Mark 10:46-52
“Change is the only constant” is a common expression these days, perhaps so common as to be trite. “Trite” means “tired,” “overworked,” “overused.” But sometimes “tried and true” is trite. Some people talk as though the constancy of change is a recent development or a new idea. If 2,500 years is “recent” in your way of thinking, then it certainly is new idea. But unless you are an astronomer or a geologist or a paleontologist, 2,500 years is a long time. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who lived about the same time as the biblical figures Ezra and Nehemiah, is the first to be credited with the idea. Heraclitus said, “Everything flows; nothing stands still.”
An early biographer of ancient Greek philosophers named Diogenes Laertius gave us Heraclitus’s saying in the form we know it best: “Nothing endures but change” or “Change is the only constant.” One of my favorite twentieth-century philosophers, Carole King, sang it this way back in 1971: “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?” No, nobody does, because everything and everyone flows. Nothing and no one stands still. Change is the only constant.
This morning’s gospel lesson, Mark 10:46-52, is a story of change. But more than that, it’s a story of change agency, the willful initiation of change, on the part of a character named Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus was a blind beggar along the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. Mark’s gospel gives us no indication how long Bartimaeus had been blind. It gives us no indication of how long he had been begging to support himself, and it gives us no indication of how many beggars there were on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem that day. Bartimaeus would certainly not have been the only one on so well traveled a highway between two such important cities. So it’s important to notice which beggar succeeds in getting Jesus’ attention. The beggar that gets Jesus’ attention doesn’t say, “Can you spare 50 cents for a cup of coffee?” Or “Hey man, can you give me five bucks for a square meal?” Or “All I need is a bag of groceries to get me through the week.” Or “I need a bus ticket for Atlanta.” Or “I need a tank of gas for my car.” Jesus did not respond to a beggar who said, “Hey, do you have some change?” He responded to a beggar who said, “I am ready to change.” And that makes all the difference in change agency. The beggar who gets Jesus’ attention says, “I need a change in the underlying conditions of my life that have me in this state.” That’s the beggar to whom Jesus listens and for whom Jesus stops, and there is a model for change agency and ministry there, clear as day.
Since the earliest centuries of Christian interpretation of this passage, commentators have pointed out that it is Bartimaeus rather than Jesus who is the catalyst for change in the story. Bartimaeus initiates the change. Jesus is simply walking by. Jesus is leaving Jericho to go up to Jerusalem, and there’s nothing in the passage to indicate anything other than that he would have been entirely content to go from Jericho to Jerusalem without stopping on the way. It is Bartimaeus who initiates the action when he calls out, “Jesus, son of David! Have mercy on me!” It is Bartimaeus’s will for change that gets Jesus’ attention, and it’s that will for change that makes Bartimaeus a model for change agency.
Down through the centuries of Christian interpretation, commentators have also consistently observed that the character Bartimaeus reflects the character of the human condition. Bartimaeus is who all of us are, the commentators have said. In one way or another, we are all beggars by the roadside and persons whose vision is profoundly impaired. When Bartimaeus cries out for change, he cries out on behalf of all of us, on behalf of all of us who would no longer be beggars and who would no longer be blind—blind to ourselves, blind to others, and blind to the world around us. Insofar as Bartimaeus reflects the character of the human condition, the change agency he models applies to individuals and families and congregations and businesses and communities and nations who would muster the will to change.
There are five steps that model effective change agency in Mark 10:46-52. The first step is the recognition that change agency is essentially personal. “Have mercy on me!” Bartimaeus cries in verse 47. Whatever else needed to change in and around the Jericho of Bartimaeus’s day, change agency is about change in persons, change of persons, change for persons, change by persons.
Institutions may need to change; organizations may need to change; entire societies may need to change; but the locus of effective change agency is ultimately persons. Furthermore, when Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus, he does not frame his cry for change in relation to those around him. He frames it in relation to himself. Effective change agency is always personal in that it must always begin with the person who wants change. When most of us call for change, what we really want is for others to change. Poor people want rich people to change, and rich people want poor people to change. Conservatives want liberals to change, and liberals want conservatives to change. White people want black people to change, and black people want white people to change. People in South Carolina want to change the people in Washington, D.C., and the people in Washington, D.C., want to change the people in South Carolina. Everybody always wants somebody else to change. But the key to effective change agency is that it is personal—it it always about persons, and it always begins with change on the part of the one who wants change. “Have mercy on me!” (verse 48).
