Wilderness Urgency

Many of the people kept telling him to be quiet; but the man continued to call out all the louder, “Son of David, take pity on me.”

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leaders should never
have to put up with
a discouraging word

their divine right
puts thumbs where they want
of their own accord

petitions from the gallery
need one hundred fifty seven
signatures to be heard

with every one a chief-of-staff
privilege is well protected
from practicing mercy

such rabble
can shout
until hoarse

while institutional white noise
claims its supremacy
and walks blissfully away

---

Scolding can work for awhile but eventually loses potency. Often this leads to harsher measures to control another.

Sometimes, when a need is great enough, neither scolding nor harsher methods will keep the groaning of the universe quiet.

John Dominic Crossan and Sarah Sexton Crossan have a new book out, Resurrecting Easter: How the West Lost and the East Kept the Original Easter Vision in which they note a difference between the Western Church emphasizing individual resurrection and justice and an Eastern emphasis upon universal resurrection and mercy.

To this point I’ve used the word “mercy” almost five times more than “justice” (78 to 17). This might be a place for readers here to check their own language pattern. Do you use justice or mercy more? If you find you are more on the justice end of things, you might try a 40–day experiment (a Lenten timeframe leading to Easter) of intentionally using “mercy” to see what it does to your interactions.

We can also remember back to 5:19 when the Geresene is sent back to his hometown to tell about the “mercy” that he experienced. Other healings brought an involuntary telling (even when instructed, as here, to stop talking). Justice may be silenced with a non-disclosure agreement, but mercy can’t and won’t shut-up.

Mann’s saying verse 45 is a crucial interpretive point in the gospels is joined by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon in Anderson₄₁, who says, “The goal of [Jesus’] journey is for all—disciples and implied readers— to ‘see’ as Bartimaeus does and to follow ‘on the way.’”

Hearing that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to call out, “Jesus, Son of David, take pity on me.”

---

good old Eliza Doolittle
comes to recognize little doing
does not does not love make

her complaint about words
substituting for love
rivets our attention

similar accusations rise up
to confront such virtues as
forgiveness mercy joy justice

we stamp our foot aggrieved
at each hypocritical
form over function

words ungrounded
float away
these stick

show
mercy
now

---

Here the story changes from destruction to renewal, from separation to renewal. If service is the key to unlock external or internal oppression, not ransom, we see behind this beggar one of the meanings of service, that of being merciful. Mercy stops harm and starts healing. Mercy turns violence to compassion, wilderness to retreat.

Bartimaeus means, “son of the unclean”. It is time to engage our memory of frequent encounters Jesus has had with the “unclean”—from the propertied man, competitive disciples, seizing boy, another blind person, another who is deaf, a Syrophoenician’s sick daughter, Jairus’ daughter, a hemorrhaging woman, Gerasene demoniac, sea storm, withered hand, paralytic, leper, feverish mother-in-law, and all the way back to a man with an unclean spirit in a synagogue. There seems to always be one more uncleanliness that needs a healing mercy.

Swanson₉₅ notices that “Jesus of Nazareth” does not flow easily in the Greek and uses “Jesus Netzer” that carries with it a picture of a shoot of a plant that brings to mind Jesse and David. Isaiah uses the imagery of a shoot from the stump of Jesse to look for someone to replace David’s failed descendants. The search of prophets is to find a new beginning, a new David.

Here Swanson comments, “If the unclean spirit can see deep enough into Jesus and into Scripture to see Jesus as this new David, he has good eyes indeed. This is a revelation.”

And our question echoes still, “Who do you say that I am?”

They came to Jericho. When Jesus was going out of the town with his disciples and a large crowd, Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.

