Rev Gav
What does it mean to be seen?
This week, a friend arrived at our weekly supper club with a large Black Forest Gateau. Slicing into it revealed unctuous layers of rum-soaked chocolate sponge, cream, jam, meringue, and chocolate, each slice adorned with a cherry on the top. Well, the story of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who was healed by Jesus, is like a slice of Black Forest Gateau. It is so rich in depth, with layers of meaning, that you can dive in and savour each component or admire and marvel at the whole.
The account of the blind beggar being healed on the outskirts of the town of Jericho appears in three of the gospels, and in each one it is slightly different. These differences (or emphases) reflect the purposes of the gospel writers and what they wanted to communicate to their different readers.
In Mark’s gospel, at the beginning of the account, we discover that the blind beggar is a Jewish man called, “Bartimaeus, Son of Timaeus.” Bartimaeus means ‘Son of Timaeus’ and Mark spelled it out and explained this because Bartimaeus was a Jewish name and he was writing to a non-Jewish audience. But why mention the man’s name at all? There is some speculation that Bartimaeus, having followed Jesus, became a prominent member of the early church, but I think there is more to it than that.
The gospel of Mark was written in Greek and the readers would have been immersed in Greek culture. Timaeus was a well known name from Greek antiquity — especially in the works of Plato regarding physical and eternal realities. The name Timaeus would therefore have resonated with the Greek-speaking readers and the name itself meant ‘honoured’ in Greek, but in Aramaic, to the Hebrews it also meant ‘unclean’. Was this double-meaning intentional? Bartimaeus was a beggar and he had, in terms of his name, fallen from a place of ‘honour’ and represented the welcome of Greek outsiders into the faith, but he was also, in the eyes of the Jewish population, ‘unclean’ and in need of saving, representing the need for Israel to turn back to God.
Moving from the beginning of the story to the end, when Bartimaeus had his sight restored, Jesus said, “Go! Your faith has healed you,” and the word for being healed or made well also means to be cleansed, saved, and restored. This meant that more than just a physical healing had taken place but that something bigger had happened, something physical but also spiritual or eternal.
So, we can see from some of the clues in the story that the account was not just a miraculous healing but that it represented something bigger. The story was and is an invitation and an example of how to follow Jesus, for both the Gentile and the Jew.
Dave Lucas, a friend of mine who was blind, was a voice to the church on matters of inclusivity, especially the inclusion of those with physical or mental disabilities. Dave had a large online influence with his community called The Ordinary Office. He would use screen-readers and large screen print to communicate his message of inclusion to the wider church, and he taught me the importance of making our gatherings and worship accessible to those with physical and mental disabilities. He also taught me that people with additional needs are often disadvantaged, not because of their disability, but because us ‘ableist’ people disable them. For example, if we have a restroom that is not accessible to those in wheelchairs, but only to the ‘able’ then we are ‘dis’ abling others.
Three times in the short story of Bartimaeus, we are told that the he was blind, and the gospel writers used physical blindness as a metaphor for spiritual blindness. The whole gospel of Mark is about ‘seeing’ who Jesus is and coming to the realisation that Jesus holds the key to life in all its fullness, and that we, in our need, must pursue him, throw off all that hinders us, fall at his feet, and cast ourselves upon his mercy. In this sense, the story of Bartimaeus is a model of the bigger story of what it means to be a disciple. My friend Dave, reminded me that in contemporary culture, it is offensive to use someones physical disability as a metaphor for spiritual lack of awareness. Sadly, the very day I wrote this talk, Dave passed away, but I owe a great deal to Dave’s wisdom and all he taught me about the importance of inclusivity.
The story of Bartimaeus is a story about seeing who Jesus is but also about being seen. It is about someone who encountered Jesus and was forever changed by that encounter, as is anyone who calls out to Jesus, the Son of David, “have mercy on me.”
For some of us, like Bartimaeus, Jesus is walking by, and we must take the opportunity to call out. Although others may ignore us, even tell us to be quiet and that our voices do not matter, we are seen and we are heard. Jesus knows us by name and will stop everything to welcome us into God’s kingdom.
For some of us, we are called to follow, and this will mean discarding that to which we hold. For Simon and Andrew it was to leave their nets. For James and John it was to leave their boat. For Levi it was to leave his tax office. And for Bartimaeus it was to leave his cloak, his world, and his everything behind. Perhaps today, God is gently nudging you to let go of something and to follow.
However, the big take-away for me and the faith lesson from this story is is that for some of us, we are going along with the crowd, silencing the voices of those who have fallen from grace — the ‘dishonoured’ or ‘unclean’ — those who are underprivileged or undervalued. Who are we, the enabled, ‘dis’ ableing? How can we help their voices to be heard? How can we be a church that is inclusive of all? How can we welcome them and usher them into the presence of Jesus that, like Bartimaeus, they may encounter God and be forever changed? For the invitation in Mark’s gospel is not only for us but for everyone.
Amen.
