I preached on this story at The Commonwealth on October 27, 2024. Erin preached on the same story at Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Monroeville. Check out her post to see how our different personalities filter the same text!
The crowd was on the move to Jerusalem and hopes were high.
The city had been the capital of Israel, but the Romans had occupied it for a century. And the pilgrims were on their way there to celebrate Passover, one of the major holidays of the Jewish tradition.
The Passover, as you may know, celebrates the liberation of the Hebrew people from an earlier empire ruled by the Egyptians. And not just their liberation, but the divine defeat of the entire Egyptian army. And the significance of this was not lost on the crowd as they approached their former capital. In fact some of them were projecting their hopes for a revolution onto the new radical teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, who was walking with them.
Jesus, meanwhile, was feeling the weight of these expectations. Throughout his ministry, he had struggled to shake off the crowd’s hopes for a warrior king in the style of King David. Jesus did not want to be King David. He did not want to rule Israel from a throne in Jerusalem. If he felt like anyone from the Bible, it was probably the Suffering Servant that the prophets Isaiah and Daniel had talked about. A leader who would suffer on behalf of his people before establishing justice and peace from a place beyond this world, one that supersedes all human government.
In fact, just before the crowd passed through Jericho, Jesus had pulled the disciples aside to share his cryptic predictions that in Jerusalem the Romans would arrest him, mock him, spit on him, flog him, and ultimately kill him. But that in three days he would rise again.
James and John, perhaps not fully hearing the part where Jesus would suffer and die, had asked to sit at his right and left when he came to power. When the other disciples overheard this blatant power grab, they were furious. But Jesus defused the situation with the famous explanation, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Which is not exactly the ideal mission statement for a warrior messiah who seizes power through revolutionary violence. Jesus seemed to have some other strategy for social change in mind.
As the crowd was leaving Jericho, there was a man named Bartimaeus who had lost his sight. In that society, not being able to see meant not being able to work. And not being able to work meant not being able to eat. So he was dependent on the kindness of strangers. He was forced to work as a beggar. No longer able to join the festive procession to Jerusalem, left out of the fun and excitement that he had enjoyed in the past, Bartimaeus made the best of it. He wisely placed himself along the path of the pilgrims, hoping to at least get some coins from people who might be in a giving mood.
And then he heard that Jesus was in the crowd and he got a new idea. He called out to Jesus himself for help. And the crowd said, “This is great! Because, you see, we are on our way to celebrate our liberation from the bondage of human oppression, and if Jesus can liberate you from the tiny box of social and economic isolation society has put you into, we would feel so good about that!”
Just kidding. They told him to shut the hell up.
Mark doesn’t say why they do this. But we can imagine. Maybe they’ve met a lot of beggars along the way and their hearts have grown a bit callous. Maybe they figure Jesus will make everything better once he’s king and that will trickle down to Bartimaeus. Or maybe they’re worried that if Jesus heard Bartimaeus, he would stop and there would be a conversation and a whole healing thing while they just stood there not getting any closer to Jerusalem.
Which is, in fact, what happened when Bartiamaeus raised his voice and tried again shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And if you had been there when Jesus finally noticed him, you might have heard a record scratch, even though records hadn’t been invented yet. Because Bartimaeus is the only person in the entire gospel of Mark who uses the title Son of David, a nod to the warrior king image of the messiah. An idea that had dogged Jesus despite his best efforts. And now someone was just shouting it right out in public where everyone could hear.
Jesus was probably thinking “oh fantastic one of these Mark Israel Great Again guys. This is the last thing I need right now.” (I like to picture Bart wearing a little red cap that says MIGA).
But even though Jesus may not have liked Bartimaeus’ politics. Even though he had a lot on his mind. Even though he was tired from the journey. And maybe a little bit hangry. Even though stopping to listen to one person might seem like a distraction from the momentous events that were about to happen in Jerusalem, Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.”
And suddenly, the crowd had a change of heart. Instead of shut your damn mouth, now it was all, “Take heart! Get up! He is calling you.” It’s kind of hilarious how quickly they changed their tune.
But it’s more than just funny. When you think about it, this might be the realest miracle in the story. And maybe even the one we need the most.
Society wanted Bartimaeus to be unseen. Society did not want anyone to notice how he was being treated. The crowd wanted Bartimaeus to be unheard. They did not want anyone to notice how they were leaving him out. But when Jesus stood still he made Bartimaeus visible. When Jesus called him over, he amplified his voice. And when he did this - check this out - it was the crowd who was healed. Healed of their unwelcoming attitude. Healed of their stony hearts. Healed of their lacking compassion. Healed of their limited imagination. Healed of their cynicism.
When Bartimaeus loudly proclaimed his need, and Jesus stood still and called Bartimaeus to him, they were in fact working together to transform not only one life but the lives of the entire crowd.
One of my favorite commentaries on the gospels is called The Gospel in Solentiname. It was put together by Ernesto Cardenal, a radical priest and poet who lived in Lake Nicaragua. He hosted weekly Bible studies with the villagers, poor workers who, like Bartimaeus, were made invisible and silent by an oppressive government. He transcribed their conversations to create a Bible commentary that preserved their wisdom.
At the end of the chapter on this story, the conversation turns to the importance of praising God through the revolution, in the midst of the messiness, before things get better. Felipe gets the final word when he says, “But if we don’t believe in that, if we believe there’ll always be selfishness, then we can’t change things.” Felipe gets it. He gets the miracle of the healing of the crowd. Changed hearts are possible.
Friends, this is the good news for us as we head into our election next week. Like the pilgrims who marched into Jerusalem hoping for a revolution, we may not get what we want. And even if we do get what we want, it won’t mean that the work is done. Far from it. But that doesn’t mean that our hopes are in vain. It doesn’t mean that we wasted our efforts. It doesn’t mean that change is impossible. We can still do good together, even in a broken system. The same way that Bartimaeus and Jesus did good together.
May God give us the strength of Bartimaeus to name our own needs. And the compassion of Christ to respond to the needs of others. Amen.
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