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we arrive footloose and fancy free
free to not claim a right of place
to claim a partner’s place
alongside additional liberators

having arrived ragtag and unnoticed
is not the same as inconsequential
is open to receiving new parts of life
decorating seeming nothingness

we leave slowed by new partners
each looking for a long-goodbye
before settling back to work
with renewed focus and energy

each long-goodbye opening new avenues
to saunter down in exploratory mode
finding here an unnoticed connection
a thanksgiving for ordinary moments

each goodbye opens eyes
we never knew we had it so good
and even better we hear new calls
in unexpected quarters

---

Jericho is a marker between wilderness wandering and claiming a new space. Here along the Jordan of baptismal fame we can remember back to 12 memorial stones set in the Jordan. Here is the ending parenthesis to the crossing of the Sea of Reeds that began an Exodus journey. Here was Rahab, a prostitute, and a crimson cord as a sign of protection—not unlike crimson blood upon the Hebrew doors in Egypt.

Long ago Jericho was conquered via a 7–day siege. On the seventh day there was no rest, but shouting and destruction, putting men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys to death by swords.

Here is a blind beggar. Where Mark usually leaves off names, he now names this one person twice—Bar-Timaeus (Son of Timaeus). This double name may be behind Matthew’s telling of this tale about 2 beggars.

Prostitute and beggar are more than their surface disjuncture from society. Jericho as an ending of an Exodus or the entrance into a final rising to Jerusalem shifts the story as much as a reversal of Babel can be seen in a Pentacostal moment. Jericho is a geographic hinge between then and now, a fearful wilderness and hopeful retreat.

for even the Son of Man came, not be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

---

looking for a great release
from testing’s pressure
finds us jumping
from flotsam to jetsam
in a slow wide whirlpool
patterning and limiting
stepping off the wheel
even as it increases speed
narrowing life to only death

our dusty place
of ashes to ashes
has yet to fall down
naively suggesting
all is well
while broken is all about
yearning for liberation
stuck in grand illusions
avoiding thanks serving

---

Placing this in our own life, there comes an affirmation: I am not present to be served but, partnered with others, through suffering and death, to release one another from our particular addiction to a privileged jump to exceptionalism.

To serve as a model of having been released through belovedness and wilderness retreat by revisioning the past and changing behavior is a sure-fire recipe for the suffering and death that comes from meaningful engagement with the principalities and powers of a privileged resurrection.

Tat-Siong Benny Liew, in his chapter on “Postcolonial Criticism” in Anderson₂₃₀, connects personal and social release through the word “many”, meaning “all”.

The missing ingredient that will help turn or transform his life into a ransom or a form of currency turns out to be, of course, his blood. As part of the menu of his Passover meal with his disciples, Jesus will take the cup and say to them [Mark14:24]—“This is my blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many.” To oppose this imperial phenomenon of “globalatinization”—a form of Trinitarian transmutation involving religious, economic, and colonial violence, if you will—it will take not only more than the postcolonial “Holy Trinity” of Said, Bhabha, and Spivak [post-colonial scholars], but also many more postcolonial readings of the Bible, Mark and otherwise.

Mann₄₁₄ identifies this verse as “a crux interpretum in the gospels”. This leads to adding an extra page of comment for this verse.

A significant part of the historic importance of this verse relates to a variety of theories of atonement, particularly those that have a substitutionary component. Those interested in escaping the restrictive and violent nature of substitutionary atonement might start with The Nonviolent God by J. Denny Weaver.

The key word for substitutionists is not “many”, but “ransom”. How does redemption or deliverance-by-purchase work?

This takes us back to the person who turned out to be rich and was not willing to share his resources by giving them away. That might be thought of as a ransom for his entrance to “eternal life”. References to a down-payment are also in order. In both cases this is quid pro quo, a bartering not unlike Abraham bargaining for the lives of the residents of Sodom, and Gomorrah, too.

Whether it is a monetary indulgence or 10 “righteous” people in Sodom, this parallel image of “ransom” will ascend over its important primary meaning of “service” and end up in substituting Jesus’ life for needed actions of discipleship. This will turn G*D into a cruel judge violently demanding many pounds of flesh and separation of our life from that of the community. Atonement will come to mean never having to say I’m sorry. Jesus will say it for us. It also means we don’t have to give our accumulated resources away.

