Rebuking the Jericho Road
Today, Jesus is in Jericho. The last stop a pilgrim would have made before making their way into Jerusalem for the Passover festival. This road Jesus and his followers traveled was packed, jam-packed with pilgrims, vendors, and folks like Bartimaeus. With so many pilgrims heading toward Jerusalem, the Jericho highway would have been an excellent spot for a blind beggar, for anyone in need like Bartimaeus, to have great odds at receiving alms – money for the poor from well-meaning religious people.
Bartimaeus sat alongside the road as Jesus, his disciples, and the growing crowd following Jesus approached. Above the noises of the busy highway, Bartimaeus shouted, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Over and over again, Bartimaeus' shouts fought against the sounds of the Jericho Road. "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
As Bartimaeus shouted out Jesus' name, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me," he was rebuked, told to keep it down, be quiet, by a religious pilgrim, a fellow beggar, or maybe one of Jesus' disciples.
"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked Bartimaeus.
"I want to be able to see," Bartimaeus humbly responded.
And he saw. And he followed.
If we are not careful, this interaction between Bartimaeus and Jesus becomes another healing story that demonstrates Jesus' power, another live-action teaching moment. But we have plenty of those moments. For the past ten chapters, Jesus has been healing his way toward the capital city: a leper in chapter 1, Jairus the General's daughter and a hemorrhaging woman in chapter 5, and a different blind man back in chapter 8. When Jesus wasn't healing, he was teaching. "My teacher," the title used by Bartimaeus after Jesus called him, is used three other times by Mark, all with the Aramaic root identifying Jesus as an authority of the. Healings and teachings, teachings and healings all lead to this moment. We are on the Jericho Road, and the next exit is Jerusalem. We are at the culminating moment of Mark's gospel.
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
"What do you want me to do for you?"
"Let me see again."
Jesus' question to Bartimaeus was not the first time Jesus asked this question. A few verses before his Jericho encounter with Bartimaeus, Jesus asked two of his disciples, James and John, the same question.
"What do you want me to do for you?"
The disciples said, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." [i]
James and John, two disciples who had been following Jesus since the beginning of his ministry, two disciples who were witnesses to healing after healing and teaching after teaching were asked what they wanted the Son of God to do for them, and they requested status and prestige. But when Jesus asks the very same question, word for word, to Bartimaeus, Bartimaeus asks that his sight be restored after declaring Jesus to be both Lord and teacher. Lord and teacher, the two statements begin a life of discipleship.
The story of the healing and response of Bartimaeus invites us to ask ourselves, "what do I want from Jesus?" Are we going to look at Jesus as James and John did as the eternal life status and prestige provider? Is Jesus to be our Lord or our errand boy?
As those who have declared Jesus to be Lord and those who have said yes to his invitation to follow, are we indeed his faithful followers, like Bartimaeus, or are we like James and John, looking for what we can get out of the deal? Faithful follower or pestering clients?
A mentor of mine suggests we flip Jesus' question, doing what Jesus did time and time again when asked a question, asking him, "Jesus, what do you want from me? What do you want from us?"
It is a fair question to ask; you could say it is a biblical question because just last week, the rich young man asked a similar question to Jesus, "what must I do."
"Jesus, I know who you are, and I have seen what you can do. What do you want from me?"
Telling the rich young man to sell it all, Jesus said he wanted all of him. Not the one hour a week convenient for his schedule version of him, no, Jesus wanted all of the man. This so grieved the rich young man that God would want all of him that he had no words in response for Jesus. But Bartimaeus threw off all that he had, his only source of income, the garment he had laid out day after day hoping a good-doing religious type could spare a buck or two, and he followed. He left everything from his life behind and followed Jesus.
At the moment of his calling, Bartimaeus abandoned every remnant of his old life to seek a new life with Jesus – Lord and teacher. The gospel tells us after Bartimaeus did this, his sight was restored, and he followed Jesus on the way. The way Jesus was following would lead him to the cross, to having his own life stripped away.
A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Jeff's message was that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, here now. We don't travel to heaven; God has traveled to us. We are living with God now, instructed to love God and love people. Knowing that, how do you, how will you live differently? Believing that heaven is truly at hand, that God has come to us – does that give you the freedom to live differently, sharing your time, your money, yourself, your love, your prayers, your gifts, your service, and your witness?
Generous living as a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be like Bartimaeus, like the saints of the past, to give our whole selves over to being formed, shaped by the one who calls out, over the noise of the world that rebukes us, telling us we are insignificant and not enough, not worthy of someone else's time. Our time, our generosity, our love joins us with Christ. This is what it means in our communion liturgy when we pray that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood in transforming this world, as we work together to ensure all are loved, cared for, and heard. In giving our whole selves to Jesus, we can do what the rich young man could not do and live as James and John could not imagine, but what Bartimaeus the blind beggar did without hesitation. Namely, allowing the establishing and maintaining of wealth and status and prestige to take a backseat to follow the extravagant grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Faith in Christ is not simply the conviction that Jesus is our divine errand boy or healer, but instead that Jesus wants us to follow. All of us. Every part of us. Because Bartimaeus followed, his story stands as a rebuke to the world and an invitation to us who may not be as energetic or even as faithful in our following of Jesus. But in following, like Bartimaeus, like James and John, the extravagant generosity of God in Jesus Christ belongs to you, to me, to all of creation. And in that generosity, we are free to live a new life in Jesus Christ, throwing off the garments of this life. A life of sharing our time, our money, our love, sharing our whole selves.
[i] Mark 10:37
