Rejected by the worshipping community, blind Bartimaeus is commended for his faith. A reflection given to the delightful Rosanna Baptist Church on 17 March 2024. You can listen to a (very tinny) recording of it here.
He was slumped outside the city gate, because he wasn’t allowed to enter. Once, he had been on the inside, but not any more. Maybe he asked too many questions. Maybe he struggled to make nice. Maybe people felt uncomfortable around his disability, or his kid’s. Or maybe people’s reactions to his sexuality or gender had pushed him out.
Whatever the reason, he had been criticized, then judged, then driven out, then erased. He was not to mingle with the inside folk: and they had been warned. Hanging out with him would taint them, might even lead to them being thrown out, too. So they carefully avoided him; they averted their eyes; they never returned his calls.
It wasn’t about his faith. He still loved God. And through it all he had kept praying, kept trusting, kept sharing his crusts and coins with the people sitting beside him outside the city gate. And yet, there was something about him which meant religious folk avoided him, and banned others from mixing with him, too. He had begged and prayed for things to be different, to be let inside the gate, but this one thing never changed. And so, despite all his trust and prayer and love, because of this one thing, this one taboo, he had been rejected and kicked out.
Perhaps you know someone like this. Perhaps you have been that person yourself. I think of gay friends who were publicly refused communion then expelled from their church. Or I think of a family with an autistic kid. This child would quietly wander the sanctuary and touch things during the service – it was so distracting! – and so the elders asked the parents to keep their kid at home. I think of all the people who have been told by churches to stop asking difficult questions, or who have been ordered to agree to things they could never, ever affirm. And I think of countless people who are stuck outside because there is no proper ramp and no suitable toilet and no acceptance of different pronouns. There are so many ways to end up outside, sitting in the dust.
Bartimaeus was there because he was blind. In his day and age, blind people were considered unclean; they were polluting; they were forbidden from mixing with the sighted for fear of contamination. And perhaps his condition was inherited, for his name can mean ‘son of the unclean.’ Whatever, our story meets him on the roadside, on the outside, in his darkness, waiting for crumbs from the table. But lest we sit in darkness, too, let’s leave him there for a moment, as we tell two related stories which come a little earlier in the gospel according to Mark.
First, there’s the story of a rich man. This man, he’s rolling in it. He has, we can assume, children and fields in abundance, and no doubt a beautifully soft and warm fur cloak. Already, he has so much, but when he meets Jesus on the road, he wants to know how he can get even more. ‘Good Teacher,’ he asks, ‘what must I do to inherit life, more life?’
At this, Jesus looks with love into his heart. Maybe he sees that the man is possessed by his possessions. Maybe he sees that life is just another thing that the man longs to possess. Whatever, Jesus tells him to get rid of the things which have captured his heart: his big house and his holiday home and his investment property. His wheels and his slaves. His bank balance and his shares in the grain industry. His seventeen pairs of leather sandals, and his soft and warm fur cloak. ‘Sell what you own,’ says Jesus, ‘and give the money to the poor … then come, follow me.’
The rich man is horrified. Give it all up? He can’t! He won’t. What would the neighbours say? So with a great swirl of his cloak, he turns his back on Jesus and ‘[goes] away, grieving, for he had many possessions.’ (Mark 10:17-22).
The second story involves the disciples. They’re on the road to Jerusalem, and not for the first time they’re jockeying for status. Jesus has just told them he will be crucified and, by implication, dragged outside the city gates. At this, James and John come forward; they want him to do as they wish. Jesus says, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ They ask for greatness and glory: but it turns out that these are not his to give. Instead, Jesus reminds his disciples that if they want to be great in God’s kingdom, they must be least of all.
At this, they arrive in Jericho. And on the way out again, on the road to Jerusalem, sits someone who might be reckoned among the least. Blind Bartimaeus, son of the unclean, excluded, stigmatized, broke. Like all beggars, he has only one possession: his cloak. This filthy scrap of patched and worn cloth is his protection and his livelihood. By night, he wraps himself in it for cover and warmth; by day, he spreads it on the ground to collect a few crusts, a few coins. So there he is on the roadside, on the outside, in his darkness, with his one possession: his cloak.
