“The blind man replied to him, ‘Master, I want to see.’” Mark 10:51
Helen Keller in 1882 was 19 months old when scarlet fever left her deaf, blind, and mute. Unable to communicate, she was cut off from people in the most profound isolation imaginable. Frustrated and angered by her plight, Helen would often fly into uncontrollable rages that terrified her helpless family.
When Helen was seven years old, Anne Sullivan, a teacher from the Perkins Institute for the Blind, broke through the child’s lonely world of darkness and silence using touch to teach her a system of finger spelling. Words pressed into Helen’s palm opened a world of relationships and possibilities she had never known.
Under Anne Sullivan’s patient tutelage, Helen overcame her disability and began to pursue her dreams. She learned to speak, graduated with honors from Radcliff College, made several lecture tours and became an author. She championed the needs of the physically challenged and shared a message of hope with veterans disabled during World War II.
In the process, Helen Keller learned that physical blindness is not the greatest disability people face. “The most pathetic person in the world, “she once observed, “is someone who has sight but no vision. The people I feel sorry for are those who have functioning eyes, but still don’t see”
We live in a world of paradox. Sometimes people blessed with sight lack the ability to perceive spiritual realities. At other times, the physically blind participate in life with clarity of insight far beyond their sighted counterparts.
Today’s gospel reading from Mark presents the familiar story of Jesus healing a blind man. There are many such stories in the gospels, but this is one of the few times we’re actually given the person’s name – Bartimaeus. In the life of Jesus, this is one of several examples where a person of faith approaches him, believing that Jesus can cure a malady, and healing occurs. The healing is a response to the faith of the believer in the love and power of God at work in Jesus.
But Mark takes this story and uses literary skill to tell us much more. He puts the story at the end of a long section where Jesus has been gradually moving from Galilee to Jerusalem and the cross. This section begins in Galilee with the healing of another blind man who is unnamed. Jesus rubs saliva on the man’s eyes. The healing is gradual – at first people look like trees to him – then the man goes on his way. The healed man’s “fuzzy vision” is a kind of forecast of how the apostles would increasingly react to Jesus on the way to and in Jerusalem.
Following that healing, Jesus makes three predictions of his impending suffering, death, and resurrection. Peter in private acknowledges him as Messiah, but it becomes evident that neither Peter nor the others have any idea what that really means. Recall, after all, that Peter denies Jesus three times on Good Friday and most of the disciples flee Jerusalem in panic after the Crucifixion. In last Sunday’s gospel, James and John are shown vying for places of honor in the kingdom. At the point of today’s gospel reading, they’re leaving Jericho continuing toward Jerusalem, a large crowd is following and they encounter Bartimaeus, a beggar, someone on the fringes of Judean society.
Mark structures today’s story as a model of faith and discipleship. Bartimaeus calls Jesus “Son of David” – a messianic title – the first time a non-demon calls him that in public. Bartimaeus, perceiving Jesus’ true identity, makes a spectacle of himself to get his attention. The crowd tries to silence him, but Jesus asks that he be called forward. Mark mentions that Bartimaeus throws aside his cloak – which he probably had spread on the ground for people to throw coins onto – and goes to Jesus. Symbolically, he leaves his old way of life behind. When Jesus asks what he wants from him, Bartimaeus answers without hesitation: “Master, I want to see.” His healing is immediate, unlike that of the earlier blind man. And unlike that man, the now sighted Bartimaeus follows Jesus, that is, he becomes a disciple.
The very next section of Mark’s gospel has Jesus entering into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, which quickly turns into Good Friday. By following him to Jerusalem, Bartimaeus demonstrates that his newly gained eyesight mirrors his spiritual insight. This is in marked contrast to the Twelve in Mark’s gospel who are often portrayed as spiritually blind when it comes to understanding what Jesus is all about.
All of us are primarily spiritual beings on a life journey. The Spirit is alive and well within and among us. When we achieve spiritual enlightenment, we see the same things as before, but perceive them differently. Looking at life with spiritual insight, we can finally begin to make sense of our world and understand our place in it. We can finally understand, for example, why we suffer and how we can ease our suffering.
Looking at life with spiritual insight, through the eyes of faith, is like being able to read. To someone who can’t read the written word makes no sense. To someone who can read, the written word is packed with meaning.
Jesus came to show us the way to spiritual wellbeing. He wants us to be happy. All he asks is that we see things from God’s perspective and live according to God’s will. To do that we have to be willing, like Bartimaeus, to throw aside our old ways of thinking and interpreting the world around us. We have to be willing to view circumstances and people through spiritual eyes.
There was once a famous monastery which had fallen on hard times. Formerly its many buildings had been filled with young monks and its big church resounded with singing but now was nearly deserted. A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters who prayed with heavy hearts.
At the edge of the monastery woods, an old rabbi had built a little hut. He went to the monastery from time to time to pray and fast. No one ever spoke with him, but the word would be passed when he appeared. “The rabbi walks in the woods.” And as long as he was there the monks felt sustained by his prayerful presence.
One day the abbot decided to visit the rabbi and to open his heart to him. As he approached the hut, the rabbi was standing in the doorway with outstretched arms in welcome. It was as tough he had been waiting a long time. They embraced like long-lost brothers.
The rabbi motioned the abbot to enter. In the middle of the room was a plain wooden table with the Scripture open on it. They sat in the presence of the Book – then the rabbi began to cry, and as the abbot could not contain himself, he also began to cry. They filled the hut with the sound of their sobs.
After the tears had ceased and all was quiet, the rabbi said, “You and your brothers are serving God with heavy hearts. You have come to ask a teaching of me. I will give you this teaching but you can only repeat it once. After that, no one must say it aloud again.”
Then the rabbi looked at the abbot and said, “The Messiah is among you.” The abbot left without a word and without looking back. The next morning he called his monks together and told them he had received a teaching from “the rabbi who walks in the woods” and this was never to be spoken again. Then he looked at each of his brothers and said, “The rabbi said that one of us is the messiah.”
The monks were startled by this teaching but no one ever mentioned it again. As time went by, the monks began to treat each other with a very special reverence. Visitors were deeply touched by their lives. People came from far and wide to be nourished by the prayer life of the monks, and young men asked about becoming part of this community. The rabbi no longer walked in the woods, but the monks who had taken his teaching to heart were still sustained by a prayerful presence.
True human happiness and deep spiritual joy are both God gifts to us. They are our birthright. Those who live Jesus’ version of a meaningful life, loving God and loving neighbor, experience joy in abundance. That is the quintessential insight that cures spiritual blindness. And unlike in the story, that’s a teaching meant to be said out loud. In fact, that’s a teaching meant to be shouted from the rooftops.
Anthony J. Sciolino
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 26, 2003. (Cycle B)
Jeremiah 31:7-9/149
Hebrews 5:1-6
Mark 10:46-52.