"Who's Blind Here?" given 10-25-15

A large crowd was milling around outside the city walls of Jericho that day. All of them waiting to see the new rabbi and his disciples pass by. Emotions were running high. There was a sense of expectancy, of joyful waiting in the very air. Hope was certainly swelling in more than one heart. Perhaps-- they thought to themselves-- this Joshua Bar-Joseph, this Jesus might be the one-- the long awaited Messiah who would redeem Israel. Perhaps he would be the one who drove the hated Romans out and restored the fabled golden age of King David.

Someone must have seen him coming and called out.  The crowd began going wild. They were cheering, shouting! What a great day for Jericho! What a glorious day for Israel!

Then suddenly, from the back of the waiting crowd, came a different sort of cry. It wasn’t a cry of happiness or excitement. It was a wailing-- a howling out of grief and utter hopelessness.

"SON OF DAVID, JESUS HAVE MERCY ON ME!" Some of the locals turned to see who could be so rude. It was what’s-his-name, the blind beggar. They all recognized him. They practically tripped over him every day passing by on their errands.  Like all the street people and beggars in all the towns down through the centuries, this man in his miserable, yet familiar plight, had become a sort of invisible landmark. He was seen, and yet in the hurley-burley of every day life, really unseen.

They all knew him. He grew up in that town. And yet he was unknown.  His very name had been forgotten.  Even the Gospel account leaves him un-named. Bar-Timeaus is actually a surname that simply means the son of Timeaus.

The locals tried to hush him up.  How dare he!  This was intolerable! Beggars aren't supposed to call out like that.  It isn't correct. It defies the unspoken agreement between beggars and beggees.  Beggars are supposed to lie in the sun and pitifully but quietly moan, or jingle their cup, and hope that perhaps some stranger passing through will notice them and grudgingly toss a few copper pennies their way.

But Bar-Timeaus wasn't playing the game by the rules. Rather than continue in his unseen, unknown existence, he was actively protesting. He wailed at the top of his lungs. "JESUS! SON OF DAVID HAVE MERCY ON ME!" The crowd tried to silence him, but he would not be silenced. Their efforts only seemed to inspire him all the more.

"SON OF DAVID HAVE MERCY ON ME!" Bar-Timeaus had probably been leaning against that wall for most of his life. In the ancient world, the sightless had no hope whatsoever of any kind of a cure or even a better life. There was no Braille, no guide dogs, no white canes, no Public Aid, no Disability from Social Security. They had no other way to survive except upon the mercy and the generosity of others.

Certainly after a lifetime of seeing him there, day after day, none of the locals would have been likely to help him. He could have starved to death for all of them. The better part of Bar-Timeaus’ livelihood would have depended on the alms he could cadge from strangers or pious pilgrims passing through town on their way to Jerusalem.

So this was this nameless beggar's big chance. The world hasn’t changed much since Jesus’ time. Politicians, popular figures, celebrities and visiting big-time evangelists have no choice. They are expected to at least give the appearance of being charitable--and generous in their charity at that.

When the Bar-Timeaus heard that a big time traveling faith healer was passing through town, he must have figured-- this is it-- the chance for a big score. Old Bar-Timeaus knew very well that prominent religious figures HAVE to be overtly generous in their public charity. He waited until, by estimating the volume of noise, he knew this Jesus would be approximately opposite him. And he let loose. After a life- time of low-keyed, piteous cries of "Please help a poor blind man, gentle pilgrim", Bar-Timeaus let loose with a soul-wrenching screech that reflected all the pain and anger built up from a lifetime of degradation and misery.

"JESUS! SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!"  Jesus heard this piercing cry over the general crowd noise. And Jesus understood in an instant-- as any Jew of that time and place would have-- what a breach this was of the accepted, understood way of doing charity in that time and place.