As he sits, Bartimaeus hears a large crowd coming out the gate. Someone in the crowd is speaking: and the voice resonates deep inside him. ‘Who is it?’ he asks up the beggars’ line, ‘Who’s that?’ Gradually word filters back: ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’
Jesus! The rumours have reached him. This is the one who touches rejected people, and draws them into community. The one who healed a bleeding woman when she simply grabbed his cloak: and instead of rebuking her for mixing with the crowd, he commended her and praised her faith. The one who raised a corpselike boy amidst his father’s faith and doubt. The one who centres sick and snivelling children, and who seems to love everyone.
The one who sounds, in fact, like the long-awaited messiah, giving voice to the voiceless and sight to the blind, healer and saviour of all. And as everyone knows, the messiah is David’s son. Making the connection, Bartimaeus fills his lungs and shouts: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’
The crowd hears. Oh yes, they hear alright. But he had been kicked out, silenced, erased. He wasn’t supposed to mingle with them; he wasn’t supposed to draw attention to himself. So when Bartimaeus cries, ‘Have mercy!’, the crowd snarls, ‘Shut up!’
What crowd is this? The disciples and those from inside the city who claim to be following Jesus.
‘Have mercy,’ says the trans man, and the crowd says, ‘You freak.’
‘Have mercy,’ says the lesbian, and crowd says, ‘Repent, and be straight.’
‘Have mercy,’ says the black man under a policeman’s knee, and the crowd says, ‘Must be drugs.’
‘Have mercy,’ says the woman in a wheelchair, and the crowd says, ‘Access ramps are expensive, have you tried healing prayer?’
‘Have mercy,’ says the family facing homelessness, and the crowd says, ‘It’s an investment property, I have the right to raise the rent.’
Yada yada yada, whatever, be quiet. You are not worthy of our attention, tenderness or care. We are not remotely curious what it’s like to be you; in fact, we don’t want to know. We’re allowed in the gate, we’re convinced of our own righteousness, everything’s fine and nothing will change. So sit down, shut up, and don’t bother us again with your needs and demands for mercy. In these and so many ways, the crowd rebukes Bartimaeus and those sitting with him, and orders them to be quiet.
And I wonder, What does it take to try again? What strength of character? What resilience? What confidence, what courage, what vast reservoir of faith? Because Bartimaeus knows the risks. He depends on charity for survival. If he angers the crowd, they might withhold their meagre offerings; they might even throw stones instead of bread. But something inside him, something faithful and true, inspires him to fill his lungs again and shout even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’
This time, Jesus hears: and when he hears, Jesus knows he has been seen. For this is the first time he is called Son of David. The first time he is truly recognized as saviour and king: and not by disciple, rich man, Pharisee, or priest, and certainly not by the crowd. Instead it is the beggar by the roadside, the one cast out of the worshipping community, the one who apparently cannot see, who has truly, deeply seen. Blind Bartimaeus is the one with vision; and perhaps it is precisely his experience of disability and how other people respond that have given him such insight.
Well. Jesus calls to Bartimaeus: and the blind man must find his way through the mob. But for a man with his courage? He’s more than up to it. He throws off his cloak, his livelihood, his only possession, and leaps up to stand with Jesus.
And what a contrast! Because, you will remember, the rich man rejected a direct invitation to shed his possessions and become a disciple; instead, he swirled around in his fine fur coat and walked away, grieving, ‘for he had many possessions.’ But the poor man: he didn’t even wait to be asked! He threw off his only possession to join the movement: and in this act we see profound faith. Indeed, in Mark’s story it is not the rich but the poor, not insiders but those cast to the margins, who understand the gospel and live it.