Key here is not the word λύτρον (lutron, ransom or release, from bondage—ref. Exodus) but the next word, ἀντί (anti, instead of or on behalf of). It may be a subtle distinction to make but it does make a difference whether this is an action that comes out of what one can do because it reflects a generous nature or whether there is an expectation of pay back through obligation to at least feel guilty that you weren’t able to hike yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Two points remain. First, Luke 22:27 is a parallel with this verse: “Among you I function as one who serves” [5G₉₅]. Luke removes the whole second half of this verse, which has caused so much trouble over the generations. The Five Gospels puts it this way: “Luke…makes it clear that Mark has turned an aphorism about serving into a theological statement about redemption.” This is warrant to elide the ransom parallel when reading this in public.

Second, Paul. Mann_417f. reflects on “many” to find it translatable as “community” as in the Covenant People/Israel or those who follow Jesus. He goes on to note:

…the word ransom in the Pauline corpus is never used in the restrictive sense of “the community” but “for all” (1 Tim 2:6) and “for us” (Titus 2:14). If Paul is responsible—as he is—for the theological shift from a “ministry within Judaism” to a “ministry of universal significance,” he must have had a starting point within the tradition of Jesus’ work and words: we suggest that 10:45 was one such starting point in the tradition.

and whoever wants to take the first place among you must be the servant of all;

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rise through the ranks
and find your limits
by the unranked authority
needed to ride a rise

whoever would rise
had best attend
to a coup in the making
by those passed over

risen leavened bread
has a short shelf-life
compared to hearty fare
foundationally laid

sow your seed
in trust of increase
and all will be well
right now and again

---

It is one thing to take a servant role within speaking distance of those you are actively supporting and correcting. There is a mutuality implied in that such a servant can also have those who assist in supporting and correcting you.

It is quite another to have a huge gap between a slave and a master. Here there is no relationship other than, “Do the job to my expectations or ‘Off with your head!’”

Servants are present; slaves are non-persona.

In addition to distinctions between servants and slaves there is also a parallelism that heightens the direction in which Jesus points the Twelve.

To be a servant is to be in practice to go beyond being a servant who knows they are a servant and has expectations of the others in the group to be their servant. To go beyond this quid pro quo brings us in the direction of being a slave or to be so conditioned by being informed by our suffering and death that there is no longer a conscious choice going on, but we know how to care for another and simply do it without calculation.

To move from a servant within a group to slave “vis-à-vis the entire human community” (LaVerdiere-2₁₁₉) is a journey of theosis or participation in the tradition of the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim (the 36 people in every generation who are this kind of servant/slave without knowing an claiming it).

This is the διακονέω (diakoneō, service) provided by angels in the wilderness (1:13), Simon Peter’s unnamed mother-in-law (1:31), Jesus (10:45), and his women followers (15:41). This is the serving Mark is implanting in his readers through their encounter with the Twelve who seem not to get it so readers might come to awareness of the possibility of their being deacons, servants, slaves unto resurrection.

But among you it is not so. No, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,

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no matter what ideal vanities
we hold up as worth our life
to break our relationships
to measure once wrongly
the overlooked plumb line
is expansive partnership
we’re in this together

the surest way to the slough
is to have every arrow shot
boomerang
to our central loneliness
stuffed with survival and surfeit
cramped by hoarding
your life in my cache

the insanity of our result
persists in every fantasy
refusing to solve a puzzle
through new perspective
from a creative commonality
stretching backward and forward
height requiring breadth

---

What we know is the way the world currently works, the power structures found in family, politics, military, and church.

What is being asked for here is a considered review of how that seems to work itself out for women in a patriarchal culture, for wage slaves in a capitalistic economy, or for followers of Jesus in a prosperity theology.

