Oct 223 min read

Are we also blind?

The story about Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus is both a compassionate and life changing healing story and a pointed corrective to disciples who don’t or can’t see the direction and purpose of Jesus life and ministry. (Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 25 [O 30] Mark 10:46-52)

You may like to read what I wrote three years ago about this text.

If the story about healing blind Bartimaeus is both a compassionate and life changing healing story and a pointed corrective to disciples who don’t or can’t see the direction and purpose of Jesus life and ministry, what are we being challenged to see?

The gospel of Mark is succinct and action packed – and therefore every detail seems intentional and important! Last week we heard that the disciples have just missed the point for a third time (about Jesus ‘suffering and the call to follow) and so Mark pointedly draws our attention to Jesus healing a blind man who can see who Jesus is and immediately follows him!

Like the disciples surely we are being challenged about what we don’t really see or understand about the nature of Jesus and his life and ministry. What is it about Jesus that we don’t see, or don’t want to see, or keep losing sight of? Last week was the third time the disciples didn’t want to hear about his impending suffering and death. And they certainly didn’t want to hear that they were called to follow where Jesus was going, to take up their own cross, to be as humble and open as a child, to serve others rather than argue about greatness. In what ways may we be the same and want our Jesus to be powerful and on the winning side rather than humble and humiliated? In what ways may we presume that our faith removes us from vulnerability and risk and safely places us among the winners circle?

Like the crowd what needs and injustices are we blind to or can’t bear to look at? Or indeed where in our society and church do we feel our needs are unseen or looked away from? The very crowd that had been trying to quiet Bartimaeus is then instructed to make room and help him come forward. Who are the individuals and groups and issues in society that we try to ignore or hush? And what in the message of Jesus reminds us that we are to help amplify the voice of those in need, to make a path for the vulnerable to come to Jesus without impediment. And like the crowd we might reflect on who among our neighbours brings unlikely gifts and sees things in new and different ways?

Like Bartimaeus what opportunities, hope and calling can we see that maybe others can’t? Like Bartimaeus what glimmer of the presence of the divine breaks through our poor sight or supposed impediments but are important and life giving? (It is Bartimaeus who recognises Jesus as Son of David even before his sight is restored and perceives an opportunity for healing, and then healed he sees the path to follow!) Where in the darkness can we see God at work in opportunities of healing and inclusion? What can we dimly see to give thanks for – the beauty and joy where there has been struggle and sadness? And how privileged are we to see a path on which to follow.

These questions of ourselves are not meant to trip us so much as to steady our feet upon the path. A path that yes leads to Jerusalem and suffering but a path that is ultimately the way of life. The disciples were called to learning and following not so that they will be cleverer than others but so that they could become messengers of light and hope and healing themselves. The teaching and the relationship moments on the way to Jerusalem were like a refiners fire. And as we reflect on this story and apply these questions to ourselves may we be refined, clarified, strengthened so that we too, in our own humble ways, might become more fully messengers of light and hope and healing for a world very much in need.

Even so, come Lord Jesus Christ, come help us to open our eyes and hearts and minds to what you are doing.