Bartimaeus is notable for being one of the few people that Jesus heals that is given a name. Mark is the only Gospel writer to give him one, but he can be found in all three of the synoptic Gospels, that is Mark, Matthew, and Luke. He is most likely the unnamed beggar in Luke, and one of a pair mentioned in Matthew. In each case, Bartimaeus is found outside the city, along the road that Jesus and his followers must walk to get to the Son of God’s final destination in Jerusalem.
Bartimaeus is just one of many people we meet in the Gospel who lives in the margins of society. These individuals are often physically handicapped in some way, and this handicap makes them impoverished and socially and spiritually outcast. Bartimaeus was blind, and in Jesus’ time there was no braille, no guide dogs, and no social support. At that time, a blind man’s only option was to be poor and to beg.
And because he was blind and poor, Bartimaeus was also a social outcast. As a poor beggar, he could expect to receive alms from Jewish passers-by, but other than that, people would not have cared about him. To them, he would have been a non-person, and they would have barely noticed him sitting at the side of the road. Or at least, they wouldn’t have noticed him as long as he kept to his “place.”
But, he doesn’t keep to his place, does he? In today’s text, he speaks out!
They say that when we lose one sense, the other senses become sharper, and blind Bartimaeus apparently has very good ears. As the great crowd of people passes by on their way out of Jericho, he hears the name Jesus of Nazareth amidst all the hubbub. By this point of the story, people know of Jesus and what he has done, and—more crucially—who he may really be. Despite being an outcast, Bartimaeus knows this too. “Jesus, Son of David” he calls out. “Have mercy on me.”
But it’s at this point that Bartimaeus goes from being a social afterthought to becoming a big problem for the crowd; He is immediately told to “be quiet” by many. There could have been several reasons for why he is shouted down. Maybe people thought Jesus was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem, and that he wouldn’t have time for a blind beggar. But that seems a bit presumptuous, after all we’ve seen Jesus do up to this point. He has turned no one like Bartimaeus away.
Another reason he may have been shouted down was that people didn’t want to call attention to Jesus. After all, this was a dangerous time for Jesus and his followers. And it wouldn’t have helped that Bartimaeus called him the “Son of David,” a title for the Messiah. That kind of thing was sure to get angry attention. But again, by this point Jesus would have been pretty well known, and he was hardly hiding. He had gathered many followers, had attracted a huge crowd, and was, at this point in the story, knocking on Jerusalem’s door.
The simplest explanation for why Bartimaeus was told off is that was just an embarrassment for people. Think about how you feel when you pass a panhandler on the sidewalk. For me—and this is hard to admit—there is nagging urge to not look. Looking would expose me to feelings of shame, guilt, perhaps even disgust. I dread the possibility of eye contact, because then that would oblige me to see them as a living, breathing, human being with needs. Because it is so inconvenient for us, our social instinct is to not recognize certain people as people.
Explicit poverty isn’t as common today, in a developed city like Hong Kong, as it would have been during Jesus’ time. Back then, beggars were expected to be around. Though they were often forced outside the city gates, the destitute were still expected to be somewhere to receive alms, and charity was religious duty. The poor and lame, like Bartimaeus, still had a role to play, even if that role was a pathetic one.
And many at the time would have said that those like Bartimaeus deserved that role. In the ancient world’s version of causality, people were blind, crippled, sick, and poor for spiritual reasons. Often the assumption was that their problems were their own fault, or the fault of their ancestors. Bartimaeus, or someone in his family line, must have done something wrong to cause him such bad luck.
Now we, today, should know better than this. We’re familiar with the story of Job, and Job, by all accounts was a righteous man who suffered undeservedly. His story has taught us that there isn’t really a strong connection between our actions, good or bad, and what happens to us. We believe God does reward the righteous eventually, but on Earth, the good often suffer and the bad are often rewarded. Such is the mystery of it all.
But we sometimes forget that, blaming the downtrodden for the own misery when we should be looking at other causes. And during Jesus’ time there was still this pervasive belief that people are lucky or unlucky due to their spiritual and moral character and actions. This is why the disciples are always so surprised by Jesus’ extraordinary ministry to the sick, lame, and poor. He even cares for those who contemporary Jews would have seen as openly sinful, like tax collectors and prostitutes. This is also the kind of primitive moral understanding that made James and John think that they deserved a high rank beside Jesus Christ in his glory, as was read about last week. Their sense of entitlement came from their belief that they were among the most righteous, and the most able to drink from the Cup of Christ. Because of who they thought they were, they thought they were destined to sit at the right and left hands of the Savior.
