Sunday Homily - October 28th, 2018 - The True Sight of Faith
Jesus Heals a Blind Man Icon
I.
that featured an incredibly prominent artist.
And I don’t know if you have ever bought tickets
to big-time musical events,
but there is a delicate art
to purchasing good tickets.
And, as a native Arkansan who has been to many a monster truck show
at both Verizon Arena and War Memorial Stadium,
I knew my way around those stands
and I knew where I could get some
pretty decent seats.
Well, I ended up getting a seat right in the middle of the crowd
on the main stage floor
smack in the middle of the stage view
at about 8 rows back.
Now, I’m just about 5’11” tall, give or take,
so I’m not going to have trouble seeing over people
in the 8 rows in front of me.
My friends that came with me were near 6’, so I wasn’t worried.
But, I didn’t realize that our seats
were directly behind the “fan-pass” section,
that special place reserved for the people who were
willing to deal out way more cash than I was.
And directly to the side of that section was a another section
for wheelchair accessible seating.
That seemed like it was okay, until I thought about it
and realized that, when this artist got on stage,
and people stood up to jump around
there was NO WAY that
those people could see the stage!
As the show came closer to starting,
there were a few people who had come in wheelchairs
and were seated beside us.
As the show starts, sure enough, there was no way
that they could see over the rowdy crowd
jumping along with the music.
I, of course being a super self-focused teen,
didn’t think again about those people until the show was over.
And then I looked and saw a young boy,
wheelchair bound, who had been there
for the whole show
with his mom by his side.
His mom was a little irritated at how bad the visibility was for him,
as not even she could see very well.
She was complaining to her son about it,
and was telling him that they will get better seats
next time they come.
And her son, maybe 14 years old,
looks up at his mom with a funny little grin and says,
“Mom, I don’t use my eyes to see music:
I use my ears!
I came for the music,
not the show!”
His mom, of course, still was thinking about better seats.
But I couldn’t help but think to myself:
I spent so much time planning where I wanted to sit
to get the best seat I could.
And yet, that kid, who couldn’t see over the crowd
or catch a glimpse of the musicians on stage,
rather instead had the best seat in the house
because he came for the music
and not the visual show.
That kid came for the essential: the music!
I stressed over the thing that was secondary: the show!
I felt really silly after hearing that interaction,
but I also felt a little guilty.
Did I, by my lack of vision,
that lack of essential sight,
inadvertently block out those who could have had
a fuller experience of the show
as well as the music?
II.
when we read today’s Gospel account of Jesus and Bartimaeus.
Jesus and the disciples are in the middle of this large crowd,
all were leaving Jericho,
passing by the gates to the city.
And all those people in the crowds I’m sure had some idea
that they were in the presence of someone special.
Jesus, the rockstar teacher and healer
from the backwoods town of Nazareth.
Who wouldn’t want to get to hang out with a popular preacher?
Or what about a guy who was rumored to have healing powers?
It was the place to be
and the crowd wanted a really good seat
to see the action.
And then there is Bartimaeus,
a man that our Gospel describes as a “blind beggar”
sitting by the roadside and begging for some level
of compassion from the passing crowd.
And then Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is near.
And Bartimaeus responds to this information
in a very different fashion than the crowd
that Jesus was surrounded by.
Bartimaeus begins to shout and exclaim as loud as he can,
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon me!”
Now, did you catch what Bartimaeus called Jesus?
“Son of David.”
Bartimaeus is not being subtle:
he is loudly confessing Jesus
as the Messiah,
the Christ.
And it is tempting to skip right to when Jesus heals him.
Because that is the easy thing to do.
However, we first need to notice
how the crowd reacted to Bartimaeus.
The Scripture says, quite emphatically,
that many in the crowd tried to silence Bartimaeus.
And it even emphasizes the force of the crowd’s fervor:
they STERNLY ordered him to be quiet.
Bartimaeus doesn’t listen,
but instead exclaims all the more.
