Does your God need to be actively defended by you and your fellow believers? Many Europeans seemed to think so as they embarked on waging wars in the 16th and 17th centuries in the name of the “correct version” of the Christian faith. Although those in charge cried out for power and influence, the religious fervour of the foot soldiers turned out to be a handy ideological driver. Then, in the 1970s and 80s, there were quite a lot of rallies and demonstrations against various “artistic” events, films and the like insulting the Christian faith. Such protests hardly ever achieved their goals, while unintentionally providing a lot of publicity for those events on the cheap. These days, such stunts are rare because Christians largely ignore them, a strategy that seems much more effective. Forced by societal circumstances, we are turning from being “a party of protest” into a community of witnesses to Jesus, which is in line with his design.
The story in today’s gospel reading seems to follow a similar pattern of Jesus’ many miraculous interventions. Someone who had been afflicted with some kind of vulnerability stumbled upon Jesus and was cured. However, each of such stories was told by early followers of Christ for good reasons, most often hidden from us because of the passing of time. Sometimes, we can pick up some hints from tiny details those stories kept. Unlike many others healed by Jesus, who forever remained nameless, the main character of today’s story was identified by his name as Bartimaeus. Why would you name the character in your story unless it’s relevant to your audience? It must have been someone known to the storyteller as well as to his listeners. Why would you do that? To prove the veracity of the story, perhaps even by pointing at the man in question. So, when this story was told for the first few times, it was more like a witness statement.
Other details are no less fascinating. The blind man was sitting on the side of the road to be able to beg without being a trip hazard to its users. He was marginalised physically as well as metaphorically. Even more so when he reminded the world of his existence by shouting at the passing Jesus. His disciples and enchanted crowds following Him reacted rather uncharitably towards Bartimaeus: “Many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet.” When I read this passage, I recalled a long-forgotten incident from my seminary years. One evening during summer break, I was walking back home from my parish church while wearing a cassock (a long black priestly robe) when suddenly I heard a man shouting at me across the street in the town square. It was a far cry (excuse the pun) from that of Bartimaeus: “Have pity on me!” Instead, the man hurled a volley of quite unpleasant insults. So, I crossed the road, approached him and started talking to him. Our conversation lasted long enough to make my mum worried at home. The man turned out to be a troubled soul needing help, and his insults were an unpleasant way of drawing attention. I’m not aware of any miraculous change in his life as a result of our chat, but certainly, his existential pain eased a bit there and then.
Back to Bartimaeus, the crowd’s attitude completely changed when Jesus paid attention to the interrupter: “Courage,’ they said, ‘get up; he is calling you.’” Suddenly, everyone wanted to be the good one, in line with the old saying, “Success has many fathers while a failure is an orphan.” In their mind, Jesus’ interest in the man turned him from a troublemaker – who should have forcefully been silenced – to a potential fellow traveller. The crowd’s changed attitude created conditions for a dialogue between Jesus and Bartimaeus. Sometimes, that’s all we need to do as Christians. Getting into a kind of spiritually superior “splendid isolation” might be tempting, but it would be entirely against our call, as Jesus stated at the end of St Mark’s gospel. “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15). How do we do that in practical terms?
We might think of ourselves as unworthy of fulfilling such a grand mission because of our shortcomings, imperfections, and personal struggles, which seem to put our Christianity into question. But that’s not how the good news has been preached from the outset. The first audiences of Bartimaeus’ story knew the man, warts and all. Jesus himself, after his resurrection, appeared to his disciples, showing them his wounds and even urging them to touch them (see John 20:26-27). When the New Testament was eventually formed as we know it today, no efforts had been made to cover up or polish Jesus’ disciples’ shortcomings in all their glory (or, rather, disgrace). Why? Only this way could the Christian faith appeal to those troubled by life’s multiple challenges. Not everyone can be a preacher in the narrow sense of the word. But everyone can be a witness to Jesus’ transformative power. When we share it with others, warts and all, they might get to Jesus, even if here and now, they try to find Him blindly. The world around us might scream obscenities and hurl insults at our faith, but deep down, it’s often a cry for help: “Jesus, have pity on me!” Our God doesn’t need defenders; He needs witnesses to His infinite love and mercy. He needs you!
