My Teacher, Let Me See Again

Mark 10:46-52
October 27, 2024
William G. Carter

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

We have been heading this way all through the Gospel of Mark. If Mark tells how the disciples of Jesus struggled to make sense of him and follow him, it’s all been coming to this. A man who could not see is given back his sight and then uses his restored vision to follow Jesus “on the way.”

It’s a rare story for Mark’s Gospel. Finally, somebody comprehends. Finally, somebody jumps up and gets in step. Lord knows, it’s taken long enough. This is the end of chapter ten. Back in chapter eight, we heard about another man who is given back his sight. It didn’t go well. The crowd pushed him toward the Lord, who took him aside and applied the standard healing procedures of the day. It didn’t work, so Jesus had to do it again (8:22-26). Apparently, some maladies are so deeply seated that it takes extra effort to relieve them.

By contrast, the healing of Bartimaeus is at the end of chapter ten. This time, the sightless person has a name. He lives in Jericho, the oasis city down south, where he begs for a living. This time, the people in the crowd don’t lead him by the hand to encounter the Christ. Rather, the people in the crowd tell him to be quiet, to keep still, to shut his mouth.

But the blind beggar is persistent. He cries out to Jesus at the top of his lungs. With Roman soldiers all around, Bartimaeus calls out for the “Son of David.” That’s revolutionary talk. That’s Messiah talk. The Jericho folk don’t want any trouble from the Romans. They tell the man to hush. Jesus stops, stands, calls him to his side. Then he heals his sight, this time on the first attempt.

It’s a study in contrasts. I believe it’s intentional. Two blind men are healed. The first is led by the crowd, the second hushed by the crowd. The first needs extra help, the second needs no help; he springs up and leaves his beggar’s cloak behind. As Jesus moved from success in Galilee to the cross in Jerusalem, a good part of his ministry has been equipping people to see.

For here is the irony of the account: between the healing of the blind person in chapter eight and the blind beggar Bartimaeus in chapter ten, his own disciples haven’t seen a thing. Their eyes are wide open, of course, but they remain blind in all kinds of other ways.

He tells them, “I’m going to Jerusalem, where I will be arrested, suffer, and be killed.” The disciples say, “No, not you. That’s never going to happen to you.” It goes downhill from there.

·       They stammer when Jesus is transfigured on the mountain, then say the wrong thing.

·       They try to do a healing of their own and expose themselves as inept.

·       They argue about which one of them is the greatest.

·       They stop somebody who is doing Christ’s work but is not part of their little group.

·       They chase away the little ones that Jesus is blessing. And so on. 

In one vignette after another, Mark says the disciples cannot see what Jesus values, how deeply he is committed, and where it will take him. He tells them three times, “I am going to Jerusalem to give my life.” They aren’t tracking what he’s saying. They do not see. They don’t connect the dots. It seems to be a common experience.

A couple went out to dinner on a Saturday night. They were celebrating a special anniversary. They dressed up, went to a swanky place, ordered wine, oysters, shrimp cocktail, all the courses. It was going well until a woman at the bar started yelling. She was loud, she was obscene. When the bartender politely asked her to tone it down, she responded with obscenities. The couple hurried their meal and left before that lady fell off the barstool a second time. It was a disappointing Saturday night.

Imagine their surprise on Sunday morning. They went to church, opened the hymnal for the first hymn, looked across the aisle, and there she is, singing at the top of her lungs. full voice. At the door, they shook their heads and murmured, “Some people just don’t see.”

The diagnosis is not limited to Presbyterians on or off their barstools. For the past eight years, I’ve spent time with groups of clergy. As part of my responsibility to the wider church, I serve two weeks a year as a faculty member for a church conference on wellness. We delve into all the dimensions of what makes us human: spiritual, physical, emotional, financial, vocational. It’s a great program. But do you know why the emphasis is on wellness? Because so many struggle to be well.

The faculty has seen it all: fractured relationships, estranged children, teenagers with drug problems, college students with eating disorders, spending out of control, going into debt, emotions spiraling in every direction, serious obesity, anger, loss of faith. And that’s just with the clergy. As one of my colleagues says, “Just like the congregations we serve.” All of us have wounds and scar tissue.

What is so fascinating is the insidious nature of denial, the inability to see. Ask the woman whose credit score is shredded, and she says, “I should have paid more of my bills.” Ask the man with hypertension who carries an extra two hundred pounds, and he says, “I like my snacks, but I don’t have a weight problem.” It’s astonishing what blind spots we can have. The only thing more astonishing is how easy it is to see the blind spots of others when we refuse to see our own.

