Mark 10:46-52
Whenever a Bible story includes someone being healed from a disability, progressive preachers get a wee bit antsy. We have to be careful because we don’t want to imply that being blind or deaf or lame makes someone “less than” others who are not. We don’t want to imply that people with disabilities are not whole. And we certainly don’t want to imply that if someone isn’t healed, then it is their fault for not having enough faith.
Besides, having a disability does not limit one’s ability to make a difference. Take Tyler, for example. I think he was around sixteen when we met. He and other teenagers with developmental disabilities cleaned our church every week, and he was always friendly. But I didn’t get to know him until his family started attending worship. In that church the tradition was to invite visitors to introduce themselves if they wanted to do so. On their first Sunday, after his father introduced the family, Tyler stood up and held out the money his mom had given him for the offering. “I have money for you,” he announced. I said, “Thank you, Tyler. You can save that until we pass the plates.” “I have money for you,” he repeated. So of course I walked down to where he was standing and accepted his offering.
Tyler is very affectionate, but he has specific limits before he really knows you. Before he is ready to give you hugs, he expresses his love by messing up your hair. I never knew what my hair looked like during worship because the passing of the peace was a perfect time for him to express his affection! In fact, at times you could look around the sanctuary and see where he had been!
Tyler goes through phases, and for a while, when we invited visitors to introduce themselves, Tyler would always introduce whoever he was sitting with that day, whether it was the moderator or a choir member or the sixty-year-old woman who was born into that church. One woman admitted to me that it always made her feel good when he did that. “I feel claimed,” she said.
Tyler taught us so many lessons. He taught us that when you are moved to be generous, don’t wait! He taught us not to worry about appearances. Who cares if our hair was messed up? It was much more important that we know Tyler loved us. He taught us the importance of acknowledging our friends and claiming them.
When I first started at that church, hugs were rare. Being a proper New England congregation, everyone shook my hand but few people offered hugs at first. By the time I left, that was one of the hugginest bunch of people I ever met! I’m sure a little bit of that was me, but most of it was Tyler. Because he loved us all, he united us. Because we opened ourselves up to him, we became open with one another. He connected us.
There are many things Tyler will never understand, like the fact that his mother doesn’t control the weather so it’s not her fault when it rains. But Tyler understands unconditional love and mercy in ways that I can only strive to emulate. I am a better pastor—heck, I’m a better person!—because of Tyler and his family. Tyler may be “disabled,” but he is also gifted.
And so was Bartimaeus. The first gift he displays is the ability to see, metaphorically, what others can’t. He is the first person in the Gospel of Mark to call Jesus “Son of David” a Messianic title. How often is that the case? We expect great wisdom from the sages among us, and we aren’t disappointed when they come through with great insight. But we are far more disarmed when the wisdom comes from an unexpected source.
The second gift Bartimaeus displays is perseverance. When he cries out for Jesus’ help, the crowd tries to silence him. They are embarrassed, no doubt, by his outburst in front of the visiting preacher. But they had a greater reason to be embarrassed. The fact that he was begging revealed that someone was not fulfilling his responsibilities. It was the responsibility of the family to care for members who were not able to care for themselves. And in the absence of family, or in the case of family unable or unwilling to help, then it was the community’s responsibility. The prophets were very clear on this point. So the townspeople tell Bartimaeus to be quiet because he is a vivid—not to mention loud—sign of their failure.
But Bartimaeus will not be silenced. He cries out again, even louder: Son of David, have mercy on me! His perseverance pays off. Jesus hears and stops. Notice that Jesus doesn’t call Bartimaeus himself. He makes the villagers do it, because they are the ones who have been silencing him. Suddenly they change their tune. Instead of “sternly ordering him to be quiet,” they say “Take heart!” or “Have courage!” Jesus is calling you.
The scripture says: “So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.” That’s his next gift: the willingness to throw off his cloak. This isn’t just a random descriptive phrase to help us visualize the scene because a beggar’s cloak wasn’t just an article of clothing. It was his shelter from the elements, his blanket and his tent. It also was what he would have laid on the ground to collect what was given to him, sort of like a street musician’s open guitar case. So by casting aside his cloak, he is demonstrating his belief that he is not going to need it any more. He is so sure that Jesus will heal him that he throws aside the symbol of his blindness, his dependence, his poverty. How amazing is that, to have that kind of faith?
We could take this example too far, of course. We could take this as instruction to resist medical treatment, believing that God will heal us. But I don’t think that’s the lesson for us today. I think the important question is: what are we holding onto that keeps us from the healing we need?
Finally Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” It seems like a strange question, doesn’t it? Or at least one with an obvious answer. What else do you think the blind man would ask for? More generous donations? A nicer cloak to catch them in? Perhaps a blind friend to keep him company? Those might have been nice, but he asked for what he knew he needed most: “My Teacher, let me see again.”
It’s ironic . . . not that the blind man would ask for what he needed, but that we don’t. Too many of us sit on the side of the road. We’re not sure how we got there—a broken dream, a broken heart, an unexpected change in circumstances, or a lifelong struggle we just can’t conquer. But whatever it is that got us here, here we are . . . on the margins.
Maybe we’re not on the margins of society, but on the margins of our own lives, our own potential; wanting to try but fearing failure; wanting success but sabotaging it every time we get close. Maybe we’re on the margins of community; close enough to be known by name but not close enough to be known by heart. Maybe we’re on the margins of intimacy; wanting it, craving it, yearning for it, but not allowing ourselves to get close enough to get hurt. Maybe we’re on the margins of our own spirituality, our own relationship with God; afraid of being seen as a fanatic; afraid of having too little faith, or too much; afraid of finding out God isn’t real; afraid of finding out God is so real that our priorities will have to change.
Jennifer Knapp was a successful Contemporary Christian recording artist—until she came out as a lesbian. She describes the pain of living in the closet in her song “Dive In.”
Careful what you say. Careful who might hear.
Someone else inside the universe could write it down
And you’ll be hearing it for years
Don’t feel, don’t fall. Just turn and face the wall.
I’m like a convict with my hands locked over my head.
I’m a dead man walking.
I’m so tired of standing on the edge of myself.
You know I’m longing for it—to dive in, dive in.
Too often we stand on the edge of ourselves. We stand on the margins, lacking vision, accepting whatever handouts come our way. And in those times that come to each of us, when we feel like God is a million miles and a thousand heartaches away, we want to cry out, “God, have mercy on me. Let me see again.” We long for the days when we saw the world through unjaded eyes. We long for the moments when God seemed a mere breath away. We long for the wonder, the beauty, the joy. And we cry out, “Let me see again.”
And sometimes our prayers are answered, and sometimes it seems they aren’t. And if they aren’t answered too many times, then we stop asking because we’re afraid of never getting a response. It feels better to not ask at all than to ask and not get what we need. And so we become spiritually incapacitated, and we sit by the side of the road and hold out our beggar’s cup. We hold it out and we accept any spiritual-sounding hand-out: a penny’s worth of platitudes, a nickel of nice, easy answers. And any nugget sounds like gold in an empty cup.
We don’t have to be beggars. We don’t have to be on the margins. We can throw aside our cloak of scarcity— whatever we use to catch the measly handouts that come our way—and we can step into abundance, with its power for healing and restoration.
Jesus said, “Go; your faith has made you well.” But Bartimaeus didn’t go. At least, he didn’t go away. Instead he followed. He followed the one, the only one, who had the power to give him what he needed.
“Take heart! Get up. Jesus is calling you.”