Homily for the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 27, 2024. Gospel of St. Mark 10: 46-52. Theme: Master, I Want to See!
The Gospels are filled with many stories of Jesus curing people. So when a particular miracle is singled out and retold to us in great detail, it means that there is an important message contained within it for our instruction. That there’s more to the story than what appears on the surface level. Today’s healing of a blind beggar is definitely one such story.
In today’s Gospel reading Mark introduces us to Bartimaeus as a model for us to imitate. He wants us to join with him in crying out to Jesus for the help that we need in our lives. He wants the joyful hope and expectation that moved Bartimaeus to jump up when he heard the Lord calling him, to fill our own hearts. And just as he threw aside his cloak, which symbolized getting rid of his old way of living, Mark wants those who hear this story to also begin living a new life by following the way of the Lord Jesus.
In other words, Mark wants us to put ourselves in Bartimaeus’ place. And this includes recognizing that we, too, can suffer from blindness, perhaps not in the physical sense but rather in regard to our moral and spiritual vision. Through this Gospel story, he hopes we will hear Christ saying to us, “What do you want me to do for you?” and that we will also cry out, “Master, I want to see! Open the eyes of my faith so that I can believe in You more firmly and follow You more faithfully. Restore clear sight to my conscience so that I can see and follow the sure bright path that leads to Heaven.”
This is an especially significant Gospel for those of us who live in Marin because our county has the highest percentage of un-churched non-religious observant persons in the nation! This means that there are an awful lot of spiritually and morally blind people walking around Marin County who stand in need of Jesus; healing touch. And they need us to show them the way to Him.
Moral vision, which enables us to see right from wrong, works through our conscience and it functions more clearly when it’s enlightened by God’s Word and informed by the teachings of Christ’s Church. Without these lights to guide the way to right living, our moral vision can darken and we can easily lose our way. This doesn’t happen all at once of course, but like physical visual degeneration, it’s a gradual process. With each misdirected step we take the blurring between good and bad increases until it becomes fuzzy gray clouds and shadows. If we don’t become proactive and take steps to correct this moral blindness once we recognize its symptoms, it can bring us to a place where we find ourselves doing things that we once thought we would never ever do.
Closely related to this is spiritual blindness, which if left untreated can lead to darkness and despair. For the spiritually blind, the only sure realities of life are those that can be experienced with the senses and scientifically verified with the mind. Those who suffer from this condition are concerned only about the “here and now” because they are blind to the truth that they will continue to exist beyond their time on planet Earth. They desperately cling to life in this world by any means possible because they do not see any other option. They simply cannot see that there is a whole other very real world, far better than this present one, awaiting them as a future possibility.
Spiritual vision, on the other hand, allows us to see that we are so much more than just randomly assembled atoms and cells. That we are so much more than our DNA, so much more than our physical appearance, so much more than our bank accounts and social status. Faith-vision informs us that each one of us has a purpose on Earth, a mission that no one else can accomplish in the exact same way. It assures us that we have an eternal destiny far beyond this planet. It enables us to know that no matter how others might judge us, Jesus peers into our depths and sees us for who we really are, and loving what He sees, He calls us to draw closer and closer to his Heart!
So, St. Mark is assuring us in today’s Gospel that Jesus, the Messiah Son of David, will indeed have pity on us in our blindness. If we call out to him in sincerity of heart then we will surely hear him say to us what he said to Bartimaeus, "Your faith has saved you”. That is, “your trust in Me has healed you.” And so I would like to close with a prayer for clear moral and spiritual vision that is short and easy to memorize. It was written by St. Richard of Chichester a very long time ago and it actually became the lyrics for a popular religious song, “Lord Jesus Christ, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, to love Thee more dearly, and to follow Thee more nearly, day by day.”
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