A Hidden Gem in Today’s Bartimaeus Gospel

by Richard W. Murray

The Gospel story of Bartimaeus has a beautiful hidden teaching on the building of
the Body of Christ, the Church. Only Mark’s Gospel has this version of this
wonderful story of healing.
Some necessary background context: The books of Joshua and Judges are probably
the most genocidal books of all world scripture. There is carnage, bloodshed, and
racism as the Israelites end their 40 years in the desert and take over the Promised
Land, murdering everything in their way.
This trail of stolen land, ethnic cleansing, and genocide is exemplified in the story
of Jericho, which appears early in the Book of Joshua. The end result is that the
Israelites murder the entire city, stealing the land for themselves.
Now, there have been many attempts by people in the Church to rationalize the
extreme violence of the ancient Israelites. Some have tried to forgive and to cover
over the violence, hatred, racism, and genocide of the Israelites. Yet questions
arise: What is the point of these stories of the Israelite thievery, land confiscation,
and hatred toward other human beings? Could God really have countenanced this
vile behavior? Are we to spiritualize it, attempting to ignore the murder and
genocide?
I think that we can read this ancient violence and lack of empathy as a stage of our
evolution. The cave men were not very cosmopolitan. They didn’t hold trans-
national cavemen meetings and celebrate their common humanity. Rather, the
coming together of international humanity is a hugely recent event that is a sign of
our evolution. We can celebrate this gigantic leap forward in our human
development.
Jesus has a great deal to do with this advance.
When Jesus walked through Jericho more than a millennia after the Israelites
destroyed it, the rebuilt city that Jesus loved had simply ignored Joshua’s command
that the city must never be rebuilt. Jericho was indeed rebuilt, and Jesus visited it
in great peace. Jesus had utterly no interest in following the literal letter of the law
of Joshua’s violent command. He makes friends there, instead. When it’s time for

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leaving the city, a crowd is following him. They’re his new friends and followers,
attracted by the goodness and truth of his message, attracted by the actual love
that is evident in his very life and person.
Yet his followers, like the ancient Israelites, are not fully evolved yet.
When a blind fellow starts pleading for help, loudly, the new groupies don’t want
their buzz to be bothered with. They want their new status as followers of the latest
twitter boss or facebook celebrity to be respected. They want a share of the luster
that surrounds Jesus.
So his new followers tell the blind Bartimaeus to shut up.
Jesus, at this, simply stops.
Everyone’s attention is redirected. A new focus is imparted to those in this scene.
Jesus speaks. We’re not told his precise words. We’re told simply that the blind
beggar is to be called. It is the crowd, who was previously attacking the poor fellow,
who is to call him.
The crowd does this with gusto. They say to poor Bartimaeus, “Take courage! Arise!
He is calling you!”
Mark has slipped this miracle by us completely, without our noticing it, at first. The
original Greek text of Mark’s own writing supports this fully. Yes, Jesus has here
converted the unruly crowd into the Body of Christ. He has caused their
evolutionary advance in love.
When the crowd says “He is calling you!” something amazing is happening. Jesus
did NOT call Bartimaeus, in fact. Instead, he quietly told the crowd to call him. This
caused a 180-degree reversal in the crowd, from immature jealousy into Christian
Charity, Love. The crowd already knew well enough that Jesus is special. So they
are ready, when Jesus gives them the simple command to become lovers and to
advance in evolutionary progress, to grow.
Did they lie? When they said “He is calling you,” was that a fib, a small untruth? We
can truly press the Gospel like this, especially when the original Greek supports
such a reading.

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No, they didn’t lie. Instead, they became the Body of Christ. They became an early
instance of the Church, the Body of Christ. When they converted from jealousy to
love, they truly then became Christians, and followed Jesus with their heart and
soul. Jesus did indeed call Bartimaeus, through them. They are now the body of the
Christ.
This is one of the miracles of today’s Gospel.
We read this Gospel every year on the Thursday of the 8th Week of Ordinary Time.
And every other year, the First Reading is from 1 Peter. It supports this
interpretation of the Marcan Gospel as being about the building of the Body of
Christ. Peter says, “...the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, rejected by
human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones,
let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…” (1 Peter 2) Peter and Paul merge in
this verse. They become one, as Christ and the people of Jericho, and then
Bartimaeus, and then us, all become One.
This is the building of the Church, the Body of Christ, just like it happened outside
the west gate of Jericho in the Gospel today.
A couple verses later Peter says, “Once…you had not received mercy, but now you
have received mercy.” Indeed, the people of Jericho received God’s love in the
person of Jesus. And they themselves were truly converted, became the Body of
Christ, and spoke to the blind beggar as Jesus Himself. They became the Body of
Christ, the hands and voice of Jesus, of God, of Love.

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