            And no doubt Jesus was saddened. He would have understood these human wrecks-- these legless, armless, sightless and diseased wretches were absolutely dependant for their very lives on the whimsical pennies of travelers. Simply because the people of their city, their neighbors, friends, and even families had grown too accustomed to the sight of them them, too callous to their all too obvious human suffering to care about, much less care for them.

And so Jesus sent one of the disciples to bring to him the man who had cried out. Bar-Timeaus' breach of the established way of doing things had gotten him what he wanted.  The disciples came, and helped him to his feet. He threw his ragged cloak back over his shoulder, and then, with the inherent sureness and dignity of the blind walking over ground they know well, the son of Timeaus crossed through a parting wall of humanity to stand before Jesus.

In that moment, Bar-Timeaus became more than just another un-known, unseen, nameless, sightless beggar. In that one moment, he became all who suffer, all who are oppressed, all those who must swallow their dignity in order to survive. In that moment, if we choose to look carefully, we can see in the sightless, un-named son of Timeaus, all those sights of human degradation that we so conveniently block out of our own sight on a daily basis.

Something was going on inside Bar-Timeaus during those few steps to Jesus. Suddenly he was no longer just another blind beggar looking for a soft touch. Suddenly he became all of the blindness in this world confronting all of the deliverance in this world. Somehow or other during his steps and during his conversation with Jesus, the issue became more than a few coins. The issue became deliverance.

"What is it that you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks him. And Bar-Timeaus knew from Jesus' voice and words and inflections that he wasn’t going to get any money from this man. If there was one skill that all of those years of pain had given him, it was the skill of survival in a hostile urban environment.  Bar-Timeaus had learned to be a hustler. And so it was with a hustler's ear that he heard Jesus' question.

This man was not offering money—that was for certain. But there was something else in that voice. There was something being offered that was beyond compassion, something beyond anger at Bar-Timeaus' plight. There was a sureness. It is as if this Jesus did indeed have something to offer--something that could alleviate the situation. But what? The voice seemed to say: "I can help. What do you want? Only ask."

 At that moment, a thought must have occurred to Bar-Timeaus. Could it be?  No, it couldn't be. Yet in the space of an instant something that had died painfully, many years ago, was reborn within Bar-Timeaus-- hope. Could he dare to hope, to ask, to believe?

"Rabbi," He said.  "I want my sight back." And it happened.   Beyond reason, beyond knowledge, beyond human possibility it happened. A miracle—Divine Deliverance met sightlessness and conquered it.

But who was really blind in this story? The un-named son of Timeaus was more than physically blind in this story. He was the focus of blindness. He was at the core of a blindness worse than physical-- the blindness of the people of Jericho toward human misery.

Helen Keller said “There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.” That was the blindness of the people of Jericho.  The refused to see-- looking right through Bar-Timeaus and all of his competitors as though they were not there. It was a blindness that refused to acknowledge all of the pain and misery in the world around them. It’s the same sightlessness that affects men and women of our time as well.

This is the same blindness that saw Jesus as teacher, glorious rabbi and political Messiah-- but did not see the cross before him. It was the same blindness that would later on see Jesus as no more than a troublemaker to be gotten rid of. This was a far more profound sightlessness than the physical blindness of the son of Timeaus. This was and it is a blindness that fails to see in Jesus and in his healings both deliverance and judgment.

A great deliverance took place that day outside the walls of Jericho. But it was only one of many. The Gospels tell time and time again of Jesus delivering people from lameness, mental illness, leprosy, and other afflictions. These healings were a fundamental part of Jesus' ministry.

            Many modern Christians look upon the healings and miracles of Jesus as either fairy tales, or as a sort of sideshow-- proof of Jesus' power, but really incidental to His teachings and later sacrifice. Something that happened in New Testament time, but not today. But the truth is, that the miracles and the healings were fundamental.

            They were a crucial part of Jesus' (and the Apostles’) ministry on this earth. Our Savior's healings, His deliverance of so many suffering men and women were symbolic acts of supreme importance  for Israel-- and for us in our world today.

