Mark 10:46-52
October 28, 2012
I
was living in Chicago in 1993 when the city hosted the Parliament of World
Religions. Attendees and speakers
included Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dali Lama, Jimmy Carter, Sister Joan Chitister,
Rabbi Michael Learner. These are heavy
hitters in the world of religion.
Most
exciting was when the Dali Lama came out and spoke to 20,000 in Grant Park on
the last day of the conference. I was
one of the teeming masses. His arrival
was that of a rock star. People were
craning their necks to get a glimpse, folks up close were trying, to no avail,
to reach out and shake his hand. All of
us knew we were in the presence of greatness.
Now,
I’m sure many of you have been to Chicago.
You know it is impossible to walk around the city without passing by a
number of people who were are begging in the street. Panhandlers, as we call them, are a fixture
in Chicago – as well as many, many other cities.
As
I read this story of Bartimaeus, I began to think about the crowds gathered
that day in Grant Park to hear the Dali Lama, and realized that while we were
gathered excitedly to see this spiritual giant, the streets around us were
filled with people like Bartimaeus.
People who made their living by begging.
People we were blind to.
That
day, one of the most famous spiritual leaders in the world came to their city –
a leader who preached and practiced care of the poor – but if a street person
begging for money had screamed at the top of their lungs, trying to get the
attention of the Dali Lama that day, no way would they have been granted a face
to face conversation with him. Their
voices would not have risen above the crowds.
And even if they did, they would have been ignored. The crowds, myself included, were there to
hear the Dali Lama. Panhandlers – a
fixture of the city – were not a part of the thinking that day.
Bartimaeus
was like a panhandler – only probably a little worse off than most. That’s because being blind in Jesus’ day was
more than just not having sight in a sighted world, and more than a sure fire
road to poverty. The scriptures portray
blindness as an unmitigated evil.
Blindness was a punishment for either your own sins or the sins of your
ancestors. It meant you lived like
Bartimaeus – on the outside of the city gates, out of sight of those on the
inside, your only source of livelihood being the charity and pity of others,
and you were subjected to the constant judgments and assumptions of
others.
One
day, a crowd comes by. This crowd was following
the famous Jewish Rabbi who preached and practiced care of the poor, the blind,
and the sinner. I know the miracle of the story is that Bartimaeus receives his
sight in the end, but after that experience in Chicago, I feel like the real
miracle is that Jesus not only takes notice of Bartimaeus, but he treats him
better than anyone present that day. At
least equal to the miracle of giving him sight was the miracle of giving him a
voice: a voice long silenced by society.
Jesus
gives him voice in two ways.
First,
he actually hears him. When Jesus leaves
Jericho, he is surrounded by crowds. These
are not silent crowds, following somberly. These are the crowds that, right
after this, will follow him into Jerusalem shouting and singing Hosanna!
Hosanna! There is growing excitement, a
mounting tension, and hope. There is
also chaos – people don’t know exactly who this is. Some are saying Messiah, some still call him
Jesus of Nazareth, some are thinking Son of David. I’m sure there are heated discussions.
I
suspect, Bartimaeus believed as much as anyone, that he was a sinner, blind
because he was being punished by God.
The English translation says that he calls out, “Have mercy on me.” A more direct translation is “Mercy me.” Or probably
better: “Pity me.” Mercy is a word used
when someone is in a wretched condition and seeks help from another who is not
at all obligated to help. It’s the cry
of the undeserving.
He
called out – and the crowd said, “Shhhhhh….,” they said, “there’s something far
more important than you going on here.”
Jesus
refuses to let the crowd silence Bartimaeus.
Jesus hears Bartimaeus’ cry and he stops dead in his tracks. The whole narrative, the whole drama comes to
a halt. It’s interrupted by this man
that society has thrown away.
But
to Jesus, Bartimaeus’ voice mattered. How
many times do you think Bartimaeus lived the experience of that common
nightmare: the one where you desperately
need to get someone’s attention, and you try to scream at the top of your lungs
only to have it come out as barely a whisper.
This is probably how Bart felt his whole life. “Shhhhhhhhh….” Jesus tells the crowd. “Let this
man speak.”
But
it’s what Jesus does next that I think is even more amazing. When Bartimaeus comes to him, Jesus doesn’t
give him pity. The first thing Jesus
does is ask him a seemingly simple question:
“What do you want me to do for
you?”
Now
the temptation is to think Jesus knew what Bartimaeus wanted – because of
course, he’s Jesus; he knows everything, right?
But, what if Jesus, a human being, thought to himself, “I haven’t lived
this man’s life, I don’t know what it’s like to be blind, I don’t know what
it’s like to beg for your very existence.
How the heck do I know what he wants or needs?” In other words, what if part of what it means
to serve someone is to actually ask them what they need? I know that seems entirely
unrevolutionary. But think about
it. When we look at people we think are
less fortunate than ourselves, we tend to assume we know what they want and
need without ever asking.
This
act of giving Bartimaeus his voice – allowing him to be heard, and to speak for
himself – had a dramatic effect on Bartimaeus.
