by Rev. Scott Summerville

Mark 10:46-52

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

When our son was three or four years old, one of his favorite books was entitled Blind Bartimaeus of Jericho. It was a child’s version of the story of Bartimaeus found in Chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark. In the original story in the Gospel of Mark, Bartimaeus shouts out from the crowd,“Jesus, son of David have mercy on me!” For some reason the crowd is hostile to the poor guy. Mark reports that, “Many sternly ordered him to be quiet.”

In the children’s version that we read to our son, the people in the crowd say to Bartimaeus, “Hush, blind fool!” Jesus, however, hears his appeal for help and restores his sight. Our son really liked those words, “Hush blind fool!” That was the part of the story that stuck in his mind. He would use that expression with his sister when she was annoying him, and one fateful day he tried using that expression when his mother asked him to do something he did not wish to do. “Hush blind fool!” That’s when he learned how much trouble you can get into just by quoting the Bible.

It is a great children’s story: a blind guy by the side of the road, lost in the crowd, told to be quiet – every child can identify with the little guy who is told to be quiet, because the bigger more important people have more important things to do. When Jesus pays attention to the little guy and calls him forward and talks to him, this is a very satisfying outcome from the child’s perspective.

This morning I suggest that we look at this story in its relationship to the story that came before it which I talked about last Sunday. If you missed church last Sunday, I am sure that you read my message online, however, just in case there are some slackers among us, let me refresh your memory:

Last week’s reading concerns two very important disciples of Jesus – James and John – two of the three first string disciples – you didn’t know there were first string disciples? There certainly were: James and John and Peter were the first string, the Big Three. In this story, James and John came to Jesus and tell him that there is something that they want. Jesus says to them, (Mark 10:36) “What is it you want me to do for you?” They explain that they want power and glory. Jesus tells them “You don’t get it – you don’t understand what you are asking for.” Then he gives them a lesson in humility and leadership: “I am among you as one who serves; the greatest among you must be your servant.” Very striking, isn’t it, that these two, two of the three most important disciples, missed the point so badly.

So here’s where the Bible gets interesting: in the next story in the Gospel of Mark – the story of the blind beggar Bartimaeus, we have another person who wants something very badly – so much so that he is shouting at Jesus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus said to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Ah! – remember – that is the question Jesus asked James and John.

In these back to back stories in the gospel of Mark Jesus asks exactly the same question: what do you want me to do for you? That is the question we focused on last week – what do you want? Jesus challenges us with that question – what do you want? – do you really know what you want, and what makes you think that if you get what you think you want you will not just want something else, so what it is that you really want? According to Jesus, James and John do not know what they want, but Bartimaeus does. We have just seen that the disciples were blind; they did not see, but now a blind man asks to see; he begs to see. “My teacher, let me see again,” and Jesus responds.

Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.”
Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Did you notice that final detail? “…he followed him on the way – Bartimaeus became a disciple. The official disciples do not get it; they are blind. The one who is not a disciple, the one who has never heard Jesus speak until that moment; he is the one who gets it; he sees; he understands the message of his teacher, and he becomes a disciple. As Jesus goes from place to place he restores sight to the blind, and he challenges those who have sight to open their eyes. A bit odd isn’t it? Jesus teaches those who have sight to see. How is your eyesight?

At a wedding rehearsal this week there was a little boy, five years old. They say that happy healthy children should behave like puppies; like a frisky puppy. As we were waiting outside the restaurant before the rehearsal dinner, suddenly the little boy started to cry out, “O my God! O my God! O my God!” He was crouching down in the grass looking at something. Everyone came over to see what was going on. “O my God! O my God!” he kept saying. “What is it? What is it?” his father asked. “It’s a different kind of leaf,” he said, holding up a yellow leaf that had fallen from a nearby tree. It’s a different kind of leaf! Children make us aware of how little we really see. Children are constantly bringing us back to awareness of things that we see but do not see. They reawakened for us the wonder of the world to which we have become blind.

And what about those people in the crowd trying to silence Bartimaeus? They represent all those forces that tried to keep us from opening our eyes and seeing what is really before us. To a large extent we see what we are allowed to see.

From time to time I mention a woman named Virginia Satir, a teacher and a therapist who has distilled great wisdom into a few words. She argues that all of us are longing for freedom and authenticity, but we are surrounded by all kinds of forces that inhibit our freedom and encourage us to be fake. She has distilled the essence of what it means to be human and healthy and free into five affirmations, the Five Freedoms she calls them. They are:

The freedom to see and hear what is, instead of what should be, what was, or what will be.

The freedom to say what one feels and thinks, instead of what one should.

The freedom to feel what one feels, instead of what one ought.

The freedom to ask for what one wants, instead of always waiting for permission.

The freedom to take risks in one’s own behalf, instead of choosing to be only “secure” and not rocking the boat.

Notice that the very first freedom on her list is: the freedom to see and hear what is, instead of what should be, what was, or what will be. The crowd around Bartimaeus wants him to shut up. His neighbors are quite content for him to be blind and silent for the rest of his life. What happens to human beings when they are forced to close their eyes and close their mouths?

It means the quiet death of the soul. As a therapist Virginia Satir is very concerned with families, and these truths apply to families. Imagine the child of an abusive parent. The child can never be free; that child will live in oppression and probably depression, until such time as that child can find her or his voice and be able to see and hear and speak the truth.

Whether it is the family, the office, the church – in any relationship and in any community – there will always be pressure to conform and to suppress truth, and there will be the fear of rocking the boats, the fear of telling the truth. And there will always be the need for human beings to claim their freedom and to see and hear and speak what they truly see and hear.

It is remarkable that we have as a nation been at war for so many years and yet how little of that war we have actually seen, that is unless we have been there. For a long time the government decided that the American people should not even see the flag draped caskets returning from the battlefield. “Hush! Be quiet. Don’t look – there are things we do not want you to see. There are things we should not speak of.” So we have this paradox: bloody wars censored for the folks back home so as not to disturb us, and then we wonder why so many of the soldiers returning are so damaged psychologically as well as physically.

Jesus, acting by the power of God, gives sight to the blind. And just as often he tells those who can see that they are blind. What does Jesus want us to see? To see the stranger as neighbor. To see our own lives as honestly and clearly as we think we see the lives of others. What does Jesus want us to see? To see what our real values are – what we actually care about and live for and spend our time and money on, as opposed to what we profess to care about. What does Jesus want us to see? To see the sacredness of all things – the infinite in the infinitesimal – down to the smallest detail – “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered,” he says.

What does Jesus want us to see? To see the poor. To see hungry people even in our affluent county of Westchester. In one of his parables a rich man keeps tripping over the poor man at his door. The rich man with perfectly good eyes is blind. Jesus ermoasks us to recognize him, to see him, in the breaking of bread in his name and in the church’s attention to the poor: “This is my body given for you.” “Whatever you do unto the least of these my sisters and brothers you do unto me.”

Jesus asks us over and over again, “Now do you see?”

Shalom, Salaam, Grace and Peace to you.