Homily: Building Bridges to Save (Re-run)

Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 30 / Sunday

Readings: Jeremiah 31.7-9 / Psalm 125.1-2b, 2d-3, 4-5, 6 (R/v 3) / Hebrews 5. 1-6 / Mark 10.46-52

The Way. This is the name non-Christians gave to the early Christians and the faith they practiced. It probably came about as they recognized how Jesus’ way of being in a relationship with God and neighbor was the model for Christian living.

We call ourselves Christians, followers of Jesus. Our way of life is meant to follow Jesus’ way of loving, serving and living with God and neighbor. What does this way look like? How can this way of living like Jesus be our way of life today? These are questions a discerning disciple should always be asking.

Mark offers us a reflection on the Christian way we should live our lives in today’s gospel passage. Most of us cannot see it however because our familiarity with this gospel passage focuses our attention more often on the miracle of Jesus healing the blind Bartimaeus. In fact, for many of us, this passage is another of Jesus’ wondrous miracles about God’s goodness in our lives, a theme in today’s Sunday readings.

But we can glimpse how today’s gospel passage is about Christian discipleship if we see it staged. Instead of reading it in prayer or hearing it proclaimed at Mass as we usually do, imagining how today’s gospel passage can be staged opens us up to seeing anew and learning an insightful lesson for Christian discipleship.

Imagine yourself looking down on a stage in a theatre. You might find Bartimaeus sitting on the ground, on the lower right-hand side of the stage, with his hands stretched out, begging. Bartimaeus is a nobody. First, we don't know his name; he is Bar or son of Timaeus. Second, he is outside the community: he is blind, not one of those who can see. Yet he has insight: he rightly calls Jesus "Son of David", a name reserved for God's anointed one.

You might see Jesus slowly walking across the stage, from right to left, making his exit out of Jericho. His disciples are accompanying him. 

In between Bartimaeus and Jesus are the crowds, speaking loudly, excitedly about Jesus. They cannot see Jesus like Bartimaeus does; they are blind to his real identity. The entire stage is fully lit to convey daytime, if not the sweltering heat of Jericho. 

Then, you hear Bartimaeus’ plea: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.”  The crowds rebuke him: “sssh,” they utter to silence him. But Bartimaeus’ cry goes up again, “Jesus, have pity on me.” Jesus hears and says, “Call him to me.” Then we hear the crowd echo Jesus and we see Bartimaeus throws aside his cloak, jumps up and comes to Jesus. Jesus cures Bartimaeus; his sight restored, Bartimaeus follows Jesus out through the audience on their way to Jesus’ next place for ministry. End of scene.

Is this all we see? If so, I think we are blind to a small, quiet, even forgettable detail any director of this scene would include: someone or a group of people going to Bartimaeus, lifting him up, and assisting him to Jesus. How can a blind man making his way through the crowd reach Jesus, unless someone helps? Otherwise, he would grope around, bump into others, lose his way. 

This is a detail that we don’t often think about when we read or hear this gospel passage because we are too focused on -- and may be too familiar with-- the goodness of Jesus’ miracle. It is right and good that we focus on the miracle, but shouldn’t we also be asking ourselves, “Who helps Bartimaeus to come to Jesus?”

I’d like to believe that between Jesus’ call and Bartimaeus' healing someone or some group of people did help Bartimaeus to come to Jesus. If not, how else can a blind man move through a crowd safely to reach Jesus and be healed?

Mark does not describe this act of help, nor does he name the helpers in the gospel passage. They remain unnamed and unknown, yet, their actions are significant: they changed Bartimaeus’ life. Their example is hidden in today’s gospel passage; it awaits our discovery as God’s gift to help us follow Jesus more closely.

The unnamed helper or helpers show us how their action is a gift for discipleship: it is about disciples building bridges to save another into God’s life. Yes, there was a gap between Bartimaeus and Jesus, and these helpers bridged it. 

I’d like to believe that these helpers knew what to do when they heard Jesus say, “Call him to me.” They knew that Jesus’ command meant more than just speaking about him and his good works, or pointing others to him, or even relaying Jesus' instructions. They understood that being a follower of Jesus is to do what Jesus does: to bring another to God. This involves going to the person, lifting him up, and assisting him to Jesus who reveals God's mercy, love, and life. 

Isn’t so much of what Jesus does in the gospels is about bridging the gap between heaven and earth? In his healing, he brings the sick to health in God’s life. In forgiving sinners, he reconciles the divide between them and God’s mercy. In teaching them about God, he closes the chasm between a life without God and a life in God. And in gathering all kinds of people to form his community of disciples, he fosters communion where are divide and distrust. 

Jesus walked the talk: all his life was about bringing about a saving relationship that restores and gave life to those who were far from God but who sought God with all their heart.

This is why the question of how Bartimaeus comes to Jesus must be an important consideration for us as Christians. Are we like those unnamed helpers who help Bartimaeus? Do we walk the talk like Jesus did, and bridge the different gaps our families, friends, and, more so, the many who are sidelined face? Or, are we merely onlookers?

Jesus wasn’t an onlooker in the messy affairs and realities of human life. He rolled up his sleeves and got his hands dirty by entering the lives of those who suffered and were in need of God. In his healing, his preaching, his forgiving, and his miracle-making, Jesus got involved to bring people closer to God. Yes, he bridged the gap so that all could be saved into God. Do we do the same? Do we roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty to help others experience God’s salvation, or do we keep them clean by standing aside and being just another onlooker?

As I prepared this homily, I wondered why Mark didn’t describe the possible action of these helpers or named them. I can only think of this answer: that Jesus' first disciples knew the way to act because they saw how Jesus lived and served. By imitating Jesus, they walked Jesus’ talk. And because they did so, it was already so much part of their everyday way of life. Yet, this way was surprisingly extraordinary for many others. Indeed, in the seeming ordinariness of reaching out and assisting another to come closer to Jesus, they lived out lives that imitated Jesus’ way of bridging the divide between humankind and God. 

Christ-bearer is the name we call someone who brings another to Jesus. We use its Greek translation, “Christopher,” to name our sons. I’d like to suggest that our gospel passage this evening invites us to ask, how am I a Christopher to someone else? And, if we dare to take on this role and live it fully, are you and I prepared to practice it in ways that result in our good works remaining unknown and our identities never being revealed, like Bartimaeus’ helpers? If our answer is “yes,” we will do what these unnamed helpers realized: that our good work of bridging the gap is truly worthy because they do not point to us but allow God’s good work to shine through like these helpers did when Jesus restored Bartimaeus’ sight.

As we prepare to go on our to our family meals, or an outing with friends, or just home to prepare for the same old, same old routine next week, it would do us good to remember the part we can each play in bringing about God’s goodness in this world. Let us do so: for then we can celebrate how our Christian lives can truly be lived in no other more meaningful and life-giving way than in Jesus’ way. 

First preached on 25 Oct 2015.

Preached at Church of the Transfiguration & St Ignatius Church, Singapore

Photo: www.cbc.ca