30th Week of Ordinary Time, year B:
The stories of the gospel are
really our stories. Though the event and
words took place many years ago in a land far away from here, these stories continue
to speak to us today, the events in the gospel are just as relevant in our own
lives as they were to those who lived them.
I think we are all Bartimaeus in
one way or another. In a sense, his
story is the story of the human person on the way to God. All of us can probably see ourselves at some
stage in the Bartimaeus story.
The story begins with Bartimaeus
sitting on the road, blind, and calling out looking for help. Isn’t this a great image for humanity! After the fall, because of Original Sin, aren’t
we blind to goodness, aren’t we just sitting on the road, no longer moving
toward goodness and fulfillment, but stuck in sin and death. Yet, we never lost that innate desire for
God. As Augustine said so long ago, you
have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in
you. Everyone in the world is looking
for God, we are all sitting on the path calling out for something more. Can’t we feel it? Don’t we want more than this? This life is good and the world is full of
blessings and goodness, but in our hearts we are looking for more. This is not just us Christians, every human
being has this ache in their hearts, many people try to fill it with money,
pleasure, power, science, you name it.
We are all searching for something more, but after original sin we can
no longer find it.
Enter the person of Jesus. In today’s story, Jesus walks on the road
past Bartimaeus. I think this this a
beautiful way to think about the incarnation.
Jesus comes to us, God walks among us.
We are blind, but searching for God.
So God comes to us, Jesus walks among us. God comes in search of humanity.
But, God never takes away our
freedom. There is a part of this story
that I always find hard to take. You
almost get the impression that Jesus wasn’t going to stop. Jesus walks past the blind man, and only
stops when he cries out. What does this
mean? Yes, God comes in search of
humanity, but he is only found by those who seek him. When Bartimaeus cries out for Jesus, Jesus
stops, approaches him and invites him: what do you want me to do for you? I will often talk to people who tell me that
they feel like they are kind of losing their faith. “I just don’t feel God anymore…” Now it is certainly the case that our
spiritual life has its ups and downs, and we cannot rely too heavily on our
feelings; but, I sometimes ask: have you been looking for God? If it seems like Christ is distant, it might
be that he is respecting our freedom, he did not come to obliterate our
freedom; rather, he comes in search of those who are seeking him.
When Bartimaeus seeks Jesus, he
finds him, Jesus heals his blindness. By
encountering Jesus, Bartimaeus finds what he has been looking for, so he gets
up and follows him. Isn’t that why we
are here today? We were looking for
Jesus, we found him, and now we follow him.
The last stage in this journey to be with him forever in the
resurrection.
So it seems to me that in the
gospel story we can see several different stages in life, and we are all
probably at some different point along the way.
Also, I think it is important to remember that most of the people we
meet will probably be in a different stage than we are. But, make no mistake, we are all looking for
God, and we find him in Jesus, we find him right here in this Holy Eucharist. And down to this very day, this very hour
Jesus continues to approach us and ask us the same question: What do you want
me to do for you?
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