Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege
Herb Montgomery, October 25, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”
“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:46-52)
Let’s jump right in.
Bartimaeus is a beggar whom Mark places on the road pilgrims took to Jerusalem. Meeting beggars on this road would contrasts a person’s personal piety with any possible commitment to resource-sharing. Today, it would be like passing by someone asking for help on the sidewalk because you were hurrying to get to church.
This story also has social, political, and economic dimensions that are rarely touched on in some sectors of Christianity. Mark’s gospel juxtaposes the story of the rich man in Mark 10 with the story of this beggar. This gospel has presented contrasting stories before. Consider the stories of the woman with the issue of blood and the synagogue leader in Mark 5. Their stories contrast two classes or social locations. And, in the same way that the woman in Mark 5 was “unclean,” the name Bartimaeus also means son of the “unclean.” Mark contrasts class and social location over and over.
There are political meanings as well: Bartimaeus is the first to name Jesus as the Son of David in the gospel of Mark. This title had political meanings tied to liberation and restoration in the time of Jesus.
Bartimaeus contrasts with the rich man in the earlier story, too. Bartimaeus heeds Jesus’ call to “throw his cloak aside.” He would have used this cloak for warmth against the elements, and it is also the cloak he would have spread out to collect alms from passers-by as he sat on the roadside. While the rich man walks away sad because he’s unwilling to give up his many possessions, Bartimaeus throws aside what little he has so he can reach Jesus.
The context around this scene is interesting. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to stand up to injustices being perpetrated by those in power in the Temple State. Whereas the rich young man walks away from Jesus, Bartimaeus joins and follows him, casting his lot for Jesus’ kingdom. Ched Myers comments on what this might mean: “The poor join in the final assault on the dominant idealogical order, and the rich have walked downcast away. The first have become last and the last have become first” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p. 282).
As in the story of the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5, the crowd in this story is in the way again. Bartimaeus must overcome all obstructions in persistently gaining Jesus’ attention. Then, once he gains Jesus’ attention, Mark’s gospel contrasts Bartimaeus with Jesus own disciples.
In Mark 10:36, Jesus asked James and John, “What do you want me to do for you?” They want to sit at Jesus’ left and the right hand in the kingdom: positions of status and privilege. That’s not what Jesus is about, however, and so it’s not surprising that this is the same question that he asks Bartimaeus later in the chapter.
In Mark 10:51, Jesus ask Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus’ answer is very different than the disciples’. He doesn’t ask for status or privilege, he simply wants to see, and Jesus responds, “Your faith has healed you.”
I’m not a fan of when the gospels use disabilities as metaphors for something negative. No matter how we try to explain it, using blindness as a pejorative will always define those who live with physical blindness as “less than.” The gospels are a product of their time. And today, when it comes to ableist narratives we may find in the gospels, we can and must do better.
As I consider the disciples’ request for positions of power, privilege, and status, I can’t help but think of many on the Christian nationalists today who are reaching for the same. I can’t help but see the contrast today the goals of White Christian nationalism and Bartimaeus saying that he just wanted to see.
Do we want status, celebrity, fame, or do we want to see? Do we want power to enforce our dogmas or do we want wisdom? Discernment, perception, and understanding rather than imposing our definitions of morality on others will enable us to work for others’ liberation and achieve a world that is safe, compassionate, and a just home for everyone.
How do we gain this kind of shift in our perception and understanding? For me in my experience, this shift came through a forced shift in proximity. Jim Wallis, in his recent book The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy, writes that proximity enables us to expand our understanding and empathy:
“I’ve learned it is proximity that changes us, that teaches us white people the work that we must do in our own communities” (Jim Wallis, The False White Gospel, p. 8).
Proximity doesn’t guarantee change. But it does provide the opportunity for change. Crossing lines that we have created and defined by our differences is the doorway to relationship. Our relationships have the potential, if we allow them, to help us understand more of the experiences of others who are different from us. As these relationships grow, we learn how others live in our society and have experiences different from our own. If we choose to respond to this awareness with empathy, we begin to discern, perceive, and understand broader realities. We begin to look at our world differently.
We create so many lines based on social differences that we must learn to step across.
Whether these lines are gender, social class, education, race or culture, or sexuality, when we choose to enter into relationship with those who are different from us, we experience that proximity which has the power to change the way we perceive and act.
For me, as a theologian, my journey began through exploring theological perspectives from communities that experience life differently than I do: from Christian feminist theologians to womanist perspectives, to Black liberation, Latin liberation, Mujerista liberation, and Indigenous liberation perspectives. LGBTQ justice, queer liberation, and disability justice perspectives changed how I look at the world forever.
Today, the work of learning to listen continues.
Evolving our society into a richly diverse and genuinely multi-racial democracy is prophetic work, and it’s work we are all invited to join. As Jesus followers today, we all have choices to make, especially those of us who live in more privileged social locations. Will we, because our privilege and status, walk away sad like the rich man, because we, too, have great possessions? Or will we, like Bartimaeus, simply say, “we just want to see”?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. If you were asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”, how would you answer? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 33: Mark 10.46-52. Lectionary B, Proper 25
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 28: Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege
Mark 10:46-52
“We create so many lines based on social differences that we must learn to step across.
Whether these lines are gender, social class, education, race or culture, or sexuality, when we choose to enter into relationship with those who are different from us, we experience that proximity which has the power to change the way we perceive and act. Proximity doesn’t guarantee change. But it does provide the opportunity for change. Crossing lines that we have created and defined by our differences is the doorway to relationship. Our relationships have the potential, if we allow them, to help us understand more of the experiences of others who are different from us. As these relationships grow, we learn how others live in our society and have experiences different from our own. If we choose to respond to this awareness with empathy, we begin to discern, perceive, and understand broader realities. We begin to look at our world differently.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/bartimaeus-and-christians-of-privilege
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
If you find blessing, encouragement and renewal here,
please consider becoming a Monthly Partner with a reoccurring monthly donation of your choosing.
$5 / month