Loading...I know that I’ve told you this before, but I think it is important for me to tell you this bit of a story again. When I was on my educational pilgrimage in Israel, Ezra, our tour guide, repeatedly told us to “pay attention to the distance.”
Sometimes, where something happens in the stories of Jesus, is as important as when in the story it happens. In today’s Gospel, both are true.
Jesus and the disciples are leaving Jericho, a town that is about 20 miles or about a two day’s walk from Jerusalem. This is the last story in Mark’s Gospel before Jesus enters Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey, just days before his arrest, trial, beating, and lynching.
They are not alone as they depart Jericho. Crowds of people are going to travel with them over the next couple of days. Some ahead, some alongside, some following, but still a crowd of people who have decided that this Jesus was someone worth following, no matter where he was headed.
And while that image is compelling enough—you can imagine the scene: people surrounding Jesus on his way to Jerusalem for the holy festival of Passover—the scene isn’t what the writer wants us to focus on these few verses in Mark. Rather, the focus lays on the blind beggar on the side of the road, Bar Timaeus. “Bar” meaning “son” – son of Timaeus. A man, who could once see, but something happened to cause his blindness.
A man who knows what it meant to have sight, to see. A man, who instead, now listens to the conversations spoken around him, and for the footfalls of the people passing by, hoping for a coin or two to fall on his cloak—perhaps providing enough to buy food for the day. A man on the margins of society, relying on the generosity and charity of others for his survival.
This man who hears a crowd approaching, listening, discerning why so many are walking past. Who recognizes that the one they are with is special in a way that no other is special.
The crowd may or may not have noticed him. Many may have stepped over or around him to maintain their position in the moving crowd. He could have remained silent, listening for coins to drop on his cloak, but he chose to speak out, calling to Jesus, stating, “Son of David, have mercy on me.”
We can wonder why or how he knew that Jesus was a descendent of King David, and why he felt compelled to call out in this way. The crowd may have also wondered, but their wonder may have come from their fear for the safety of Jesus, so they, the crowd this time and not the disciples, tried to quiet him. By calling out his lineage, Jesus could have become more easily identified by the authorities, who were already on high alert, looking for this prophet they believed was a threat to them.
The crowd could also have wanted to protect Jesus from someone they perceived as an unclean beggar who obviously must want something from Jesus. Perhaps they did not think Jesus needed that distraction from the journey they were just beginning.
We may never know why the crowd attempted to shush Bar Timaeus, but ultimately, it did not work. Jesus responded to the blind beggar, asking some from the crowd to bring him over. And they do.
Unlike the rich man we heard about a few weeks ago, the rich man who could not bring himself to sell all he had and give it to the poor, Bar Timaeus leapt up, tossing his coin-covered cloak, scattering the coins on the road, and left everything he owned, excited to meet Jesus face-to-face.
When they were near one another, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”
“What do you want me to do for you?”
What I find most beautiful about that question is that Jesus allowed this person who had what appeared to be an obvious need to tell him what it was he wanted. Jesus didn’t assume he knew the answer. And while Bar Timaeus told Jesus exactly what we would all expect would be his answer, “My teacher, let me see again,” his actions represent a deeper request. According to scholars, the act of throwing off his cloak is a way of expressing his request to be CHANGED, in other words, his request is one that would transform or turn the life he was living upside down.
His transformation could mean he could return to work which would mean he would no longer need to beg, meaning over time, he could become self-sufficient. If that happened, it could mean he could return to his important relationships, like his family and friends. He could potentially be welcomed again to worship in the synagogue. It might mean he would no longer be considered an outcast, marginalized by society. His status would change.
These are all good and realistic expectations. No one would think it odd if that’s what he desired and that was what would happen.
But I don’t think that was the transformation he was looking for.
I wonder if his blindness was not as literal as actual sight but was rather, a spiritual blindness. I wonder if he, earlier in his life, walked away from his faith, because in the story, Bar Timaeus himself says, “let me see AGAIN.”
I wonder if his faith, like the faith of so many in recent times, was wounded by something or someone in his place of worship, or if he became curious about and went to learn about other faith practices, or if he questioned how an all-knowing God could allow the world to suffer so much pain, or if he lost something or someone who made him question even the presence of God. I wonder if his faith community shunned him or shut him out because he was, well, his unique self?
I wonder if on this day, he is telling Jesus he is ready to see God afresh or anew. If he recognizes that he cannot survive without a closer walk with God. And that as he throws off his cloak, ridding himself of all his burdens, if he is publicly confirming that he is truly ready to follow Jesus.
I wonder if during this time of literal or spiritual blindness, Bar Timaeus experienced the undeniable love of God from strangers. I wonder if he could not accept it until he heard Jesus acknowledge the mercy that already covered him, and that his heart truly had enough faith. I wonder if he needed that blessed assurance that he could go into the world, confident that he was divinely loved.
I believe that there are times when any one of us can be blinded by the world. We can be tempted and tried. We can ask questions, quarrel, and squabble with God or the church. We can be angry with God, or with people who proclaim to know the mind of God, or with systems that try to put faith in a “pretty little box” that, when opened, harms emotions and physical bodies, rather than heals.
We can think God has abandoned us in our time of greatest need and not see Jesus in those who are walking with us when we hurt the most.
It can be easy to forget that God never leaves us, and to close our vision, to become blind, to all the possibilities and beauty around us that can never deny the abundant, creative love that resides in both the light and the shadows.
While this could be an epiphany moment, one of those unexpected “a-ha” moments that make us think about something in a new way, I feel instead that this is a moment of revelation for Bar Timaeus. In hearing Jesus as he tells him that his faith has made him well, Bar Timaeus chooses to turn his life around and actively follow Jesus. He is transformed into a new creation, loved and cherished, full of grace and mercy.
My sense is if his blindness is a spiritual one, after leaving his faith and/or faith community for whatever reason, Bar Timaeus spent significant time doing internal work and discernment, observation, study, trial and error. He may have had a foundation that crumbled under his feet but left something deep within him that gave him the ability and strength to leap up out of the life he had been leading.
Many people struggle and wrestle with their faith for many reasons. They may leave their faith, their place of worship, their family’s belief system because they need to figure it out for themselves rather than feel they are being told what and how to believe. Some people bounce from denomination to denomination, searching for a place that will accept them for who they are.
And when any one of these people find the place that “fits” for them, it just may be the place where they begin to SEE again, to know the mercy of Jesus, and where, when asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” they can confidently respond, “My teacher, let me see again. I’m making my choice and my choice is you.” And hear Jesus respond, “your faith has made you well.”
Amen.