The second step in the effective change agency modeled by Bartimaeus is that he exhibits the courage to overcome resistance to change. When Bartimaeus cried out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” Mark’s gospel reports that many in the crowd “sternly ordered him to be quiet” (verse 48). The expression, “Sternly ordered him to be quiet,” in the NRSV translates a single Greek word, epetimōn, which means “shut up.” They tried to stop him from even speaking of a change. But Bartimaeus refused to be silenced. Instead, he “cried out even more loudly” (verse 49). For many people, change is threatening or at least unsettling, even if that change has no obvious or direct implication for them. What difference does it make to them if a blind beggar gets help? None. Or a lot: any time the status quo is altered at one point, it calls into question the status quo at every point. At some deep and unarticulated level, those who resist change understand what is at stake in any change is everything. But Bartimaeus’s will for change was strong enough to resist the inevitable opposition and the criticism that came his way when he called out for it.
The third step in effective change agency is the audacity to act. Bartimaeus did not merely recognize that his current conditions were unacceptable and exhibit the courage to overcome resistance to his cry. He had the audacity to stand up and walk in his blindness to Jesus (verse 50). Do you see that? Jesus did not heal Bartimaeus of his blindness, after which Bartimaeus got up and walked to Jesus. No. Change agency never happens that way. If you sit by the roadside and wait for it to happen just because you cried out for it, change will never come. Bartimaeus had to risk tripping and falling in his blindness on his way to the change he needed. Bartimaeus had to risk making a fool of himself to get up and walk to Jesus in his blindness. The change we need in the human condition and in every condition that requires change necessitates that we move while we are still blind and uncertain. We must move before we know whether we will succeed or fail, or even if we are moving in the right direction. Effective change agency only occurs when we have the audacity to act, even when we cannot yet see exactly where we are going or exactly what will come of our action.
Fourth, Bartimaeus exhibited a willingness to address the substantive and systemic issue that needed change. When Jesus asked Bartimaeus want he wanted Jesus to do do for him (verse 51), Bartimaeus could have answered, “I need a better corner to beg on, Lord. By the time the people get to me, they’ve already given all they’re going to give. Can you move me up to a better corner?” He could have said to Jesus, “I need a little shelter from the sun, Lord. It gets pretty hot out here. Can you build me a little booth so the sun won’t beat down on me? That way, I’ll be in a lot better shape in my begging. Could you do that for me, Lord, just a little shelter?” He didn’t say to Jesus, “Look, Lord, can you give me permission to use your name and maybe give me an endorsement. If you’ll just let me put out an endorsement from you, more people will give to me.” Any of those things would have improved Bartimaeus’s condition without changing it. What Bartimaeus exhibits is a willingness to name and to change the substantive and systemic issue that is the root of his condition. “Lord, I need to see again. I need to change the core issue that is at the root my struggle.” That’s where real and sustainable change agency takes place, not in mere improvements.
Fifth and finally, at the end of the passage. Bartimaeus makes a commitment to follow “the way” by which he came to sight (verse 52). Now, this is the place for the proverbial altar call, to call everyone to follow Jesus and sing “Just As I Am” until someone (else!) walks the aisle. But even before Bartimaeus received his sight, he was dismissed by Jesus: “Go your way!” Jesus said (verse 52, RSV). But instead of “going his way,” Bartimaeus followed Jesus “on the way” (verse 52). As essentially personal as effective change agency is, something more substantive and systemic than the once-and-for-all regeneration of an individual is at stake in verse 52. If I know anything about change, I know it’s going to have to happen again. Bartimaeus may have received his sight; but somewhere down the road, Bartimaeus is going to have to make another substantive and systemic change in his life and the lives of people around him. And so the following in the way by which he came to sight makes sense. The fifth and final step—adopting “the way” as a model for living and being—assures that Bartimaeus will not find himself by the same roadside in the same condition, ever again. He is equipped not only with sight but also with an understanding of the process of renewal and reformation, the founding and re-founding of change that is at the heart of the gospel and a biblical model for change agency.
May God grant that all of us beggars by the roadside become so sighted and so equipped in our efforts to follow the way.
This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.
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