Jesus says, “What do you want, Bartimaeus? What can I do for you?” It’s the question that runs through the whole chapter. A wealthy man approached Jesus, kneeled at his feet, begged Jesus, saying, “What must I do to get God’s kingdom? Jesus looked him over, saw the designer clothes, the golden shoelaces, the $100,000 watch, and loved the guy for who he was, not what he had, so he said, “Give it all away, so that all you have left is me.” And the man couldn’t do it. He slinked away.

And immediately, James and John, two of his star teammates, with him from the beginning, said, “Give us what we want.” He shook his head, smiled, said, “What do you want?” And they said, “You know those box seats in Yankee Stadium that are selling this week for $27,351 on StubHub? We want two of those seats in the Kingdom of God. And everybody can look at us and say, ‘Woo whee! Moving on up from the Sea of Galilee!” He sayeth unto them, “That’s what you want? Doesn’t work that way, boys.” And they looked shocked, for now their hunger for status will be permanently inscribed in the scriptures.

By contrast, “Bartimaeus, what do you want? What can I do for you?” He doesn’t want to be addicted to affluence. He throws away the cloak that caught the pity donations. He signals he will be totally dependent on Christ. So, he says, “I want to see. Once I could see, now I want to see again.” That’s a request Jesus can meet. No more denial. No more dependence. No more playing the victim. No more twisting the truth. No more inventing nonsense or scamming others or begging for others’ pity. Just to see. To see again.

Now, do you know how risky that is? Because once you see, you can’t pretend you didn’t. Once you admit to yourself or anybody else that you are now seeing clearly, there’s no more faking it. You must act on what you know.

My friends in the addiction recovery community report what happens when they see what they pretended they didn’t. The embarrassment at parties, the wrecked cars, the legal bills, the way that the kids hide from the parents, the way that kids pick up the same habits. Then comes the confrontation, the intervention, and someone says, “I love you so much I’m not going to tolerate this anymore.” They call it the “come to Jesus” moment. It’s the moment of seeing again.

The school nurse sees evidence of neglect. The accountant decides not to ignore the client’s illegal secrets. The true believer says, “I refuse to be a hypocrite any longer.” The true friend says, “Listen, we have to discuss some bad habits we’ve been avoiding.” We see these things, and there’s no going back. It will mean a commitment.

Just like our text. Bartimaeus sees what the twelve disciples were still fuzzy about. He’s not merely giving up the life of begging on the street corner in Jericho. He is taking on a journey with Jesus. He sees where Jesus is going – all the way uphill to the cross – and he commits to going with him. That’s why his name got written down in the Bible. Vision leads to commitment.

Yesterday, a team of fifteen volunteers from our church, supported by scores of others, provided two hundred and three meals to the South Side of Scranton. Did they do it because they are nice people? Well, yes. But they really did it because they saw people who are hungry, and they saw those people as neighbors, and they could see there was something we could do about it. Seeing always leads to commitment. We see, and we do.

In fact, I was thinking about today as Stewardship Sunday, when we commit our money to God’s purposes. It reminded me of a moment here years ago. Our generosity team was looking over trends in giving. They noticed something. The biggest jump in donations occurred that year in church leaders who were serving the second year of their terms. Elders and deacons jumped in their generosity after they served on their boards for the first year.

This was reported at the next session meeting. One man said, “I must confess. I was coasting along for years. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Then I began to see all the good things that are going on around here, and decided I wanted to be part of it. I want this ministry to flourish. So, I tripled my pledge.” Then he looked around the table and said, “Who’s with me?” Or to say it better, “Who’s with Jesus?” Vision leads to commitment.

The life in Christ is one of continuing growth. We keep going, we keep growing. Sometimes it’s a stretch. Sometimes it’s a challenge. Usually, it is expressed in works of service that benefit others, and this takes energy. Yet it all begins with an awakening of sight. If your faith has gotten flattened, if your edge has grown dull, you could do worse than pray the prayer of Bartimaeus, “My teacher, let me see… let me see again.”     

I believe it’s a prayer that Jesus always answers. He’s not going to promise you can hold on to your riches. He’s never going to provide you tickets to those seats in Yankee Stadium. But he is going to invite you into the places where your heart will be broken open for other people, where your skills can meet the world’s needs, where during service you will be filled with joy. Because it’s a journey to keep traveling with Christ. And you’ll never be the same.

The journey begins with a prayer: “My Teacher, let me see, again and again.”

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.