Sunday Gospel

Christ gives sight to Bartimaeus - William Blake

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.
On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say,
"Jesus, son of David, have pity on me."
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he kept calling out all the more,
"Son of David, have pity on me."
Jesus stopped and said, "Call him."
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
"Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you."
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?"
The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see."
Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you."
Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way. – Mk 10: 46-52.

Christ gives sight to Bartimaeus - Stover.

There is, as usual, a punchline here. Last three lines: Jesus tells Bartimaeus to go on his way. And Bartimaeus follows Jesus. Disobediently.

This sort of dissonance in a narrative tells us to look more closely, and not to take things at face value. If Bartimaeus’s way is to follow Jesus, he becomes the model of a believer, of a Christian. We should read his story that way.

Bartimaeus is us. We are all, if we are not already on the way, poor beggars at the side of the road. He is blind because all of us are blind. We do not see the world as it is, in its spiritual reality.

We hear of Jesus; though we cannot see him. We may, if we are moved by faith, call out to him in prayer. And the rest of the world will immediately tell us to shut up. The world as a whole thinks faith is folly. They are all blind, but unlike the man of awakening faith, they do not know they are blind.

If we have strong faith, and lack attachment to the world, we will persist. We will have to struggle against the social world in order to do so. We will have to be ready to leave our cloak—the material world--behind to respond to the call.

If we persist, Jesus will respond with grace. That grace will give us spiritual sight, awareness of the spiritual world.

We are then no longer on the side of the road. We are on “the way.”