It is easy to mistake as a story of a healing miracle the brief narrative we have just heard from St. Mark’s Gospel, in which we hear that the vision of the blind beggar Bartimaeus was restored. It sounds like a healing miracle, does it not? The editors of my study Bible have put a heading at the top of this passage that tells me that they think it is a story of “The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus.” And, to be sure, all the elements of a healing miracle are present. You could call this story a healing miracle and not be entirely wrong. But you would have missed a very significant point that St. Mark is making, which I would say is the central point of the story. If all you see in this story is a healing miracle, then you miss seeing what Jesus is really doing for Bartimaeus.
To support my argument that this episode is not primarily a matter of a healing miracle, I proffer to you the evidence that at no point is the word “healing” ever mentioned by St. Mark or anyone else. Bartimaeus doesn’t ask to be healed, and Jesus doesn’t say that healing is what he’s doing. Maybe this is a minor point, but I’m only getting warmed up. It’s not primarily a matter of what’s missing in this story, that makes it clear to me that it is not a story of a healing miracle. It’s a matter of what’s there in the text that we might fail to see, even though St. Mark has gone to pains to make it very clear that something even more important than the restoration of Bartimaeus’s sight is taking place here.
But the fact of the matter is, that in many ways, it’s easier for us to hear this narrative as the story of a healing miracle. Because if we hear it that way, then it’s got nothing to do with us, no bearing on our lives, since we are not expecting miracles of any kind these days. And we generally go elsewhere for our healing needs. Mostly, then, this story has the status, more or less, as one of Aesop’s fables, even for those of us who bother to come to church to hear it. We are willing to agree that it probably has a moral of some kind that’s good for somebody, but it’s probably something best told to children. But if you could see what is actually happening here for Bartimaeus, then you might start to wonder if it could happen for you, too. Because what’s actually happening here isn’t even a miracle.
St. Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples “came to Jericho.” There they encountered Bartimaeus, “a blind beggar… sitting by the roadside.” He was not, I think, an immediately sympathetic figure, which is why the neighbors told him to shut up when he started shouting at Jesus. The neighbors knew this guy. They knew who he was, whose son he was. They probably knew how he lost his sight - there’s a story there. I think they had probably heard him become unruly before. Bartimaeus also knew that his plight was worse than just his blindness. He was shouting out to Jesus, and he was begging for mercy. Perhaps he had been self-medicating with too much wine. Perhaps it was too much wine that led to his blindness. Like I say, there’s a story; I’m certain.
And at first glance, we might think that the crux of this whole story occurs in verse 51, when Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” That would suit us. We’d love it if that was Jesus’ principal ministry, to go around asking his followers what he can do for them, maybe even offering three wishes… or more! That’s a religion worth signing up for! What do you want Jesus to do for you? Bartimaeus thought so too, and he wasn’t sure he’d get more than one wish. “My teacher,” he said, “let me see again.”
Verse 52: Jesus says, “Go, your faith has made you well,” and “immediately he [Bartimaeus] regained his sight….” Yeah! It’s a miracle! And it is, indeed, oh so easy to see the story that way, as a healing miracle. The story makes perfect sense that way, even though just now, in re-telling it to you, I left out verse 49. (No, don’t look! Let me tell this to you.)
Verse 49 is like a little bell ringing three times that St. Mark put into the text to get our attention, as if to say, “Look, here, this is what this story is really about.” It’s a little Sanctus bell. Ding! Ding! Ding! If you pay no attention to the bell, then you might think this is a healing miracle. But I want us to hear the bell, which rings three times in verse 49.
In verse 49, St. Mark tells us that “Jesus stood still,” which is a pretty good indicator that what he’s about to say or do is important. And, I’m going to paraphrase a little here, to collapse the text just a little bit, so you can hear how St. Mark tells us what he tells us. He says that “Jesus stood still and said ‘Call him here.’ And they called [him], saying… ‘he is calling you.’”
Did you hear that? Jesus said, “Call him.” And they called him, and said, “He is calling you.”
Call him. So they called him and said, he’s calling you. Ding! Ding! Ding!
This is not the story of a healing miracle. This is the story of a call!
And I can prove it! Because in verse 52, after Jesus has said, “Go, your faith has made you well,” and immediately Bartimaeus regained his sight, he did not, in fact “go” to wherever it is he might have gone. Rather, he responded to Jesus’ call. St. Mark tells us that “immediately he regained his sight and followed [Jesus] on his way.” Jesus called, and Bartimaeus followed. And that was no miracle. It was, rather, Bartimaeus following the one who had the power to change his life.
Call him. So they called, and said, he’s calling you. Jesus called; Bartimaeus followed. As it happens, where they went was to Jerusalem, so that Jesus could give his life on the Cross. And that’s not another story, but it is another chapter.
Now, what has this story of Bartimaeus’s call got to do with you and me? Well, I can’t stand here and promise you a healing miracle in your life or the life of someone you love. For reasons that God keeps to himself, examples of healing miracles have always been extremely rare. But I can try to persuade you that Jesus has the power to change your life and that he is calling you, as he is calling me, too.
Today, if I’m listening to the Gospel message, if I’m reading Mark carefully, if I hear the little bell ringing, then it’s my job to point out to you that Jesus is calling you: Call them, he says. So I call to you: he’s calling you. You don’t need to be blind to be in need of that call. You only need to know you stand in need of mercy, that you need someone with the power to change your life. Someone who could make you less anxious, less fearful, less selfish, less angry, less callous, less mean, less fragile, less despondent, less self-destructive, less brittle, less proud, less insecure, less unruly, less of whatever it is that puts you in need of God’s mercy.
Many of us these days don’t really know what to do with Jesus if we encounter him primarily as a miracle-worker of the distant past, whose fame depends on stories that frame the disabled as hapless victims, and whose followers for these many generations have been entirely unable to work miracles ourselves. I mean, if all that happened to Bartimaeus was that his sight was restored, great, - but what’s it got to do with us?
But, if this is really the story of a call that goes out to someone who knows themselves to be in need of mercy, and who knows that mercy is not much to be found elsewhere in the world, and who feels that it would be so much better if their life could be less unruly, and who might have been trying all kinds of other remedies, including self-medicating with God-knows-what; a call to anyone who is looking for real power to change, the power to change your life, then I think a lot of us have something to pay attention to! Because the bell is still ringing, all these centuries later. Call him. So they called: he’s calling you. Ding! Ding! Ding!
You may not be blind, and I may not be blind. But, Lord, am I in need of mercy, aren’t you?! Lord, is this whole world ever in need of mercy! And since it is the God of love who brings mercy and healing in his wings, it comes, nearly always, with a call that you and I must answer before our lives will change.
And that’s why the story of Bartimaeus the blind beggar, has everything to do with you and me. Because our lives are not especially in need of a miracle. But we are in need of someone who has the power to change our lives, by the grace of his mercy.
How would we ever find such a One as this? We don’t need to find him, for he is always finding us. And he says, “Call them." So I call: he’s calling you!
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
24 October 2021
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia
