GPC Sermons

"Blind Bartimaeus - Imagine That"
Mark 10:46-52
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The Reverend Dr. Deborah K. Meinke

Mark’s version of Jesus’ teaching about discipleship began with a blind man healed at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26), so this episode is that second shoe dropping onto ‘the way’ of following Jesus.  The characters involved flow from one scene to the next – the disciples and crowd from Jericho streaming up to Jerusalem, following Jesus on ‘the way’ to Jerusalem, carrying with them this new man who garnered the spotlight and his fifteen minutes of fame, the blind man who regained his sight.

READ MARK 10: 46-52.

     But Jesus does nothing more than speak to the man. As modern Christians hearing about this inexplicable healing, it might help us to consider the powerful symbolism present in the images of blindness and sight. Jesus and his biblical contemporaries had an understanding of blindness that was more complex than the fact of unseeing eyes.  The eyes are not only instruments of vision, but they are channels of communication, forming the gateway to the interior heart, where knowledge and emotion reveal one’s character, for good or evil.  Seeing gives way to hearing and speech, which in turn gives way to action through the hands and feet. To be blind meant that one’s primary channel of communication was closed, your character was unknown and therefore suspicious, so the victim lacked power to influence others.  We are less likely to view blind people today as so completely handicapped; nevertheless, we can appreciate the sense of isolation and separation experienced by the blind.  

    This blind man is the spitting image of the word ‘wretch,’ a little-used word in our vocabulary that we may encounter only through the song “Amazing Grace.”   In his lifetime (and sometimes in our own) most would interpret blindness as retribution for sin by him or his family. There is a certain logic to this view even today, for certain diseases like macular degeneration and retinal detachment have genetic components that make them more common in some families than others. We might not connect eye disease and blindness with sin, but there is an element of inevitability in being predisposed to eye problems, and perhaps blindness. 

    The blind man’s name, Bar-timaeus, tells us that he has family – he is ‘son of Timaeus,’ furthermore, his father’s name means honor and worth.  So his blindness has resulted in a catastrophic decline in status, his banishment from the community to sit outside the gate of Jericho.  He is one among many beggars, the only occupation open to someone in his condition.  And he is inconveniently loud and pushy, not docile like a sick person is supposed to be.  Perhaps he has been successful at begging for that reason; maybe more fortunate people tossed him coins just to shut him up.  So the crowd tried to shush him when he sought Jesus’ attention.  Though being blind should have inhibited the blind beggar from speaking out, he is bold in shouting for Jesus to show compassion to him.   Jesus who is on ‘the way’ to becoming a wretch himself in Jerusalem stops to respond to this blind beggar.  He does not question the man – what did you do, what did your parents do, to bring on this condition?  How many doctors have you seen? Etc. Instead he asks the same simple and profound question that triggered dreams of glory in James and John – “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind beggar dares to imagine his sight restored.

      We are not always kind to those with imagination.  Some of you teachers have conferenced with parents about their dreamy child who was long on imagination and short on task completion, or perhaps you have been that dreamy child.  We worry about children being able to distinguish between fantasy and reality.  When the Harry Potter series came out, some Christians voiced strong, irrational fears that these soaring stories were instruments of the devil when I was just glad that they interested countless children in reading and imagining the power for good that might flower in them. 

    At the end of the day an overemphasis on being realistic can box us in.  The story goes that a master of ceremonies at a dedication for a magnificent new building lamented the fact that the architect had died before seeing his work completed. To which some perceptive soul in the crowd responded, “But he did see it.  That’s why it’s here.”  

    I have many limits on my imagination.  The phone rang and I picked it up with only a quick glance at the unfamiliar caller ID.  Flo, the woman on the line, was hard to understand, but I finally figured out she needed a ride to pick up a prescription.  Knowing I was a pastor, she told me how she loved Jesus and about her relatives who were preachers, too.  After my good deed, the phone rang several more times that week with different requests amid shifting storylines.  I was annoyed, because I had lots to do, but more annoyed as I realized that I had laid myself open to manipulation by this needy person – I once was blind, but now I began to see reality in her possibly endless demands.  A call for information about transportation resulted in that person asking me “Is that Flo you are referring to?” Obviously she had a reputation around town, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to dismiss her as another manipulator of charitable people, like the crowd may have thought of blind Bartimaeus. 

     But maybe our problem is not too much reality but too little imagination.  How many times have you heard someone proclaim their lack of imagination with the phrase “I just can’t imagine…”?  We respond skeptically to a teen’s first love – “I just can’t imagine what she/he sees in him/her.”  We read the newspaper stories about child abuse and say “I just can’t imagine how that parent could have done such a thing.”  Or my experience with Flo, who was so far down and out that survival by manipulation and victimization seemed justified to her and I just couldn’t imagine how to respond appropriately to her needs.  I read an e-mail this week that sent chills down my spine.  The writer was equating all Muslims with ‘islamists,’ the term for violent terrorists, and he proposed that the world would be a better place if all Muslims would disappear.  Such examples remind me of the crowd who wanted the blind man to disappear in silence.  We just can’t imagine how our enemies could be human beings with complex feelings and personalities, more like us than unlike us. When we ‘just can’t imagine,’ we lose the power to change or be changed. 

