This week, as I was trying to pull something together for the weekend preaching, I looked over previous homilies. Not surprisingly, they all centered on the star of the show in today’s Scriptures, Blind Bartimaeus. In past preaching, the message was pretty straightforward: don’t listen to the voices around you, scolding you to be quiet, telling you to leave Jesus alone, he is too busy, too important for you. Be bold, don’t give up, trust! These messages are all true and I stand by all of it. But something different has jumped out at me this time around, something I hadn’t quite lingered on before so I would like to focus on that.
These last few years have been really hard. I can only speak for myself but I think many of you can relate. It’s not really one thing in particular but a whole series of battles, frustrations, hurts, and losses. After a while, they all add up. I start to wonder, is something wrong with me? Is everyone going through this level of resistance, pushback, anger, and insecurity? Is this how life looks from here on out? No matter how much I do, no matter how hard I try, so much seems to be incomplete and insufficient! I feel like Covid was the beginning of a whole culture shift not only in our society but also in the Church. After we limped out of that whole mess, we went right into All Things New. After hobbling through that, we had a brief repose and now a highly contentious election. As a priest and preacher, I feel like more and more of my life and work is a white-knuckle ride. Some days I simply pray, “Lord, just get me through this next appointment” or “help me survive this day”. In my more reflective moments, I step back and wonder: can I keep up this pace, can I continue to listen, to exercise patience and empathy, and find joy in living a life of service for 30 more years?! I am ashamed to say, some days, I just don’t know or I continue on because I don’t know if I could do anything else.
I am not sharing this to seek affirmation or pity for myself. Although the details of your struggle are different, can’t you also relate to those seasons in life where the hits keep coming? Where you can’t seem to do anything right, when everything keeps breaking, where your best efforts aren’t quite good enough, and no matter how hard you work, you feel further and further behind? I believe you know exactly how this feels because it is part of being human, with flaws, shortcomings, and limitations. Ultimately, what gets me through these moments is the hope that a solution will present itself, that tomorrow will be better, that I can fake it until I make it, and this rough patch won’t last forever. I’d love to tell you that the thing that always drives me is complete faith and hope in God. But sometimes, it is more like: I can try harder tomorrow. I still have something left in the tank. There is one more thing I can try. My personal persistence will win.
Let’s go to Bartimaeus. Until experiencing my own prolonged weariness and desolation, I don’t think I appreciated how desperate and lonely he was. Bartimaeus, blind and begging, was nothing, he had nothing, he could do nothing. For so many around him, he had become invisible, an annoyance at best, someone others wished would just disappear. For Bartimaeus, there was no “tomorrow will be better”. For him it was, tomorrow I will still be blind, I will still be asking asking people for support who wish I would just go away. Even those who helped, many did so with contempt, after dispensing preachy advice and judgement. Bartimaeus knew this degrading, dark, miserable routine was his future, until the day he died. There was no miracle cure for blindness waiting in a doctor’s office. There was absolutely nothing he could do to save or heal himself, no matter how badly he wanted it.
We might not think of it at first but in this forsaken, terrible situation, Bartimaeus is actually more free than most of us! He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he cannot save or heal himself. He has nothing left to lose when Jesus passes by that fateful day outside of Jericho. A person with more personal resources, someone who had a reputation to protect or worried at all about what others think would just keep their mouth shut. Not Bartimaeus!!! “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me”, he cries out! And here is the heart of what I want to share with you today/tonight. Do you think Bartimaeus said this quietly and calmly? ….. NO!!! I am confident his cry sounded more like a wounded animal than human speech. This was a sound that would give us goose bumps and make the hair on our necks stand up. How do you think it sounded for Jesus to hear someone cry out from the depths of a broken heart? It was a primal scream, complete desperation, the sound of someone who knew this was their last chance. Bartimaeus realized if Jesus wouldn’t stop and help, the rest of his life was condemned to the darkness he had been living. Tomorrow would not be better. That is why Bartimaeus didn’t listen to the voices around him, telling him to be quiet, to stop making a fool of himself, to stop bothering Jesus. The similar voices inside of Bartimaeus that said these same things had already been silenced; the opinions and judgements of others no longer had any power.
Psalm 34 says, “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted.” Jesus cannot ignore Bartimaeus or anyone who has exhausted all their options and now realizes only Jesus can help them. As I reflect on the holy, heartbreaking desperation of Bartimaeus, I realize I still put far too much stock in my abilities, my reputation, my efforts, my accomplishments, and my resources. Even in my darkest moments, I have not yet cried out to Jesus as though he is my last and only hope. I still let the voices in and around me shush me to silence instead of crying out even louder, with all my might, until my voice cracks, my lungs burn, and nothing is held back.
What about you? Are you also under the illusion that you are self-sufficient and able to save yourself? Are you embarrassed and shy, willing to be invisible as Jesus passes by because of what you might lose by screaming for Jesus to save you, to heal you, to open your eyes?!
Jesus, give us the holy desperation of Bartimaeus! Jesus, help us to see that only you can save us, only you can heal us, without you, we are utterly poor! Jesus, we want to see. Jesus, Son of David, Son of God, have mercy on us!!
