From the Pulpit:

    Ann Brotherton, Assistant Rector

The Gift of Sight

Perhaps because of the stories told to me as a child about my birth, Mark’s story of blind Bartimaeus, really speaks to me.  Born before the middle of the last century and three months prematurely, while my parents were on vacation, it is quite a miracle that I stand before you today.  It is an even greater miracle that I possess the gift of sight.  Incubators for preemies were in the developmental stages – oxygen was beginning to be delivered as well as warmth to assist with survival.  Unfortunately 100% oxygen delivered over too great a period of time had caused numerous cases of blindness that year.  For this reason the sisters at the Catholic hospital where I was born, by ‘holy coincidence’, refused to use an incubator or oxygen.  Instead, I’m told, they carried me in the folds of their habits for warmth and stimulation and fed me frequently – refusing to allow my parents to see me for a week saying “she will surely die, and it will be easier for you if you don’t see her.”  I am grateful that I didn’t die, and probably more than other children and adults have always been very grateful for the gift of sight!

We have learned and made extraordinary progress in the last sixty years, in terms of high-tech procedures to restore and maintain vision.  I am so thankfully aware that there are those in our midst today who have been the beneficiaries of those advances.  I am also aware that some continue to struggle with vision difficulties, but give hearty thanks that we live in these days rather than the time of Bartimaeus. Life must have been dreadful for him - so lowly a figure that we don’t even know his name. Bartimaeus is not a given name.  Bar means “son”, so Bartimaeus simply means son of Timaeus, just as Simon bar Jonah meant “Simon, son of Jonah.”  Timaeus is a Greek name, so he was either a Hellenistic Jew or perhaps not a Jew at all.  It’s possible he was a Greek living in an overwhelming Jewish population.  In any case he was an anonymous outsider. 

Blind from birth, Bartimaeus had never been able to see.  Can you imagine not ever having been able to see the faces of your family or friends, or even those who mocked you? It is rather certain that he was the object of ridicule.  Any physical deformity or illness in those days was considered punishment for ones own sins or the sins of the parents.  Surviving on the charity of others as a blind beggar, he got around the small town of Jericho using his cane of olive wood. He did what he could on his own, but for the most part people waited on him.  He had never learned many of life’s basic tasks because he couldn’t do them.  He was a blind man on the side of the road, a stick in one hand and perhaps a few coins in the other.  His one possession, a cloak, provided warmth and something to sit upon and perhaps catch the coins he was tossed now and then.  You can bet no one ever really saw HIM.  It’s likely that he had become little more than a fixture along the side of the road, a poor creature to be pitied by some with feelings, but never to be invited along, never to be included or given anything of value.  Oh, people knew Bartimaeus was there.  He was always there, like so many others, the lame, the lepers, the afflicted.  And nothing could be done.  He was a pain and an embarrassment to their town – especially when they had visiting dignitaries, like Jesus and his disciples.

Here he is sitting on the side of the road when he hears the sounds of a hundred footsteps.  Being blind all his life has made all his other senses more acute.  Hearing what sounded like an army marching up the path, he felt the earth vibrate.  Soon voices floated on the wind to his ears.  He heard the name Jesus of Nazareth and he perked up, for he had heard stories about this man named Jesus and the miracles he had performed.  He began to make quite a scene shouting “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” over and over again!  People tried to hush him up, but he just kept calling out.  It worked.  He got the attention of Jesus.  Footsteps stop right in front of him and everything is quiet when he hears a voice say “Call him here.”  The other beggars and travelers began touching him on the shoulder saying “Jesus is calling for you, take courage, stand up, walk straight ahead.”  Casting off his one possession, his cloak, he walks slowly forward.  Then Jesus said to Bartimaeus “What do you want me to do for you?”  Now, he had been asked this questions thousands of times before by his mother, his brother, a kind stranger.  The answer had always been, “could you spare a coin”, “could you lead me to the well”, could you hand me a piece of bread”, “could you lead me home”.  Not this time!  Perhaps this would be the last time he had to ask for something.  Bartimaeus finds his voice and says, “Rabbi, I want to regain my sight!” Jesus says to him “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”  Immediately he could see and started following Jesus on the road.