Bartimaeus was supposed to have a very different destiny. But the moment he spoke out, Bartimaeus asserted himself. By doing so, he challenged social and spiritual conventions. This made him an inconvenience and an embarrassment for many in the crowd. He became an inconvenience for the followers of Jesus, who did not want to delay the “glory” they thought would be found Jerusalem. And he became an embarrassment for those who thought themselves more righteous than a blind beggar.
And those chastising Bartimaeus could have easily been residents of Jericho, which had been rebuilt by King Herod into a modern, successful city. Whenever a great figure like a politician or a Queen visits a town or city, it’s the habit of the populace to hide all the ugliness. Would it have been any different during Jesus’ time? Citizens of Jericho would have wanted to show off their prosperity, not their poverty.
Bartimaeus was where he was supposed to be, outside the rebuilt walls of that famous city, performing his simple, pathetic role. He could not see, but nor was he supposed to speak. Only the “righteous” had a high enough status to call out to Jesus.
But in matters of the Spirit, high status is not conveyed to those who think they are the most deserving. In fact, those who think they are the most deserving are the ones you need to be careful of, because those kinds of people fail to see their weaknesses. They fail to see that they act not out of true righteousness, but out of self-promotion. It is not God they love, but power and their own ego. They are blind in thought and spirit.
But though he was physically blind, Bartimaeus’ spiritual eyes saw Jesus Christ clearly. Bartimaeus made no explicit demand of Jesus like the Sons of Zebedee did. He did not ask Jesus to heal him in order to prove who he was. He simply recognized Jesus for who he is—the Messiah—and asked for mercy. It is only after Jesus came and asked what he wanted that Bartimaeus made his specific desires known.
Through faith, Bartimaeus was as clear-eyed as Job was at the end of his sufferings. Even after all he had endured, the poor man humbled himself before God as if he were a sinner. He repented in the dust and ashes. The substances from which he came, and to which he would return.
And here, in Mark 10, is a man who has received less than nothing all his life. By all rights Bartimaeus has a valid complaint against God. Why have you made me blind, he could ask? Why have you left me poor? Yet, like Job, he prostrates himself before the Glory of the Lord, asking for mercy.
Bartimaeus is humble, and this humility earns him the reward of renewed sight. But in his humility Bartimaeus is also very bold. It was a brave thing he does, calling out to Jesus. In doing so he breaks the social norms of the time. As a blind man and a beggar, he is not supposed to shout out to a man of Jesus stature. But the thing is, it is only by breaking these unspoken rules that he can make Jesus see him. It is the only way to make us see him. If forces us to see Bartimaeus as a person, not a non-person.
But wait, you might ask, doesn’t Bartimaeus have a bit of advantage in this kind of thing? After all, his whole life has been one of forced humility. He, like all marginalized, ignored, and mistreated persons, is acutely aware of being insignificant in front of his fellow human beings. Does this not make those like him more humble before God? What of those of us who are “too privileged” to have this mentality?
But If Bartimaeus had any real advantage, it was his faith. His faith gave him the strength to endure and praise God despite all his own misfortune. It is also his faith that gave him the strength to shout out and say: “Son of David! Look at me. Have Mercy on Me. I am a person.”
Certainly, not all of us can be so bold. And if we are being honest, most of those who are in Bartimaeus’ position aren’t either. Most of those in poverty can’t assert themselves like that. The poor and lame are diminished by hunger, disease, age, and sadness. There are those that assert themselves. There are those that do confront us and demand to be seen as people. But often those people are quickly shuffled off to a place where they can’t bother us, like a hospital or—worse—a jail.
Had Jesus not responded to him, Bartimaeus would have been shuffled off to one of those places. But the Christ does respond to him. He does see him as a person. In so doing, Jesus Christ teaches a lesson to those of us lucky enough to call ourselves privileged. Those of us with working bodies, and with homes and jobs, have a special obligation to those who do not.
But to perform this obligation we have to be brave in our own way. We have to confront our own weaknesses. Particularly, we must overcome our tendency to look away from the evil and suffering that surrounds us. We need to force ourselves to not immediately look down at our cell phone when we pass a homeless person. We need to look into the eyes of the people around, even those we do not wish to see. We must even look into the eyes of those who may resent us, hate us.
By seeing other people as people, we are performing the first step in serving them. And this is what Jesus called us to do last week. To be glorified in God we must become servants, even slaves to one another. Bartimaeus knew this all too well. He “saw” himself as a servant, and that is what gave him to strength to speak out. As Christians, we must find the strength servitude to see Bartimaeus in all of those we might meet on the street, asking for mercy. However ugly the poverty we encounter might seem, however we might want to look away, we need to see it. Because underneath this ugliness there is beauty. That is, the beauty of faith.