As we run into the pitfalls of current structural ways of interacting with one another, there is to be a present choice invoked that change must occur. This means an awareness of how people are turned into subservients and to not just ally ourselves with them or advocate on their behalf but be an accomplice with them in changing the current order.

As might be expected, this talk of being a servant is simply a variant on the suffering, death, and resurrection talk that has become the background of our new life of “repentance and changed hearts” from way back at the beginning of this story.

It is good to remember the Invitation to a Covenant Service that was adapted by John Wesley for those wrestling with what it means to live a holy life, a life of G*D (modified from The United Methodist Book of Worship₂₉₁). Being a servant begins in liminal space of intention to be turned to action. Among the many services to be lived,

Some are more easy and honorable. Some are suitable to our inclinations and interests, others are contrary to both. In some we may please our partners (G*D and Neighb*r) and please ourself. In some we cannot please our partners except through suffering and death. It is necessary, therefore to consider what it means to be a servant.

But Jesus called the ten to him, and said, “Those who are regarded as ruling among the Gentiles lord it over them, as you know, and their great men oppress them.

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when we look around
there are mirrors everywhere
seeing authoritarian leaders
allows our own internal despot
its claimed right
to excuse every advantage

such reflected icons
need a deep look of love
to see through their surface
behind their keep-out barrier
beyond this latest test
all the way to fertile ground

when all we see around
are rich folks getting richer
resulting in poor folk poorer
contracted robbery by fountain pen
tilting every field downhill
we are ever so tested

all the warnings in the world
fall on our test-deafened ears
speculating this time
our gracious rule
will escape its own comfort
to privilege another

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It is helpful to palin our way back to the earlier scene with blocked children (10:13–16).

The issue of authority here is a parallel of the action of blessing back then.

Our tendency to boss another around is more clearly seen, more obvious, with the children. This can be called out far more easily than with adults that get into “climbing the ladder” contests where winners can be excused their behavior simply because they have the strength to get away with it in a “might makes right” sort of way.

As this is being written the children of Parkland, Florida are looking for a blessing after a mass shooting at their school. Women are speaking the words, “Me, too” in a claiming of a blessing of both belovedness and agency of their own. Minor children who were brought by or born to undocumented immigrants are dreaming of and acting toward their own blessing of safety in a place they have lived all their years. Similar blessings are looked for under other banners such as “Black Lives Matter” or “Occupy” (the 99%ers).

Under whatever sign, those following Jesus to Jerusalem and willing to join his suffering, death, and resurrection model of living with integrity in partnership with all of creation and the multitude of Neighb*rs will live together in shared authority, mutual honoring.

On hearing of this, the ten others were at first very indignant about James and John.

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well of course
when on others we have called
behind yet another’s back
there is mistrust anger

here the aggrieved can remember
all the teachings about generous sharing
for here we are not shared with
to which comes the cry unfair

John and James are to blame
we would never have tried that
unless maybe perhaps
we’d thought of it first

inasmuch as we didn’t
our anger is exponentially increased
by adding righteousness to our claim
this unfairness is raised by god

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To claim a special place is the same as denying a claim anyone else might make for the same place. James and John made a preemptive strike against the other ten (not to mention Mary Magdalene and other women or any of the children Jesus lifted and blessed).

And now we can play the game of “You and Them Fight”. Readers can even begin to imagine how they might have attacked Jesus to gain a privilege of place and turn this into a three-way tug-of-war instead of just two factions within the Twelve. To climb the ladder in a uniformed church or to have a successful schism is indication of condensing multiple interests into an either-or wedge issue or tug-of-war. With two there can be a winner and loser. With more participants it is more difficult to be clear about an ultimate duality.

How would your reading so far suggest that Jesus enter into this pull and push of authority? Is there a parable from the first half of Mark that might make a comeback? Will it turn into a different pairing of Jesus against the Twelve? Will this not be addressed until the ironic moment when those at Jesus’ right and left turn out to be thieves?