Many people hear this as a healing story, but it’s more than that, it’s a call story – a call to discipleship.  In fact this story is a bookend to the gospel of Mark’s treatment of discipleship – a section that begins and ends with the healing of a blind man.  In the first story in Bethsaida, Jesus took the blind man outside the village and the healing wasn’t easy.  It took two tries, and the man was cautioned to go away and keep quiet.  It’s a clue that the ministry of Jesus would run counter to the established culture. Unlike the rich man who could not leave possessions behind to accept the invitation to follow Jesus, Bartimaeus did follow Jesus during that last week of his life on the way to Jerusalem.  The building of a new community had begun.  Perhaps what Mark wants us to see is that the new community is not only counter cultural, but symbolized by Bartimaeus who was not considered worthy by his contemporaries.  My friends, not one of us is here because we are worthy.  Being a follower of Jesus is not about who sits at the right or left hand of Christ in the afterlife, as James and John thought.  Being a disciple means reaching out to the poor and vulnerable and creating a new community where all are welcome.  It’s about taking risks and being committed to the new community Christ is forming.  It’s about hearing the screams from people in our own neighborhood who suffer from injustice and struggle to survive. It’s about seeing with new vision – through the eyes of Christ.  Pope Benedict XVI called Bartimaeus “an ordinary saint through whom the extraordinary grace of God is at work”.  That aptly describes us too. (Repeat)

The story of Blind Bartimaeus is a story for the church as we know it today.  There are plenty of things that blind and bind us - fears and conflicts and economic challenges.  And yet as we come together and allow ourselves to be formed into the likeness of Christ our vision is changed.  The good news of the gospel is that the church that wishes to see will be given a new vision.  There is no end to what the church can be in the eyes of God.  St. Alban’s, in recent years, has taken stock of who we are and been answering God’s question “What do you want me to do for you?”  With God’s help, you completed the PLC, installed a sign to let folks know you are here, improved the water situation, shopped the walls and new ministries have been born - SAIL, Kids Hope, Vergers.  Existing ministries like Community of Hope and the Children’s Program and Youth Ministry have been expanded – all this time seeing more clearly and responding to needs more fully in this place and in the world around us. 

Last Sunday you elected new vestry members – persons with new eyes to see and hearts to listen.  They covenant to provide leadership in the years ahead and they can’t do their jobs alone.  The participation of each and every one of us is vital if we are going to truly throw off our cloak and run eagerly into the future following Jesus.  We each need to let them know what they can count on from us, as they plan for the year ahead.  Being fiscally and financially responsible requires that we budget and plan wisely.  It requires mundane things like money on a regular basis to cover utility, maintenance and repair bills, solar panels, staff salaries and office expenses.  And, hear me well, the only reason those things are necessary is to support the ministries in which we and the larger Anglican Communion are involved – ministries that you are engaged with as you seek to follow and grow into the likeness of Jesus.  These ministries depend upon not only our financial gifts, but our gifts of time and talents as well.

During the next five weeks, as our church sits in the waiting room of the ‘great ophthalmologist’, let’s throw off our cloak and wrap in our prayer shawls.  Let’s pray and wait to be led into the exam room, where we will be fitted with the perfect lenses to fill out those annual commitment cards.  There, our eyeglasses will be adjusted and polished to the finest optical standards – just right for whatever it is that dims the vision of any church anywhere, for whatever reason.  There will be no more presbyopia, near-sightedness, far- sightedness, astigmatism, cataracts or detached retinas in the church that requests God’s refractive action.  This church will be able to see itself clearly, and it will discover what it must do to become the church of God’s dreams.  Just as blind Bartimaeus got up and followed Jesus up the long road to Jerusalem, the church today, eyes focused on the Living Christ, will walk up the long road toward God’s kingdom fully come, as a church and individuals who are giving and growing into the likeness of Christ. 

Amen

02/13/2010