These past weeks, the gospel has instructed us on how to follow Jesus - discipleship. Last week I talked about the 3P’s which we need to balance in our life to follow Jesus more closely- Pleasure, Possession, Power. Today we continue with the theme of discipleship as we see the 3C’s of the story of the blind man: Crowd, Cloak and Conclusion.
There was a crowd and they were trying to make a blindman and a cross-eyed guy start a fistfight. So the crowd told the blind man that the cross-eyed guy was insulting him, and vice versa. Both got angry and with the help of the crowd who brought them together, they found themselves in a distance of each other. The crowd started to shout: fight, fight, fight to bring them nearer… And as they came nearer, the cross-eyed guy got his cloak, raised it up in front of him and tried to hide himself with it. The blind guy sensing no one was coming nearer in front of him shouted: “Hey cross-eyed guy, don’t hide, show yourself so that I can see you and fight you.” And from a distance, the cross-eyed guy shouted: “I’m not going to fight you… it’s not fair… there are two of you.” Conclusion – no fight followed.
The Crowd - The Gospel of today opens with the following sentence: “Jesus left Jericho, with his disciples and a great crowd” (v.46). This crowd that follows Jesus is very mixed. Bartimaeus hears from them about Jesus. He then shouts: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Some of the crowd discourage him, but Jesus hears and invites him. “Call him here.” And the other part of the crowd tells the blind man, “Courage, he is calling you.” And this crowd bring him to Jesus.
And we, what part of the crowd are we in? Are we those who spread the word about Jesus, and encourage them to come to him or are we part of the crowd who prevent others from seeing Jesus?
The Cloak - When at last the blind man has the chance to approach Jesus, we are told, “So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus” (v.50). The cloak was a large square piece of cloth that the blind man had spread in front of him to collect some coins from the passers by. In any case, his act of throwing off his cloak shows a renunciation. The blind man does not need his cloak any more – he goes out to Jesus in symbolic nakedness. The blind man does not need his coins any more – because he is going to be healed now. He does not need his material security any more – because he has Jesus himself now.
As for us, what is the cloak that becomes our security blanket? What is that cloak that we find so difficult to let go? What is that cloak that prevents me from being totally available to Jesus?
The Conclusion- What follows then is the cure. Jesus says, “Go; your faith has saved you.” And at once his sight returned and Bartimaeus followed him along the road.” Two Sundays ago, in the gospel story (Mk 10:21-22) Jesus told the rich man, “Come follow me”, but he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth. But in the gospel story of today, Jesus says, ‘go’… but this man follows him along the road, for now he was totally empty of himself. One who was sitting on the side at the beginning of the story, is now on the road, following Jesus.
This is the conclusion of any encounter with Jesus: there must be a denial of our self if there is to be true discipleship. One must be able to give up one’s self for the one you wish to follow.
There was a blind girl who hated herself just because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She said that if she could only see the world, she would marry her boyfriend.
One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her and then she could see everything, including her boyfriend. Her boyfriend asked her, “Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?”
But the girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend was blind too, and refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away in tears, and later the girl found a note from him saying: “My beloved, all I ask now is for you to just take care of my eyes.”
Two blind persons today – Bartimaeus and the girl. The blind man was grateful to Jesus and followed him. The blind girl was not grateful to the boy and rejected him. And that brings us to our conclusion, we have a final C - a Challenge – Shall we follow Jesus to that ultimate letter C – the Cross or shall we reject him?
Adapted from: Selvam, S. (2015) Towards Wholeness
http://www.sahayaselvam.org/2015/10/20/sermon-for-30th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-–-year-b-homily-bartimaeus/