And then, probably to the crowd’s surprise
Jesus invites Bartimaeus closer.
The crowd, at the direction of Jesus, quickly relents
and tells Bartimaeus that Jesus is calling him to come closer.
And then Jesus, instead of simply healing him on the spot,
recognizes and respects his dignity
by asking what Bartimaeus what he needed
rather than just barging through
and assuming what Bartimaeus
would be asking for.
And when Bartimaeus asks for his physical sight,
Jesus responds in compassion and says,
“Go, your faith has made you well.”
Bartimaeus receives his physical sight,
but goes one step further:
Bartimaeus joins the group of followers
and goes with Jesus along the road.
And in this Gospel story, we have a similar thing going on
as the woman suffering from continuous bleeding
earlier in the Gospel.
For both that woman and Bartimaeus,
Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well.”
Just like that woman, Bartimaeus’s faith was that quality
that allowed him to see Jesus for who Jesus actually is:
the Christ, the Messiah,
even though he had never had physical sight.
Maybe that’s the most important thing to notice about today’s Gospel:
Bartimaeus, in the most essential way,
was not blind.
Because he had faith in Jesus.
III.
Faith is that mystical sight in which we follow Jesus
because we cannot see clearly
with just our eyes.
To see using our physical sight is one thing,
but to see with the mystical sight of faith:
THAT is what Jesus is aware of
in this exchange with Bartimaeus.
Jesus didn’t just look at Bartimaeus and say,
“Alright, clearly you would like your sight restored.”
Because Jesus recognized that this man
already had sight that others didn’t have:
the sight that comes through faith.
And our sight has to be informed and transformed by the God
who “looks at the heart,” and not outward appearance.
We must see with the sight granted by God
the true vision of faith
and not simply the often clouded sight
of our physical senses.
And the way that we gain this sight of faith
is not by training, trying, or attempting to foster that sight
on our own strength alone.
We can never merit that sight because of our status, stature, or privilege.
None of us can.
But rather, we, like Bartimaeus,
must cry out to Jesus, the Son of David,
we must cry out for that sight
to be given to us.
Because the mystical sight of faith is GIVEN to us by God,
and not something that we somehow gain on our own.
And it is summed up in Jesus’s recognition and miracle
that was done on behalf of Bartimaeus,
who requested it of Jesus out of the
vision already granted him by God.
That true 20/20 vision of faith,
that same faith in which Jesus commends Bartimaeus and says,
“Go, your faith has made you well.”
Bartimaeus wasn’t blind. Bartimaeus had true vision.
While the crowds who tried to silence and quiet him
were actually the blind ones in this Gospel account.
Because Bartimaeus came for the music
not the show.
And I think this account is just as much of a comfort
as it is a warning to us.
When we think we see clearly,
and yet the blind in our midst cry out to Jesus,
are we sometimes the people who try to silence their call?
When there are people yearning for Christ’s presence
who call out, not of their own strength, but in that child-like faith
that same faith that causes us to see God face to face,
do we sometimes have the same reaction
as the crowd, who believe those people
to be a little too noisy,
a little too blind,
and a little too
childish?
Do we inadvertently block out others who came for the music
of Jesus’s ministry
because we are so caught up in the show
the spectacle of Jesus’s power?
Brothers and sisters, just as Bartimaeus had that mystical vision of faith,
so it is also true that the crowds,
though they could physically see,
though they could see Jesus’s miracles and signs,
were actually the impediment standing between
Jesus and those crying out to him,
having a blindness of soul
that can be cured by none other
than Jesus, the Great Physician.
Ask God instead, friends, for the mystical sight of faith,
so that when we see others crying out to Jesus,
we are instead those people who bring them TO Jesus,
so that Christ may look at their faith
and perform a miracle in their lives.
And perhaps we will also hear that same commendation
those same comforting words imparted as we journey on:
“My daughter, my son,
Go. Your faith has made you well.
In the name + of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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