Insight
Mark 10:46-52
October 25, 2009
The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century is typically portrayed as one of the pivotal movements of human civilization. Along with the rise of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the Middle Ages, the Crusades, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, the Reformation is more akin to a tornado and hurricane than a new way of thinking and living. Historically, there really is no definable instant when the Reformation began, no Big Bang of Protestantism, although we are here today commemorating a little bit early the events of one raw, windy October 31st, 1517, when a Catholic parish priest in East Germany nailed a copy of his 95 Theses addressing problems in the Roman Catholic Church. That these Theses were written in Latin was a sign that they were most likely not read by the average parishioner.
Seldom are there magic moments, but periods of time when stirring around in the minds and spirits of particular people something eventually works its way out onto paper or into spoken words. For Martin Luther, it was both paper and speech.
Luther was not just a parish priest. He was an Augustinian monk who in many ways was not in keeping with the times. He was not interested in prestige and honour and a comfortable life style courtesy of the privileges of the Great Church. He was interested, intensely, in God, and it was not a comfortable interest. Luther wrestled with God from his beginnings, a man possessed by a God whom he did not really love, just feared. His mentors and superiors knew that Luther was too severe on himself, so they tried a number of things. Finally, a novel approach: go back to university, earn a doctorate and teach, of all things, the Bible. And he did.
His first lectures were in 1513 on the Psalms and before he knew it a strange new world had opened up to him. He studied the Psalms intensively for two years, then moved on to the Letter to the Romans and then the light bulbs really started to turn on in his mind, and the 95 Theses were part of the light shone. One person simply reading the Bible in his room changed the way the world thought.
Let’s see how the world thinks as the Jesus company walks into Jericho. The Gospels are confused about the itinerary, but here Jesus came and immediately left Jericho, a mob in tow.
Now where are we? Jericho, one of the most famous of all Biblical cities, and the lowest inhabited place below sea level in the world. More than a few who have said that Jericho is hell above earth. This is the only time Jericho is mentioned in Mark, but we’ve heard of Jericho before.
Sitting by the dock of the bay is Bar Timaeus, a blind beggar, who was hearing the voices that it was Jesus of Nazareth coming down the road. Another one of these blind men stories, eh? This poor beggar has a name. All those characters in the Gospel that come in and out of the parables and stories go anonymously, rich and powerful, ordinary citizens, but we know this man’s name and the name of his father as well. Bar Timaeus means “son of Timaeus” in Aramaic. It may be obvious that poor people have names, but socially in every culture and in every age, including our own, it has never been obvious. The powerless are nameless.
Bartimaeus started shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” A whole bunch of good folk do what we always do when the poor try to speak up, they shush him, “Quiet, boy.” The disciples had rebuked the parents from bringing their children to Jesus, now the multitude is rebuking a blind beggar. But Bartimaeus shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Kyrie Eleison. Jesus stopped.
“Call him.” And now everybody wants to call Bar Timaeus. Doesn’t matter who it is, but if you come in touch with someone famous, everyone else wants a piece of you. “Hey, boy, uh, Sir, get up, he’s calling you.” Bar Timaeus jumped right up, threw off his dirty beggar’s coat, because he wasn’t going back to being blind. He came right up to Jesus, but Jesus is the one who spoke.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Now wait a minute, isn’t that what Jesus said to James and John Zebedee last week? They wanted ultimate power and prestige, to sit at the right and left of Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven. Bar Timaeus didn’t need any of that. He wanted just one thing. His name is Aramaic, so this whole conversation had to be in Aramaic and it was just one grunted word, “dechze” - “Let me see!” No elaborate explanation, just one word.
“Go your, your faith has healed you,” Jesus said, never touching him. A lot of words here: “to heal” is the same verb as “to save.” Bar Timaeus couldn’t just see, his life was redeemed, saved, resurrected. Mark’s favourite word - “Immediately,” he saw. But it was more than sight, he now had an insight, for the episode ends quietly, deceptively, “he followed Jesus on the way.” What Luther saw in the scriptures, what he read and heard and thought didn’t remain on the page, he got up and made sure everyone could see what he had seen, he did the word.
But wait a second, we’re missing something awfully important. Where are we? In Jericho? No, Jesus and company were leaving Jericho and Bar Timaeus was on the road outside the city, and cities always had walls to enclose the town and protect the populace. Bar Timaeus was shouting and who was shouting outside the walls of Jericho? Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down when all the Israelites shouted at once. Of course, we don’t talk much about what happened after that. The Israelites massacred everyone in Jericho and it’s hard to preach the Gospel with that kind of stuff happening. No healing, no salvation inside Jericho then.
But today Jesus is turning the scriptures inside out, rebuilding the walls of Jericho. Instead of killing a multitude of people, a multitude of people watch Jesus heal and bring new life to one of the least of these poor people. In the front of the walls of Jericho life is reformed, yes, even the Bible is being reformed. And some of you already know, Jesus is actually a Greek name, a Greek translation of what his real name was, Joshua. This Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls between rich and poor, power and the dispossessed came tumbling down. Instead of mass slaughter, a human being was given sight and insight into a entirely new re-formed way of life.
We have been reformed, taking our mistakes and transforming them into an instance of God’s life. The only we can continue to be reforming is by asking and praying, “Let me see,” and then getting up and walking on that road ahead that we now see in front of us.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan