There is hardly an analogy for the need to see.

Recognizing our need to see is the doorway to our in-sight.

Seeing is also an important metaphor within the world of myth. "Myth," as we understand it in mimetic theory, operates effectively only when it operates invisibly. The desire to see in dear Bartimaeus mimics our own desire to be freed from the cultural blinders that have held us captive "from the foundation of the world." Christ frees us to follow him by exposing the mechanisms of victimage that once held us, and by exposing them, he takes away their power. It is interesting that those around Baritmaeus seek to silence him as he begs to be freed. This is surely our experience as well, as we grow in our understanding of the principalities and powers. Those around us prefer to keep us in our crippled state, because if they witness our being freed, their own secret awareness that there is something imprisoning them becomes less bearable, knowing that it isn't inescapable.

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All through our narrative this Year B we have observed Jesus’ conflict with authorities, his healings and exorcisms and the incomprehension of the disciples. We have seen that when reading either Mark or the Fourth Gospel one can read it from a theological perspective and from an anthropological perspective at the same time when you begin with a theology of the cross, as the canonical Gospels do. We have sought to produce a plethora of evidence that a mimetic theoretical interpretation of the Scriptures both illumines and is illumined by biblical and theological scholarship.

We have connected, over and over again, this theology of the cross to the trinitarian history of God. We have followed Barth, Jungel and Moltmann in this regard. Furthermore we have concluded that the reading of the Scriptures as done by those who engage mimetic theory illumines our anthropology, particularly when it comes to observing desire, mimesis and their negative effects. We have tried to make the case for positive mimesis in the life of Jesus. His desire for God, and God alone, is the true desire that each of us may desire by desiring what he desired, namely his papa’s will. This is the only non-rivalrous desire that exists.

We hope we have made the case that one can utilize the categories of the Nicene Creed in terms of mimetic theory and the end result is an emphasis on what the Peace Church refers to as ‘discipleship.’ There is something very concrete going on here. There is a positive mimetic Christology in the Gospels.

While there are still four weeks to go in Pentecost, in a sense this will be conclusion of our time in Mark together. Jeff and Michael would like to thank you for joining us in our explorations. We believe that there is a real positive direction Christian theology could take, if it was willing to go the way of the cross. (Unfortunately, anything short of that is a theology of glory.)

PreachingPeace.org has grown in its first ten months to more than a thousand visitors a week. We enjoy hearing from you so please e-mail us and let us know who you are. We also seek to continually improve our site with added features every few months. (This stuff is a lot of work). While we do not solicit contributions, we greatly appreciate your feedback. So write us and say hi!

Now, like Bartimaeus, Jesus asks the question of you: ‘What do you want me to do for you?” Do you…desire to see?

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OK. First here’s what not to do with a text if you are seeking to engage a non-sacrificial reading. William Lane(Commentary on the Gospel of Mark), says about blind Bartimaeus that “ it is difficult to be certain of the significance of the component parts in his appeal for help.” Lane cannot figure out what ‘Son of David’ and ‘Have mercy on me’ have to do with one another. We think it is simple. The one who‘sees’ is the one who recognized that the Son of David was all about mercy. The one who sees is the one who recognizes that the promised '‘messiah’ (as though there was a single view of ‘messiah’ in Judaism) is non-retaliatory and merciful. Surely it must have been strange for folks to hear so many wonderful things about Jesus, his healings and miracles, his ripostes with authorities and yet hear no stories about conquest of the Romans or holy war or the need for an army or some such.

Lane later comments: “The healing of Bartimeaus displays, without any concealment, the messianic dignity of Jesus and his compassion on those who believe in him…” This sounds strangely ‘American Evangelical." Where does the text say anything about ‘messianic dignity?’ Lane then moves in a strangely anti-Semitic fashion when he continues “…and throws in bold relief the blindness of the leaders of Israel, whose eyes remained closed to his glory.” Lane has missed the entire point that even the closest disciples were blind to Jesus’ person and significance. Since Lane cannot blame the disciples ‘who believed in Jesus’, and who function paradigmatically for the modern ‘believer’, he must excoriate the Jewish leaders, as though the mimetic mechanism hadn’t sucked just about everybody up into its vortex of violence, both Jews and non-Jews alike.

[It is this ‘blame it on the Jews’ rendering of the Passion, by the way, that some are afraid is going to be communicated in Mel Gibson’s upcoming film. We haven’t seen a preview so we cannot say what the film does or does not communicate regarding culpability. However, if Jewish leaders and Jewish disciples, Roman administrators and Temple authorities, along with crowds from all over the Mediterranean are not shown to be mutually uncomprehending, if one group is singled out as ‘good’ there will be the necessary correlate of the scapegoated group, and the point might be made that, unfortunately, Mel Gibson’s The Passion could be interpreted in an anti-Semitic fashion. And that would be sad, both for Mr. Gibson and for Jews.]

The placement of the Bartimaeus story just prior to the entry into Jerusalem is all the more valuable because it is a ‘paradigmatic story’ about the ‘true disciple’, the ‘one who sees and follows Jesus.’ It has all the hallmarks of authenticity, especially when viewed from a mimetic perspective. Either way, it is still expressive of the fact that these great and wonderful apostles and disciples followed Jesus all the way to the gates of Jerusalem in a stupor of incomprehension. And by God, modern Christianity appears to be a pale echo. We have a desperate need to see but we do not know that we are blind.

In our Historical/Cultural section this Year B we have sought to argue several theses about how we understand the development of early Christianity and modern Jesus studies. Through a mimetic reading of Mark and the Fourth Gospel we have seen that there is no need to interpret either document through a (strictly) Hellenistic (often = Platonic) lens. Both documents are Jewish through and through.

Furthermore, we believe that modern Jesus scholarship will end up on the rocks of skepticism every time it fails to take into consideration that there is something going on in the Fourth Gospel that has to do with Jesus. Strauss’ theory regarding Jesus and the Fourth Gospel (Bousset, Bultmann, the Jesus Seminar, etc) is challengeable on every level. It is a theory that has too long held the academy in thrall. But the Church’s rendering of the Fourth Gospel into either Hellenistic (often = dualist) categories or seccessionistic thought has needed deconstruction. The academy has provided that. It is now the time to measure our gains. What have we learned this past one hundred years?

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If Jesus were to walk down the street where we live, would we understand our own blindness well enough to cry out, “Son of David! Have mercy on me!” In Gil Bailie’s wonderful book, “Violence Unveiled,” he reminds his readers many times that what we see still remains partial, we will surely appear blind to the generations that come after us. The only thing that saves us from “scapegoating” those who came before us is constant repentance for our own blindness.

Jesus asks us, “What do you want me to do for you?” What will our answer be?

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