           Each and every healing, miracle, every act of deliverance demonstrated Our Lord's compassion for and mercy upon the hopeless and helpless oppressed  of Palestine—and of those in our day and age as well. Like bolts of lightening, they illuminate the ugly ways that we ignore and mistreat each other in this world. Like bolts of lightening, they reveal for us our Maker's repugnance with what we so blithely accept as "the way things are". Each healing, each act of deliverance was also a judgment upon the hard hearts of Israel—and on us.

In that light, how can you and I look with sightless eyes upon the suffering of so many of God's children in our world today? How can we look with sightless eyes upon the rape of this good earth that God has given to us? How can we look with sightless eyes upon the face of war and ethnic cleansing and hate and terror in our world today?

In Mark's Gospel, the healing of Bar-Timeaus is the last miracle that Jesus performs as He sets out on His journey to Jerusalem-- the road that will lead Him to The Cross. I would short-change this story, and short- change you if I were to simply sum up this sermon by scolding you about all the wrong in this world that we choose to be sightless to. I would short-change Our Lord,  if I were to conclude this sermon by simply telling you that Jesus can help us all to see such things in a new light, and therefore we ought to go out and do something about all the evil things in this broken world of ours.

The truth is that we are indeed blind. And Jesus can indeed banish that metaphorical blindness. But there is a transforming grandeur in the story of Jesus healing Bar-Timeaus' physical blindness. Jesus does far more than just open our eyes to human need. Jesus can do far more than just help us revise our attitudes about the many pressing issues facing us and our world. Jesus does far more than even giving us the strength to reconcile ourselves to those with whom we have broken relationships. And Jesus does far more than empowering us to defeat our out-of-control emotions and addictions and life-situations. Jesus does do all of those things-- and far more.

There's a transforming grandeur that occurs when we allow Jesus to heal all that deeply rooted sin and indifference that exists within us, and among us, and between us and our God. If, like Bar-Timeaus we are willing to open ourselves to hope, to change open ourselves to Christ's reforming love, Our Lord can and will not only heal us, but reform us and make us whole.

Of all the beggars sitting there that day when Jesus arrived, only one stood up and asked for healing. What held the rest back? What holds us back from healing and wholeness, from reformation and renewal of our lives?  It’s Fear.

We’re afraid of the unknown. We know who we are, and how to live our lives—whether or not we’re living them successfully. For all that we’ve heard about Him all of our lives, we don’t really know who this Jesus is. We have no idea of what He will call us to be or do. 

We’re afraid of becoming whole. If we’re whole we’re no longer off the hook. If we’re whole there are no excuses for our sins of indifference and blindness.

We’re afraid of change. The very familiarity of our everyday pain and stress and trials brings a certain perverse comfort. As painful as it can be, we’re comfortable in our rut because at least we know it.

We’re afraid of new life. We know it will bring us challenge and call and responsibilities—to one another, to ourselves, to Jesus. 

We’re afraid to hope. We’ve dared to hope in the past and had our hopes thrown in our faces by events and people. We dare not risk any more disappointment.

           It’s only when like Bar-Timeaus, we finally overcome our fears-- only when we can no longer bear our utter need and seeming hopelessness-- that we cry out to the Son of David and dare to hope for mercy. Then, and only then, Christ’s Spirit will empower us to reform and redirect the very direction of our existence.  It’s only there, in the depths of our desperation, that our Savior will reform our beings and give us new purpose and direction to remold the broken pieces of our lives.

 Jerusalem, to hope, to wholeness, to sanity, to salvation, with all the grandeur and possibility and risk and joy that pilgrimage entails.

Let us pray.

Lord Christ, we too are blind. Show us the brother or the sister who we can bless and minister to in your name. Show us the ways in which we can make a difference in the lives of others in this world. Show us the opportunities for service that lie before us every day. Show us the possibilities for growth you offer us each day. Show us the ways that you would have us walk. And show us always, that you walk among us. Amen.