    Jesus himself was accused of an ‘overactive’ imagination, and he died for this reason.  Obviously he imagined God’s household or kingdom as all-encompassing and all-inviting.  He could see the kingdom of God growing like grass beneath our feet, sprouting like tiny mustard seeds, or happy children tumbling into his arms.  He could see into the hearts of wretches, past their outward appearance and imagine the creative possibilities with each unique person.  Jesus took the idea of love, just an empty shell, and filled it with life as he walked and talked among us, healed, rejected our narrow-mindedness, and opened the heavens for us. Through him, God becomes ‘imaged’ for us in the face of a man and his unlimited compassion.

    Before Bar-Timaeus even regained his sight, he left his place by the side of the road and threw off his beggar’s cloak, the two symbols of his exclusion and his old life.  In this shedding of his old skin, his faith has saved him, made him well or whole as Jesus proclaimed.  This blind beggar saw – imagined – new possibilities for his life and they were born anew through his encounter with Jesus.  Healing and new life grew as he joined the disciples in the great parade following Jesus up to Jerusalem.   

    Imagine this! - Jesus does not focus on the cause of the beggar’s blindness; he is more interested in healing it and throwing the spotlight onto spiritual blindness that can inhibit wholeness. If a tendency toward real blindness can run in families, how true also that we ‘inherit’ spiritual blindness, for we know that all our prejudices and hatreds for different groups are taught to us first by parents, schoolyard friends, communities and we are quick to pass them on.  We are often ‘the blind leading the blind’ or more accurately ‘the unimaginative leading the unimaginative.’  We are being spiritually blind when we equate all Muslims with violent terrorists or label any Hispanic person as an illegal immigrant or accuse all gay persons of being pedophiles.  Regardless of our preferred political solutions to these issues of immigration, gay rights, the fight against terror, we should pray that we might be able to look with compassion on the human beings that inhabit our categories.  It is hard to be healed of spiritual blindness when we are both victims of limited imaginations and perpetrators of our prejudices. 

    When our lack of imagination is used to distance ourselves from others, then we are being like the disciples and the crowd who wanted to quiet down the blind man.  The phrase ‘saved a wretch like me’ may give us pause when we sing “Amazing Grace,” as we did this morning during our hymn sing.  I for one rather would attach that label to some poor soul like blind Bartimaeus.  Yet we are all awakened occasionally in the middle of the night by the unimaginative and insensitive, even wretched, deeds we have done.  We all can be paralyzed by fear that we can never change for the better. We all are blinded by a lack of imagination at times.  We all may feel weighed down by our past that keep us from shouting out “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me.  I want to regain my sight.”  So, I cling to the good news that we are all wretches and we are all human beings gifted with soaring imaginations together. 

    In George Bernard Shaw’s play St. Joan the title character is interrogated about her strange ways, for Joan was a rabble-rouser, the only heretic burned at the stake by the same church that later canonized her as a saint. Her inquisitors come up with what they believe to be the ultimate putdown – ‘Madame, this is only your imagination.’ ‘Of course, it is’ she replies. ‘That’s how God speaks to us.’ The saints of every time and place have heard that imaginative voice and seen in their mind’s eye the truth of God’s creative and renewing love for all of us. 

    When you are tempted next to say “I just can’t imagine how…” look to the gospel and look to Jesus who could and still can imagine us and everyone as God’s well-loved children.  May we see ourselves through his eyes, may we see one another through his gracious eyes, too.  Amen.

 
In George Bernard Shaw’s play St. Joan the title character is interrogated about her strange ways, for Joan was a rabble-rouser. The only heretic burned at the stake by the same church that later canonized her as a saint. Her inquisitors come up with what they believe to be the ultimate putdown – ‘Madame, this is only your imagination.’ ‘Of course, it is’ she replies. ‘That’s how God speaks to us.’ The saints of every time and place have followed that imaginative voice and seen in their mind’s eye the truth of God’s creative and renewing love for all of us. 
    The word ‘wretch’ may give us pause when we sing “Amazing Grace” and it may be difficult to complete the association ‘a wretch like me.’ I for one do not relish claiming the label ‘wretch’ and I would rather attach it to someone like blind Bartimaeus. Am I the only one who is seized with anxiety in the middle of the night, kept awake by an anxious and repetitive screening of the unimaginative and insensitive, even wretched, thoughts or deeds I have done?  Am I the only one who is paralyzed by fear that I cannot do better?  Am I the only one blinded by a lack of imagination?  I don’t think so.