Vision from a Blind Man

A name is a most valuable possession, a part of who we are. A community's name should reflect the means through which the Spirit draws and then holds that community together. It becomes an important vehicle in the ongoing story of a community, an anchor for its broadening vision. Thus, choosing a name is no trivial task.

How should a name be chosen? By spontaneous brain-storming? Or protracted collective deliberation? Perhaps, as we deepen our self-understanding, the name will simply become clear to us, and intellectual exercise will give way to realization. In a moment of recognition, we meet our own vision in a symbol, and there is instant rapport.

Our moment, as I remember, came somewhere on a highway between Chicago and Denver. Four of us were cramped between backpacks in a Datsun, slushing our way through gray sleet at dusk. We were returning from several rich and important months spent living among a few communities in the East, but our minds were already back in California with the sisters and brothers of our nascent community in Berkeley. Although our "community" was barely six months old, we felt instinctively that something deep was beginning.

As the car sped on into the darkening snowfall, conversation turned toward considering whether we should begin thinking about a name. Was it pretentious to begin moving from informality and anonymity toward identification with the vision around which we felt gathered? By the time we were entering Iowa, we were in consensus that our name should be appropriated from a biblical character. After all, the early Christians often changed their names at baptism, adopting biblical ones. Behold, new creation. But we were late-comers; all the Bible well-knowns had already been taken by other groups. We lingered over this discernment as the night lengthened before us.

By the time we reached Des Moines, it was clear. One of us suggested Bartimaeus, the blind beggar healed by Jesus (Mark 10:46-52). It was as if the name had been on the tip of each of our tongues. There was little debate. We had met our name.

It never occurred to us that tactically such a name was foolish. Today, three years later, we are continually amused: No one can spell it, it is painfully esoteric, much too long for a return address stamp. Who knows who (or what) Bartimaeus is supposed to represent? The blank stares and thin smiles are unanimous: We couldn't have picked a more obscure personality.

The mail reminds us daily: Bartholomew Community, Barnabas House, a half-dozen misspellings of Bartimaeus. The local War Resisters League office gave up early on, settling on "Berkeley Christian House."

Imagine our chagrin when one evening at the San Jose Catholic Worker, a visiting priest inquired about our community. His response to my introduction was the normal vexed look. Then, suddenly brightening, he soberly exclaimed, "Ah, yes, Bottom-Ass Community!" (Yes, well, we do agree with Bonhoeffer that the church should be "from below," but....)

Radical Gospel
It was natural for us to look to Mark's Gospel for a name. Our vision for Christian renewal has, from the start, been nurtured by this hard-hitting Gospel of radical discipleship. Imbued throughout with an uncompromising urgency, Mark's portrait of Jesus and his community of followers stresses belief as a crisis, subjects all religious orthodoxy to the revelation of a crucified messiah, and compels the reader to enter into the mission of Christ in the world.

The burden of this first Gospel, in the words of Eduard Schweizer, is to argue that "discipleship is the only form in which faith can exist." This, for us, is the key to our own renewal and that of the whole church.

In our age of materialism, militarism, and human exploitation, the question must be pressed, not only in whom do we believe, but also what does it mean to believe? Mark's Gospel speaks to our confusion, offering vital paradigms of what faith means.

Scholars speculate that Mark was addressing his Gospel to a struggling community which, like the church today, was entering hard times. Conflicting claims of empire and culture were pressing in upon Mark's community, but the challenge was being met by theological confusion. Who was Jesus— charismatic healer, mystery divine, conquering messiah, prophet of inner peace?

Discipleship, for Mark, calls for the transformation of one's whole life, and therefore it is necessarily a miracle of grace. Thus, the most important paradigm of faith in his account is that of a healing miracle—specifically, the blind receiving sight.

The heart of Mark's Gospel, the section on discipleship (8:27-10:45), is bracketed by two stories of blind men receiving sight (8:22-26; 10:46-52). The first is a two-stage healing in Bethsaida, ambiguous and tentative; it points toward the later confession of another distressed man: "I believe, help me in my unbelief!" (9:24).

At the conclusion of the section presenting discipleship as suffering servanthood (a cycle of three teachings, 8:35, 9:35, and 10:42, which parallel the three passion predictions of Jesus), we find the final paradigm of faith. Mark 10:46 and the following verses describe the last event in Jesus' ministry before he enters Jerusalem for the "final showdown."

We encounter a blind beggar (figurative of our humanity?) who persistently petitions for healing (a church not content to rationalize its own brokenness?). Jesus reaches out to this man over the objections of the custodians of good order. The blind man springs toward his liberation, and from the depth of struggle (with Jesus' words to the disciples ringing in our ears: "Do you still not see or comprehend? Are your minds completely blinded? Have you eyes but no sight?") cries out: "Master, I want to see!"

With dramatic simplicity, the gift of liberation breaks in upon him. His faith becomes his healing, and his healing immediately issues forth with the response of faith. He will "follow Jesus on the Way," Mark's metaphor for discipleship. The way is the road to Jerusalem, the way of the cross. The man's name: Bartimaeus.

What then is in a name? Perhaps an important story, a world of revelation—a story that Mark's Gospel offers as the essential prototype of faith: radical discipleship to the crucified God, a miracle of grace. In our community, this story, as we appropriate it through retelling and reflection, becomes part of us, our story. We must allow it to speak both prophetically and pastorally to our own life. Our name mirrors a vision, and the vision is the axis around which our community must spin.

All of this will not reduce the vexed looks or mispronunciations. Thank God for comic relief. We will spare people the theological details of Markan redaction, content if they spell Bartimaeus right, ecstatic if they know who he was. The poor man's obscurity notwithstanding, we are deeply grateful for the gift of that name and that story.

Ched Myers was a peace activist, theological student, house painter, and member of Bartimaeus Community in Berkeley, California, when this article appeared.