This year we have been working our way through Mark's Gospel. That’s how our lectionary works. It's a three-year cycle. We get the year of Matthew, the year of Mark, the year of Luke. The fourth Gospel, John, gets sprinkled throughout the others to fill in some holes, to round out some edges, to provide some seasoning, but fundamentally we get three years when we focus on one Gospel each year.
This is the year of Mark. One of the details of Mark's Gospel that you might have noticed is that Mark is brief. He is a sparse story teller. He doesn't dwell or linger in the stories. I would venture to guess that most of your favorite details from a Gospel story probably come from Matthew or Luke's versions, not Mark's, because Mark doesn't have very many details. Take for instance the story of Jesus out in the desert wilderness. All the stuff about the three temptations, Jesus and the devil arguing with each other and quoting scripture to each other, the content of those temptations and spiritual meaning you might take from that all come from Matthew and Luke. Each of those versions are ten times longer than Mark's version, which is just about one sentence. Mark says Jesus went out into the wilderness, he fasted, he was tempted, and he was fine. So in each of the three lectionary years on the first Sunday in Lent when we get the desert story, we get Matthew’s version in the Matthew year, in the Luke year we get his version. But in the Mark year, they thought it wasn’t long enough so we are given some stories around it in addition to the desert story.
What this means is that when there are details in Mark's Gospel, it is as if Mark is saying, you need to stop and take a moment because this thing I'm telling you is really important. Today’s Gospel is one of those examples. Today's Gospel is the healing of Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus. Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus is a detail that is screaming at us to pay attention. Bartimaeus is the only person healed in Mark's telling of the Gospel that gets named. Bartimaeus is the only blind person in all four Gospels who gets named.
The name Bartimaeus is doubled here. Bartimaeus son of Timaeus. Bar means son, so the sentence reads, Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) son of Timaeus. It is a doubling up, screaming at us to pay attention. And there is a parallel structure in the reference to Jesus, son of David. This reference to Jesus, son of David, gives us some insight into the name Bartimaeus son of Timaeus. Who is David? Is David Jesus's dad? No. Jesus's dad is Joseph or God. David is Jesus's great-great-great-great-great-great-great- grandfather on his stepdad Joseph's side. So the scripture is not saying that Jesus is David's son. It is saying that he is in this Messianic lineage, this Messianic world view that Jesus is here to embody. To say he is the son of David is to say he is the Messiah. So "Bartimaeus son of Timaeus" is not telling us that Timaeus is the father of Bartimaeus, but that Bartimaeus is another lineage world view.
If that's the case, then who could Timaeus be? There is a famous book of this era by Plato called "Timaeus." It is a book that everybody would have known. It is a book that explains the world. It explains how the world is created, how the world is ordered, and how humanity is created and ordered as well. It is very likely that what Mark is saying is that Bartimaeus son of Timaeus is a part of this world view. He embodies it, he represents it in the same way that Jesus is part of the Davidic world view.
It is interesting when you start looking at these two books, Mark's Gospel and "Timaeus", because there are references to "Timaeus" in the Gospel that confirm the point that this is very likely Mark's intent. One of those details you see in both stories is a blind man. It is a blind man at a really critical juncture. In the Gospel we have the blind man at the junction between the first part of the Gospel, which is all about Galilee and moving towards Jerusalem, and the second part of the Gospel, which is entering Jerusalem, being crucified, and being resurrected. This part of the Gospel is the junction point between the Galilee ministry and the Jerusalem ministry. In "Timaeus" the blind man shows up at the junction point between the first half of the book, which is all about the ordering of the cosmos, the creating of the worlds, the ordering of the world, and the second half of the book which is all abut humanity, how humanity is created and ordered. In both of these critical junctures in each of these books is a blind man.
This blind man is treated differently in both stories. In "Timaeus" the blind man shows up and is at best pitied. The blind man is offered at most lament. But that isn't even something "Timaeus" really cares about, because in "Timaeus" the blind man has no value. For Timaeus, the most important sense of all is sight. For Timaeus, all knowledge, all understanding begins with sight. In "Timaeus" there is no value for the blind man because he cannot know because he cannot see.
When we flip over to Mark's Gospel we have the blind man, and he knows. He understands who Jesus is. It is a striking understanding because we're coming off multiple stories about the Disciples not getting it, and Jesus having to constantly repeat himself to try and get them to understand. And here we have the blind man, the man who according to "Timaeus" should not know or understand anything because he cannot see. He has no value in the world order that Timaeus has created. But Mark says the blind man is the one who knows and understands. He has value. We find in Mark's Gospel the sense that the one who is not supposed to know the way the world understands things is the one who understands better than everyone else who can see. All of this is following on the stories of Jesus saying do not be like the Gentiles. Do not do and order things as they order them. I am calling you to something different. Bartimaeus knows and understands.
This is a remarkable critique of "Timaeus" that is being offered here. Jesus is saying do not follow that world view, but come and follow me in my world view. The world view with all of its order, its structures, it hierarchy of who has value and who does not is not the way of God. Come and follow Me on the way of the world view of God. The vision, the dream, the imagination that God has for this world in which every single person has value, including the blind man who does not get value after he is healed. He has it before, because he already understands, he can already see the world for the way it is.
Jesus says follow this way, the way of mercy. "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me." Follow Jesus on the way of mercy, on the way of grace, on the way of love because that is the world view of God. That is the ordering of the world in which a little child can be taken and put in the middle as an exemplar, as Jesus did in our Gospel just a few weeks ago. That is not the world view of Timaeus. He says that little child has little value. Jesus says yes, the child does. It is a world view that says the first will be last and the last will be first. It is a world view that says do not worry about who sits on my left or my right because what is important is that I came to serve, not be served. We are called into that same life. Jesus wants a world in which we care for each other, in which we love our neighbor. Jesus is offering us this way, the way of Jesus the son of David, not the way of Timaeus.
"Knitted together in love" has been our theme these past several weeks because that is what we are trying to do, to follow Jesus on this way, to construct, to know together that world that God wants, of grace, of mercy, and love. To knit together a shawl that will wrap up this world in God's love.
AMEN.
