“The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face”
Laudato Si’ #233
Sunday’s gospel portrays the blind beggar Bartimaeus as an ideal disciple. He hears about Jesus, believes in him, and follows unhesitatingly.
His story concludes the section in Mark’s gospel in which Jesus leads his disciples to Jerusalem. Mark ends this section with a story of a blind man just as he began it, but the two stories picture very different responses to Jesus.
Jesus can only partially heal the earlier blind man at Bethsaida on whose eyes he applies spit and on whom he lays hands (Mark 8.22-26). The man opens his eyes and sees people, but they look like walking trees. Jesus must lay his hands on the man a second time before he can see clearly. This two-stage healing foreshadows two stages in the lives of Jesus’ disciples.
Immediately following, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter answers for the group, “You are the messiah.” Then Jesus predicts he will suffer and die, and Peter objects.
Like the man who had to be healed in two stages, Peter sees Jesus as a victorious messiah but not a suffering messiah. Mark pictures Peter and Jesus’ earliest disciples struggling with fear and brash hopes as they follow Jesus. These followers show us discipleship as a process of growth.
Shortly before Sunday’s gospel passage, Mark vividly describes Jesus and his company of disciples on the road to Jerusalem. “Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed and those who followed were afraid” (10.32). As they travel with Jesus, the disciples are also making a transforming journey within. Their vision of Jesus is somewhere between blurry and clear, their feelings a mix of awe and fear, their transformation in process.
- How do you characterize yourself as a disciple — more like Peter or more like Bartimaeus?
In Sunday’s gospel a blind beggar models the enthusiastic and unabashed acceptance of Jesus that Mark’s gospel hopes from every hearer of the story. Bartimaeus has not traveled and talked with Jesus about his teaching and healing. But as he sits outside the Jericho city gates, the beggar must have heard others talk about Jesus. As soon as Bartimaeus is aware Jesus is near, he shouts out a greeting and demands to be heard.
“Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” In these words Bartimaeus recognizes Jesus as the messiah, the long expected king from David’s royal line. He persists in yelling this profession of faith at the top of his lungs. He refuses to let the crowd silence him. His words echo Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question two chapters earlier in the narrative, “Who do you say that I am?”
Bartimaeus recognizes that Jesus is the messiah; that is what the title “son of David” means. What does all his yelling accomplish for Bartimaeus? He gets Jesus’ attention, tells Jesus that he wants to see, and receives his sight.
Even before Jesus heals his blindness, Bartimaeus throws away his cloak, in which he probably collected the money passersby threw his way. He accepts the call to discipleship before Jesus gives it. He throws off the trappings of a life of begging and signals his readiness to follow Jesus.
His desire to see transforms Bartimaeus. Their desire for status impedes the vision of James and John. His desire for belongings makes the rich young man walk away from Jesus. In Mark, the blind beggar who sees with eyes of faith, becomes the model follower. He has nothing to leave behind as he follows a new vision for his life.
- What frees you to embrace Jesus wholeheartedly?
- What keeps you from throwing away your cloak?
- What do you persist in asking Jesus?
- How can you be part of the answer?
Bartimaeus believes as a result of hearing others talk about Jesus. In this way Bartimaeus is like the audience for whom Mark writes the first gospel 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. They, like all of us ever since, believe on the testimony of the gospel word.
Like many of Jesus’ followers, Bartimaeus is also poor and inconsequential, living as a beggar on the roadside of his society. He is an outsider like the tax collectors and prostitutes with whom Jesus often ate. His example tells us that we cannot be outsiders in Jesus’ crowd. He welcomes all.
In Mark’s gospel several outsiders model the faith response to which the author calls us readers. The Syrophoenician woman, a foreigner, believes Jesus can free her daughter from an unclean spirit and seeks him out (7.24-30).
Another Gentile, the Gerasene demoniac whom Jesus frees from legions of evil spirits, proclaims his healing throughout the Gentile Ten Cities area (5.1-20). The leper Jesus heals in Mark 1.40-45 spreads the good news of his healing all over Galilee. From the beginning people hear about Jesus from those already believing and living his word.
- When has an outsider shown you what a follower of Jesus should be like?