He went from seeing Jesus as an imperial figure to whom he was entirely
inferior – he believed he was literally at the mercy of the Son of David, the
next king – to calling him “teacher.”
It’s a demotion. With his
question, Jesus leveled the field a bit.
And this allowed Bartimaeus to feel justified to ask for what he truly
wanted. Notice - he changed his
request. At first he asked for what
everyone assumed he should ask for:
mercy, pity, forgiveness. It was
his fault he was where he was. All he
could hope for was that someone would take pity on him. But when Jesus asks him what he wants, Bartimaeus asks to have his
sight restored.
Jesus
allowed Bartimaeus to speak and be heard.
He allowed him to define his own reality and ask for what he really
wanted. The crowd tried to tell him to
be quiet when he called out to Jesus.
They certainly told him to shut up when it came to asking for anything
more than pity. Jesus silences the
crowd, not the blind man. He listens
carefully, and the result is that Bartimaeus is made well – made whole. He becomes a full person: in his own eyes and
in the eyes of others.
In
general, I’m lucky in that most people I know do a pretty good job at hearing
the cry for help. We know people are
suffering in a variety of ways, and we know that the faithful thing to do is to
respond: we genuinely want to help. But often we only hear the cry for pity. This is true when we think of people who live
in poverty. Sometimes consciously,
sometimes unconsciously, we ascribe blame to people who are poor – thinking it
is the result of their own failures and lack of moral character. When people cry for help, things are set up
so we retain our place of privilege.
Those who are asked get to decide “yes” or “no” based on when we think
someone deserves help. We make a
judgment.
And
too often we try to help but forget the stop of stopping and listening. We don’t ask what someone really needs, and
even if they try to tell us, we still think we know better. We effectively say, “Shhhhh…I’m trying to
help you.”
I
read a blog written by someone receiving government assistance. She wrote this: In middle and upper middle class, we [who are
broke are] always either noble, selfless, salt of the earth worker warriors
with nary a sensitive need to be found, or lumpen loud rude and of the welfare
class. We don't get to speak for ourselves- especially about how brutalizing
classist stereotypes like these about our lives are, and how those
stereotypes impact the health of our minds, bodies and spirits.
Our
assumption is that the goal for people is to be self sufficient members of the
middle class culture. Put more crudely,
we have a picture of what the “norm” is, we assume it is good, and we think
people who live in poverty want to, and should, conform. Our training programs are designed to teach
people how to “act” culturally appropriate in interviews, how to do the right
thing, say the right thing, play by the dominant rules. We require people to make decisions that
prove they have “character,” in order to get our mercy. We see them
as deficient instead of seeing our own failures, like sometimes choosing a
lifestyle that might be a contributing factor to their struggle to live without
fear of losing food, housing and children.
We
assume poor people want to be well educated, middle class citizens with
professional jobs. Do they? Some do.
But maybe if we asked, others want to work the jobs they already do, but
make the same living wage that I make.
Maybe they want their skills and work to be as valued as much as mine. Maybe
they seed my lifestyle and find it full of problems that they don’t want. Maybe someone might see my way of living as
inherently immoral in some ways.
Do
people who are outcasts in society, living in poverty, necessarily know what’s
best for them? I’m not naïve. I know the answer to that is “not
always.” But I know the rest of the
answer to that is “no more or less than I know what’s best for myself.” And certainly no less than I know what’s best for them.
Asking
the question, what do you want – and of course respecting the answer – has an
impact, no matter what. Our assumptions
are challenged, our prejudices are exposed, we see people as complex human
beings with a desire to be whole, struggling to figure out what that means, and
fighting the resistance they meet in their efforts to attain this wholeness.
One
limitation of this passage is that it could leave us with the impression that
it’s as easy as asking one question and waiting for the answer. This is where we move from the land of
literary truth to real life. For us to
truly listen to one another, we have to have a relationship – and not just any
relationship: relationships of trust and mutual care. These are not easy to build. Especially when we’re talking about building
such relationships between people who have – at least at first glance – a fair
number of differences and live with different worldviews and experiences. It takes time. It takes humility. It requires patience, apologies, forgiveness,
and almost always it requires some risk.
Just
like Bartimaeus needed sight in a practical sense to survive in his world,
people need food, shelter, transportation and healthcare just to have a life
that is not constantly on the edge of safety and security. But Bartimaeus gaining sight was not just
about being able to see again – it was about a desire to be seen by others in a
whole new way. He wanted respect, to be
seen without being judged.
I
think the same is true for a lot of people who effectively have to beg for
help. They are tired of being looked
down on, judged for their lifestyle and decisions. They are weary of having to constantly prove
they are worthy of the things they ask for.
They may ask for pity – thinking that’s the only way to get attention
from those who hold the resources they need.
How
can we stop – and ask, “What can I do for you?”
And maybe instead of someone just asking for what they need to get
through that day, they will say they want to be valued for who they are – not
judged – not forced to sit on the margins and beg people for mercy.
Maybe
as much as wanting their “ailment” to be cured, they want my blindness to be
removed: the blindness that keeps me from truly seeing someone. And maybe if my blindness is cured, I would
be able to follow Jesus like Bartimaeus, the faithful one, did. Amen.
