Today's Gospel

Shine Light on Your Blindness

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark 10:46-52. "And they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho and His disciples and a great multitude, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.'

And many people rebuked him, telling him to be quiet, but he cried out all the more. 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' And Jesus stopped and said, 'Call him,' and they called the blind man, saying to him, 'Take heart. Rise. He is calling you.' And throwing off his mantle, he sprang up and came to Jesus, and Jesus said to him, 'What do you want me to do for you?' And the blind man said to him, 'Master, open my eyes that I may see.' And Jesus said to him, 'Go your way. Your faith has made you well,' and immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way."

It's one of my favorite readings. So the blind man, Bartimaeus-- we all have blindness. We all have blind spots. And this persistence of Bartimaeus is a thing of beauty. He just keeps crying out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Have pity on me." And the crowd tell him to shut up, and the disciples tell him to shut up, but he just keeps at it. "Jesus, son of David." And there's this beautiful faith there. And sometimes, when we're exercising our faith, the crowd tells us to shut up, and tragically, we do. Right? And even sometimes we're exercising our faith-- and I get emails all the time. "I try to do this in my parish, and this person in charge or that person in charge, they cut me down, or they blocked it." Yeah. That's like Bartimaeus. He's trying to reach out to Jesus, trying to do his thing, and the crowd tell him to shut up, and even the disciples tell him to shut up. But he just keeps doing his thing. And then Jesus says to him, basically, "What do you want? What is it that you want me to do for you?" And Bartimaeus replies, "Lord, open my eyes that I may see." The danger is to think that we are not the blind man. The danger is to think that we do not have blindness. We don't see things as they really are. We see almost nothing as it really is. And so let's cry out with Bartimaeus today and ask Jesus to take away a little bit more of our blindness. Have a great day. And remember, don't just be yourself. Be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be.