<\/p>\n
What was so special about Bartimaeus’ faith?\u00a0 I asked myself that question as I read this morning’s Gospel.\u00a0 Here was a man blind from birth.\u00a0 That meant lots of things in his day.\u00a0 It meant that Bartimaeus was uneducated; it meant that he was unemployed, unable to care for himself; and it meant that he was rejected by society, he was ignored and pretty much resigned to a place in the background and a lowly station in life that was an object of pity.\u00a0 And yet, Jesus singles Bartimaeus out, cures him and tells him “Go your way, your faith has saved you”.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now Bartimaeus’ blindness certainly has a symbolic meaning, not just a literal meaning.\u00a0 Because that’s the reason the Gospel stories were selected by their authors- as teaching stories, not just biographical stories.\u00a0 So “blindness” in this case could mean many things.\u00a0 For example- clueless, oblivious, pre-occupied, self-absorbed; all of these things are a form of blindness.\u00a0 They are blindness to the realities of what life is all about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the first reading from Sirach, we are all asked to appreciate the wonderful works of God.\u00a0 This, it occurs to me, is the opposite to the symbolic blindness of the Gospel.\u00a0 Because when we really appreciate the wonderful works of God, we exhibit a simple form of faith in God. He is a God who does great things and a God whose will results in the ultimate goodness for everyone and everything.\u00a0 This kind of faith motivates us to accept the life that God gives us, and work our way into the Kingdom of God.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Notice that after Bartimaeus is cured of his blindness of sight, he doesn’t just dance off in euphoria over his miraculous cure.\u00a0 Rather, he follows Jesus, and so we have a hint that not only is his physical blindness cured, but his blindness to the meaning of life is cured as well.\u00a0 Bartimaeus realizes that he needs to follow up on his cure, and seek God.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But still, why was Bartimaeus singled out?\u00a0 What was so special about his Faith going into this incident?\u00a0 We have a few subtle clues.\u00a0 First, Bartimaeus is persistent- so persistent that he is rebuked for being a pest.\u00a0 And then, his appeal is simplistic, almost child-like in simplicity.\u00a0 Also, Jesus doesn’t go to Bartimaeus the blind man; rather, Jesus asks the blind man to come to him!\u00a0 And so Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, probably his sole and special possession, and works his uncertain way toward Jesus.\u00a0 So, Bartimaeus exhibits a persistent, simplistic, basic faith, one in which he abandons all he has got to get to the object of his appeal, Jesus; and the path to Jesus was uncertain and meandering; yet steady.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our society is marked by a certain sophistication; our society honors wisdom and knowledge,\u00a0 and throws out roadblocks of skepticism for things of faith.\u00a0 Bartimaeus’ kind of faith as I just described it, is the antithesis, the direct opposite, to the wisdom of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And so, when you appeal to Jesus, do you do exhibit Bartimaeus kind of faith?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the 8th Week of Ordinary Time Sir 42: 15-25; Mk 10: 46-52 Dc. Larry Brockman What was so special about Bartimaeus’ faith?\u00a0 I asked myself that question as I read this morning’s Gospel.\u00a0 Here was a man blind from birth.\u00a0 That meant lots of things in his day.\u00a0 It meant that Bartimaeus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}