Touched by Blindness

• TODAY: Please reserve your seat or takeaway meal for our Harvest Supper on November 2nd at 5:30. Enjoy Harvest Soup, Pork, Roasted Fall Vegetables, and more!
• Next Death Cafe is on November 16th at 4pm.
• Watch the recording of today’s Reflection HERE (posts later Sunday morning or early afternoon).

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see. “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. Mark 10: 46-52

Who is blind in this story?  Who sees in this story?  We might ask this of ourselves in our lives.  Who is blind in our story?  Who sees in our story?  If we’re honest, we’ll notice that we’re all blind.  And, sometimes, it’s the blind man that teaches us to see.  

This is a large crowd.  How many people do you think choose not to see the blind man on the side of the road as they pass?  PAUSE  How many times to we choose not to see the blind man on the side of the road as we pass?  PAUSE

The blind man begins to make noise, to shout out to Jesus, and “many rebuked him and told him to be quiet”.  PAUSE How often do we try to quiet the things we don’t want to see?  PAUSE

We’re all blind.  We all have things we choose not to see.  We all have things we cannot see. We have things we cannot see clearly.  We all have things we choose to see the way we want to see them and nothing (short of a lightening bolt from the heavens) is going to make us see differently.  We’re all blind.  

Sometimes, being blind isn’t a bad thing.  Sometimes, we are “blinded by the light”.  We see this in Acts (which we are looking at in our Confirmation Studies and Discussion Group), when Paul is literally blinded by the light and cannot see for three days.  PAUSE   Perhaps we might wonder why Paul is blinded for three days during his transformation on the Damascus Road…

Sometimes, we are blindsided on the journey of life.  Sometimes, like Paul, it is transformative.  We are changed by being touched by blindness.  

Notice, for a moment, in this passage who the blind man is calling for.  PAUSE  He’s calling for the Son of David.  PAUSE  The blind man is the only one who sees that Jesus is the Messiah.  This is the first time in Mark that a man sees Jesus for who he is and it’s the blind man.  Sometimes, the blind and even our blind spots have something to teach us.  Often they do, if we choose to be transformed and changed.  

I saw this adorable little short film this past week.  It was the story of a man who was walking through his day thoughtlessly and carelessly. One might even argue that he was walking through his day being a big jerk.  He doesn’t hold the door for someone running for the elevator.  He doesn’t reach up and grab a child’s lost balloon.  He lets someone’s escaping shopping cart blow on by.  He ignores the woman at the volunteer booth.  

He might not be a jerk.  PAUSE He might just be like many of us.  Busy with our own lives.  Distracted by our own troubles and thoughts.  He might just be completely oblivious.  Not intentionally mean…just not intentionally reaching out and caring.  Just…choosing not to notice and another phrase for not noticing is not seeing.  

Then, he is waiting to cross the street and an old blind woman takes his arm for help to cross the street.  In a near death experience, because she is     so       slow           crossing            the                  street               he is changed.  He is transformed.

The stories continues with a replay of the day and how his life is changed by choosing to reach out and help.  By choosing to open his eyes and see!  We don’t often see the “what happens next” in the stories of people transformed by Jesus’s touch in their lives. We get seeds: “then he followed Jesus”.  

The short ends with the man seeing another man just like himself standing at the street corner, oblivious (not seeing) the life around him.  He makes himself blind (grabbing a cane and glasses) to help this other man to see.  

Visit the Short here: CGI Animated Short Film: “Mr Indifferent” by Aryasb Feiz

Sometimes, we are the one who sees.  Sometimes, we are the one who is blind.  Which one is “better”?  Sometimes we choose to be blind.  Are we choosing to be blind for the right reasons?  

In the short film, we see how choosing to see and throwing off our old ways of life changes and transforms us.  We become better, more joyful, more caring, more thoughtful, more aware people.  PAUSE  We see how we can live life differently, if we have the courage to let go of our old and comfortable ways, so that we can be beacons of light for others.  We can help others to live and to see and what greater work is there to be done in this world?

Notice that the blind man has to choose to see in the passage.  PAUSE He is called and he “throws off his cloak”.  By throwing off his cloak, he is letting for of his old ways. He is shedding old skins and old patterns of blindness to be renewed.  He chooses to let go to see anew.  Jesus asks him, “what do you want?”  

He replies, “I want to see.”  

I want to see.  We have to want to see.  We have to want to pull our heads out of the clouds or the sands. We have to want to pull ourselves out of the distractions to choose to tend and care for life and one another.  To put is another way, we have to choose to see and…follow Jesus, the Path of Love. 

We are all touched by blindness.  Blindness has the power to transform and change us…if we choose to let it be so.  If we choose to take our own blinders off and open our eyes to see.  It is not a mistake that the person who is being healed is one of the persons we often choose to look away from…the type of person we choose to not see.  Then…and now.  These stories are timeless and they tell us about ourselves.  

We might, again, ask ourselves who is blind in this passage?

It’s not that we’re judging ourselves or others.  We’re opening our eyes to notice.  Who’s not seeing?  And why?  Who is seeing?  And what?  

Even Jesus is limited in his seeing. We cannot know God, but we can know Jesus, but in order for us to understand Jesus, he must be relatable to what we can see.  He must be human and fallible, like us.  By being human, he is limited in power…he is, in some ways, blind.  

But Jesus is able to truly see us and help us and understand us because he is human. While he is blind, he also sees.  He too was tempted, just like us. Jesus sees us, but by seeing us he is limited to humanity—to show us The Way.  Often, it’s the blindness that helps us to become compassionate and empathetic with and toward one another.  It is thought blindness that our eyes are opened.

Maybe that’s why God chooses imperfect people. He calls those who are no better than anyone else and, in many cases, God calls people who seem much worse.  It’s important that we are careful of putting others on pedestals and forget our common humanity.  What makes them mediators and teachers is that they too have blinders, just like us.  They too are human and fallible, just like us.  What makes them different is that they are dedicated to the practice of learning to see.  They are dedicated to a life of devotion and Love.

The best teachers and healers are those who have been blindsided, blinded, and noticed where we are compassionate and where we are not.  Where we are strong and where we are weak.  The best teachers too have been blind and can best help us to learn to see, because they have been there too.  

Together, we can give each other to courage to close our eyes to see differently and then open them to throw off our cloaks and become beacons of hope, faith, and love in this world.  When we open our eyes fully, we see Grace, and we see the Path before us to be Walked.