Trying to figure out “What Would Jesus Do?” is ultimately not predictable. Rather, listen to the last time Mark used ἀγανακτέω (aganakteō, indignant), 10:14—Jesus was indignant to the point of anger and said, “Allow the children to come to me. Don’t forbid them….”

Do we get indignant about someone beating us at our own game (Twelve’s usage) or toward anyone who is beating up on someone seen to be weaker (Jesus’ usage)? This is a Jerusalem bound question.

but as to a seat at my right or at my left – that is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

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honor is not earned
there is no course work
authorizing post-name letters
proclaiming privilege

honor simply is lived
day in and day out
surrounded by opportunity
to live a simple honor

that which I get
is that which I offer
for others we share
with others we feast

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Positioning within a partnership is not something that can be given. With agency appropriate to each by gift and circumstance, the question is: “What is grasped and carried through?”

To ask for a special position (or assume its due) is an inappropriate short-cut. Like helping a butterfly to emerge without its own work, being given privilege always weakens.

The preparation here is not in the arena of predestination. We can stop dreaming that it is ourself for whom this particular bell tolls.

There is no preparation we can do to fall into a prepared slot that won’t distract us from all that is needed in the moment.

Swanson₂₃₃ reflects on this Peter Principle gap:

This scene is loaded with ritual references: rituals of drinking, rituals of washing, rituals of entry into glory. The rituals of drinking and washing sound as if Jesus expects them to be danced out in time and space to which we have access. The disciples appear to be far more interested in the rituals of entry into glory and sitting on Jesus’ right and left. James and John demand places of honor in a place discontinuous with any place we can go. The other disciples are angry because they share the same naïve view of this place. It would be worth asking whether and to what extent religious wrath is rooted in naïve notions of rituals of entry into places no one can go.

Swanson goes on to imagine the disciples are fantasizing about revolutionary battle in which they emerge unscathed and are ready to rule. He likens this to draftees, “green soldiers”, who know nothing about the reality of battle and the scars it leaves on everyone up and down the supply line that has funneled a few to the front. He reviews other revolutions and the lack of leadership that is developed in all but a few (Nicaragua and South Africa come to mind when retribution was not the order of the day).

Let the chips of hospitality and service fall where they will.

“Yes,” they answered, “we can.” 
“You will indeed drink the cup that I am to drink,” Jesus said, “and receive the baptism that I am to receive,

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ouch of course we prepared

then you know your path
within our wayfaring

the consequence of congruity
in a multi-dimensional constraint
will come easily apart

the particular location you hold
will bring both result and
resultant disjuncture of changed behavior

living water found within or around
will claim its pound of flesh

for this we’re never prepared

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Fortunately James and John had paid enough attention that they knew that they, and all, could come to what John Wesley called, “perfection”, which in his day meant completedness, fully partnered with the cosmos and one’s meaning in life.

The Greek Orthodox carry this on with their understanding of theosis or deification of humanity. The following quotes from www.greekorthodox church.org/theosis_contents.html move toward a needed partnership.

The energies of God are divine energies…. They are God, and therefore they can deify man. If the energies of God were not divine and uncreated, they would not be God and so they would not be able to deify us, to unite us with God. There would be an unbridgeable distance between God and men. But by virtue of God having divine energies, and by uniting with us by these energies, we are able to commune with Him and to unite with His Grace without becoming identical with God ….

As long as we are closed within ourselves – within our ego – we are individuals but not persons. Once we exit from our closed individual existence and begin, in agreement with this guidance based on Theosis, with the Grace of God, but also with our own cooperation – to love, to offer ourselves all the more to Him and to our neighbour, we become true persons. This is to say that when our “I” encounters the “Thou” of God, and the “you” of our brother, then we begin to find our lost self. For within the communion in Theosis for which we were moulded, we are able to open up, to communicate, to really enjoy one another … and not only in a selfish way.

And to this affirmation by James and John, Jesus says, “Amen.”