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Sisters and brothers, today's gospel comes down to one question. The question that Jesus asked the blind man, Bartimaeus, what do you want me to do for you? It is not an idle question. It is not a rhetorical question. It is a question that goes to the deepest desires of our hearts, especially when we are in pain. This is not a story of easy answers.
Healing blindness is not superficial, easy, magical. It is a profound and deep, life-changing experience. Just as we often cannot imagine the healing of our blindness and the chaos of our lives. This is a story of the power of God, of love and mercy and faith. How many times in our lives we are transfixed, held in place, stopped from living by our own blindness in the face of the hurts, brokenness, griefs, and poverty of our own lives and world?
Let us take a moment to consider the reality of sight and blindness. Sight is one of the most important senses, one of the most critical ways that we are connected to the world around us. The formation of our ideas and our our concepts are so closely tied to our ability to see.
With sight, we are able to attend to the world around us. We can take notice of people and places and things. Without sight, it is hard to grasp the suffering of others or the beauty of the world. Sure, we can hear beautiful sounds, taste wonderful foods, smell amazing fragrances, and touch the abundant textures of the world. But no sense gives us the fullness of the reality before us; life-sight.
Bartimaeus sits by the side of the road, unable to grasp all that is before him. All is not right with his world. We are all sisters and brothers, Bartimaeus is in our own ways, blind, living at times with our own personal chaos and crises. At times we are overcome with spiritual and essential blindness.
We cannot see the people in front of us. We cannot see the people who will help us. We cannot see the goodness on the faces of others. We cannot see a way out of this poverty and dependance. We cannot solve our own blindness. We find no magic answer. Magic, and tricks and self-help techniques do not work.
The one thing Bartimaeus knew was that he did not have the answer. He knew he could not see. He could not make his life full. But deep within him was the desire to be more, to find a way out of this chaos, to find a way to begin to live differently. So he began to cry out, Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me. This was enough to stop Jesus in his tracks.
Jesuit priest and moral theologian Father James Keenan describes mercy as the entering of the chaos of another. So often, when we use the word mercy, we talk as if it's forgiveness. But he gives us that special notion of entering the chaos of another. Jesus, who is mercy itself, turns to enter the chaos of Bartimaeus. His blindness. And it is here that he asks him as he asks us, what do you want me to do for you?
This is the question of today. Right now, as we think of our own lives, our relationships, our families, our marriages, our friendships, our children, our work, our poverty and dependencies, our ability to live the chaos of the world around us, torn in so many ways the overwhelming poverty of brothers and sisters here, and around the world. Jesus asks us, what do you want me to do for you?
Bartimaeus answered, "Master, I want to see". He longed for more than physical sight. The desire of his heart was to see the way clear to freedom. Freedom from chaos and sin and death. Bartimaeus knew that there was one who could give him this sight, who could answer the desire of his heart's.
Higher culture, our politics, our time, sisters and brothers, offer us all kinds of solutions to everything that ails us, medicine and vaccines, drugs, entertainments and politics, but none of these, even the choices of this election season, can give us the answer to our blindness.
Twenty years ago, as Pope Benedict was being elected, he preached a sermon in which he said, “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive, and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires".
We have a different goal. The answer of our hearts, the God who so loved us so much that in mercy. He entered our chaos, became man in order to save us from sin and death, to restore our hearts and answer our cry for sight.
The blind man Bartimaeus received his sight and followed Jesus. We are told that he did not go his way as Jesus said. Jesus said, "Your faith is saved, you go your way". But Bartimaeus didn't go his own way. Instead, we are told that he went the way with Jesus. That followed Jesus to His suffering through His death and to His resurrection.
Sisters and brothers, as we sit here today, as we think of our own blindness in the course of our lives. When blindness comes our way, when we find ourselves transfixed and stuck by the side of the road, let us cry out: "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me and then have the courage to get up and go to Him". And then, when He enters our chaos and looks at us with love and asks us, "What do you want Me to do for you?", answer with the desire of your heart, just say: "Master, I want to see", and your faith will save you.