People like Bartimaeus. Because Bartimaeus sees: and Jesus sees him in return. He sees beyond the blindness, beyond the symtpoms, beyond the poverty, into the fullness of the person. Jesus sees beyond the rejection of the wider community and the terrible effects this can have; he sees Bartimaeus’s faith. Yet despite his seeing, Jesus doesn’t presume to know what Bartimaeus wants or needs. He doesn’t assume Bartimaeus wants his blindness healed, or his poverty alleviated: because sometimes the presenting issues are not the most important. And so, just as he said to James and John, Jesus asks, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’
Again, Bartimaeus demonstrates deep insight. For where James and John sought greatness and glory, Bartimaeus seeks something else. Not status, not power, not possessions, not glory. Just this: ‘My teacher, let me see again.’
And this, Jesus can grant: for perhaps, just perhaps, Bartimaeus has been seeing clearly all along. Perhaps, despite the issue which led the community to reject him, he had always been faithful. Perhaps, to light up his darkness, all he ever needed was affirmation, acceptance, solidarity, and love. For Jesus does no magic tricks. There’s no mud, no spit, no pool of Siloam; Jesus doesn’t even touch him. There are no second tries or people looking like trees, walking; there are no groaning prayers. Instead Jesus simply commends the son of the unclean, saying, ‘Your faith has made you well.’ Bartimaeus’s faith. The faith of the outsider. The faith of the one who has been shown the door is the faith which makes people whole.
Not the faith of the inside group, assured of their own righteousness. Not the faith of those worried about purity, and anxious to eradicate difference. Not the faith of those who wield rules like weapons and condemn vulnerable people for their ‘lifestyle.’ Nor is it the faith of those who block people from accessing Jesus and claim that they have the monopoly. Instead, it’s the faith of the rejected one which heals and makes someone whole.
This is faith which takes the initiative. It’s faith which resists the snarling hostility of the crowd and insists, I, too, am fully human, made in the image of God. It’s faith which is forged in the crucible of suffering. It’s faith which refuses to be silenced, and which despite other people’s persecution and denial continues to demand mercy. Like the bleeding woman whose initiative healed her, like the Syrophoenician woman who demanded crumbs for her daughter, Bartimaeus has a powerful and resilient faith, and it is this which heals him.
I think here of so many faithful ones who still trust Jesus, even when a church has denied them. The family with an autistic kid. The trans man and his wife. The lesbian whose exorcisms were ineffective, because there was nothing to be exorcised. The survivor of intimate partner violence, who turned her back on a pastor’s insistence that her role was to submit and forgive, and got an intervention order, instead.
I think of all the ones who read too much and asked too many questions and experienced a paradigm shift in faith, and are no longer able to accept insider/outsider thinking or suffocating externally enforced rules. The ones who, despite the rejection of the crowd and its attempts to silence them, continue to call out, ‘Jesus, have mercy!’. This is the faith which Jesus commends and, as many of us can affirm, it’s powerfully alive and thriving outside the walls of the church.
My friends, we are here inside the church. So as we near the end of the journey to Jerusalem, this story contains some powerful challenges to us. Next week, it’s all Hosannas and palm branches and I wonder, what sort of crowd are we? Do we rely on our own purity and righteousness, while throwing people to the dogs? Do we claim to be following Jesus, while ignoring those who suffer? Are we the crowd which snarls, ‘Shut up!’, or do we say, ‘Take heart, stand up, he is calling you!’
And where do we place our faith? In warm cloaks, wheels, property, investments, superannuation, status and privilege? Or in the one who asks us to leave it all behind and come, follow him?
And where do we place ourselves? Do we assume we are at the centre of things? Or are we doing battle with the demons of power, entitlement, and privilege, and everything else which makes us oblivious to those outside the gate? Do we acknowledge we all have blind spots? Do we seek healing? Are we open to change?
My friends, Jesus asks, he will always ask: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ And I wonder, What will you say, today?
Let us pray:
Jesus our Teacher, Healer and King,
in the noise of the crowd
you heard Bartimaeus’s cry.
Open our ears to the voices
we might prefer to ignore.
Open our eyes to the faithfulness
of those living beyond the walls.
Open our hearts to the insights
of diverse new companions,
as we journey towards Jerusalem with You. Amen. Ω
A reflection shared with Rosanna Baptist Church on 17 March 2024 (off lectionary) © Alison Sampson 2024. Photo by Roman Grachev on Unsplash.
Alison and the whale 