ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

THE LAST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, 2006

Fr Alan Moses

Proper 25, Year B
Jeremiah 31.7-9, Hebrews 7. 23-28, Mark 10.46-52

Collect

Blessed Lord,
who caused all holy scriptures
to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,
we may embrace and ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Last Sunday after Trinity has the sound of an ending about it. In fact the Church’s year is not quite over, but we are drawing to the close of our reading on Sundays of St. Mark’s Gospel. At the beginning of this year, I suggested, in the spirit of today’s Collect, that you might find it helpful simply to read through the whole of Mark’s Gospel, which the Church reads at Sunday Eucharist this yea; just to get a feel for it, an overview, rather than simply encountering it in separate units Sunday by Sunday. Now that we are drawing to the close, it would be good to repeat the exercise. We might see how this story relates to others we have heard; how things falls into place. We might even try to recall some of the sermons we have heard during the year.

At first hearing, we might think that the healing of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, is just another healing miracle, but where Mark places this story and how he tells it point to something more. It is a dialogue about the meaning of faith.

It ends a section within the gospel, which has gone on for three chapters, with Jesus and his disciples making their way to Jerusalem in order to be there in time for Passover. Three times in that section, Jesus speaks to the disciples of his forthcoming passion.

Now Jesus and his disciples are close to their destination. Jericho is only 15 miles away; a day’s journey from Jerusalem. Beggars would frequent the route hoping to benefit from the generosity of devout pilgrims. One of them is Bartimeaeus. Without sight, status, position or possessions, he sits on the margins. He is not “on the way” with Jesus and his disciples and the crowd, heading for Jerusalem. He is going nowhere; stuck in the helplessness of blindness and poverty; a nobody in the eyes of onlookers and an embarrassment on a public occasion with an important person passing by.

He may not be able to see, but he can hear what is going on. He hears that this is not just another group of pilgrims but Jesus with his disciples. Here is the opportunity for something more than a handout; a once-in-a-life time chance and Bartimaeus is determined to seize it with both hands. So he makes as much noise as he can in the hope of catching the attention of Jesus.

The disciples and other pilgrims don’t like this at all. Here they are with this important figure, on their way to the centre of the Jewish religion; their heads filled, at least some of the time, with pious thoughts. They are filled too, we might suspect, with a sense of their own importance as they bask in reflected glory. They see themselves as the gatekeepers, the defenders of the privacy of a great man or woman; the kind of people you find around important people. Such protectors may be necessary, but they can end up not as protectors but as jailers. These are the kind of people whom Jesus had rebuked for keeping the children away from him. Bartimaeus is not going to be put off. He ignores their rebukes and shouts again yet more loudly and insistently.

Jesus hears the commotion, stops in his tracks and says, “Call him here”. Those who have been desperate to shut this noisy beggar up, now change their tune, not wishing to seem to contradict the rabbi they so admire. They urge Bartimaeus on: “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” He does not waste a second. He reaches out to grasp this chance while it is there. “What do you want me to do for you?”, says Jesus. “Let me see again”. Jesus does not do anything - there is no laying on of hands or anointing. He simply says, “Go, your faith has made you well.” And we are told that he regained his sight immediately and followed Jesus “on the way”.

In the section of the gospel which now comes to an end, Jesus has been teaching his disciples about the nature of discipleship: “the way”, as Mark calls it. The repetition in our story of the word “call” suggests that Mark intends us to see it as a lesson in discipleship too. A lesson to those of us who are disciples, insiders, that we may be just as thick and uncomprehending about it as the first disciples. We need to recognise that outsiders not only have need of faith but also, that they may have more insight about where it is to be found and how it is to be seized than we do in our routine Christian lives in which we have made Jesus something of a possession, our mascot.

If we re-read the whole section of the Gospel, we see contrasts and likenesses which hammer home this lesson.

Bartimaeus is like the woman with a haemorrhage, who defies religious convention by reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe in the crowd and is healed.

He is quite unlike the rich young man who desires eternal life but cannot give up his earthly possessions and follow Jesus. Bartimaeus has only his cloak but he throws that aside. It probably served as his blanket and to collect coins; so it was not just another piece of clothing. It was probably his only possession. If he had not received his sight, would he ever have found it again? When he had received his sight, he could have gone back to the life he had before he lost it, but instead he follows Jesus.

He is quite unlike James and John. They had come to Jesus with their carefully planned request. He had asked them the same question he now addresses to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” What they wanted of course was the best seats in Jesus’ kingdom, power and status. That they cannot have. They can only share in the cup which Jesus must drink.

Mark, throughout, is trying to show that Christian discipleship is about sharing in “the way”, the way of Jesus to Jerusalem; a way which will lead to the final confrontation between the chosen one of God, and the powers of this world, the confrontation which will lead to his death outside the city wall.

Bartimaeus is seen as the model disciple who follows in that way. Any other form of discipleship, any other understanding of Jesus, which sees him simply as a source of help and comfort is not a true picture. Our portraits of Jesus constantly slip back into this and just as often need to be contradicted and judged and brought back to reality. That is why we need the “patience” to go on hearing them time and again. If we think that there is a way of discipleship which can be separated from the way to Jerusalem, the way of the cross, then we have not heard what Mark has been saying to us and we had better go back and listen to him again.

There is about Bartimaeus a sense of urgency which is so often lacking in my faith and yours. How often do we feel that need to seize the moment, to grab the opportunity with both hands? How often do we leave praying for help in whatever our predicament, our blindness and poverty is, until Jesus has passed by. “Oh, we will see him on Sunday. That will be soon enough”; when it is not soon enough because it is on Saturday night or Monday morning that we need his help in our discipleship.