earning a living. Much like today, people with disabilities like limited mobility, low vision, or profound hearing loss rarely had the support and accommodations necessary to provide for themselves. What was left for people like Bartimaeus was the goodwill and pity of others, the high-risk labor of begging from travelers along the road or in the public square, defenseless and exposed to the elements. Just like many of the people Jesus healed, the social system of family support, mutual aid, and religious charity has failed Bartimaeus. And still, homeless and penniless and sightless, Bartimaeus has a prophetic clarity of vision.
Bartimaeus calls Jesus Son of David, a title that is not used for Jesus in the Gospel of Mark before this moment. It will be used again by the crowds who welcome Jesus into Jerusalem on the back of a colt, on his last journey before his arrest. This is the title of the Messiah, the one who comes in the name of the Lord to save the people of the covenant from oppression. A blind beggar on the side of the road calls Jesus the savior of the world out loud for all to hear, something his own disciples struggled to do even in private. Once again, the kingdom of God is being led from the margins.
This is the reality that Jesus has been trying to impress upon his closest followers, the reality that has always challenged and convicted the Church. It is the people crying out for Jesus from the margins of society, the ones who have been ignored or forgotten or relegated to second-class status, who show us who Jesus really is. It is the desperate woman fleeing violence with her children, handing over her life’s savings to be smuggled across borders, risking arrest, injury, or death for the chance that her children might be safe in a new country. It is the mentally ill man who lost his job and his home a long time ago, with no cell phone or home address to put on applications for work or benefits. It is the child in foster care, wishing for home and fearing it at the same time. It is the disabled young woman who can’t work outside the home or attend church in person anymore because the buildings aren’t accessible, and people scoff when they see someone her age parking in a handicap spot. It is the blind beggar on the side of the road, cloak laid out beneath him, the only cushion he has against the hard earth and the only protection he has to surround himself with at night. These are the people who know the Messiah when they see him, even if their eyes are too cloudy to make out his features. These are the ones Jesus tells us will be first in the kingdom, regardless of what our kings and rulers and leaders and our own expectations might say to the contrary.
So what is wrong with this picture? A blind beggar was sitting by the roadside. It’s not the blindness, but the fact that a person was left with no other choice but to beg. There is nothing wrong with Bartimaeus; it is the society in which he lived that is broken and in need of healing. It is the same today; it is not the immigrant mother, the foster child, the disabled young woman, the mentally ill man, the Deaf professor who is the problem to be solved. It is our way of being, our social and economic systems, that must be healed. It is the fact that we would leave anyone with no choice but to beg, to sit alone and exposed and hungry in a world that is so abundant. It is the fact that we prioritize things like aesthetics or historicity or convenience over enabling all people to access what so many of us take for granted. It is the fact that our culture values productivity and profitability at the expense of physical and mental health, so much so that for some people it is genuinely easier to stand in the weather at an intersection all day holding up a cardboard sign than it is to access the resources they desperately need. What’s wrong with the picture is that someone was alone, and they shouldn’t have had to be. Not when God made us for one another.
You see, we still look at stories like this one and see Jesus fixing something that was wrong with someone. We hear that someone is a blind beggar, and we assume that it’s the blindness that’s the problem. Ask people who are Deaf or hard of hearing or blind, and you’ll find that many of them wouldn’t change that part of themselves if they could. My ASL professor in college told us that he loved being Deaf, that the only people who thought there was something wrong with him were hearing people who bemoaned everything he was missing instead of learning how to communicate with him. But Jesus understands, and I think that’s why he asked Bartimaeus that incredible question- “What do you want me to do for you?” We might assume that it’s obvious, of course Bartimaeus wants to be healed of his blindness, that’s the thing that’s wrong with him. And Bartimaeus does ask to see again, and by the Grace of God he does. But pay attention to what comes next. “He regained his sight and followed him on the way.” Bartimaeus has thrown off his cloak, his sole possession, to go to Jesus. Immediately, he follows him and becomes a disciple of the Way. He leaves behind the life that was limited by isolation, lack of support, and marginalization and instead becomes a part of a limitless family, a body of many members fed by Jesus. Bartimaeus was relegated to a life of begging by a society that did not see him as valuable. The last time he ever begged was when he cried out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” There were some who tried to silence him. I hope we learn to listen instead.
Mother A Writes 