She cringed when she realized
that this Sunday’s Gospel
was the story of Blind Bartimaeus.
Good Old Blind Bart,
the beggar by the side of the road…
She steeled herself to enter the sanctuary,
walk down the aisle,
and sit in her regular pew—
seven rows back on the pulpit side.
She knew from past experience,
that she would soon be
an object of covert interest;
the center of surreptitious attention;
the target of quiet prayers.
Ever since she lost her sight many years ago,
she had come to dread those Sundays that featured
the blind regaining their sight,
the lame leaping for joy,
and lepers becoming “clean” and whole.
As a child,
she secretly memorized
all
of the healing stories in the Bible—
soaking them up like sand
after a sudden storm.
There were times when it seemed
as if every person in Galilee
was possessed of a limp
or a demon
or a rash.
When she was old enough,
she stood around the altar with the other children,
listening to the children’s sermon on
Blind Bartimaeus Begging By the Road OR
The Blind Man Cured With the Lord’s Spittle
(that was always a fun week)
And every time she listened,
she was longing to hear a story
that called out her name.
In her experience,
the ancient world of the Bible viewed physical disabilities as :
(a) a cause for shame/fear/embarrassment/pity
(b) a punishment for sin
(c) evidence of the parents’ sin
(d) a test
(e) God’s plan
(f) all of the above!
In her experience,
the modern world of Cincinnati viewed physical disabilities as:
(a) a cause for shame/fear/embarrassment/pity
(b) a punishment for bad lifestyle choices
(c) evidence of the parents’ poor pre-natal care
(d) a test
(e) God’s plan
(f) all of the above!
And in her experience,
Church
sometimes left her feeling more wounded
than whole.
Children, I' m sure you can appreciate
what a blessing it is to be able to see.
Can you imagine what it must be like to be blind
and never see the beauty of God’s creation?
Jesus knew how painful it was to be blind,
and he longed to heal Bartimaeus,
just as longs to heal all of you.
God can’t heal you if you don’t believe.
Just believe in the Good News,
and God’s blessings will pour down upon you!
As sad as blindness might be in our era,
it was so much worse in Jesus' day!
In first century Palestine
blindness was seen as a punishment for sin.
It meant that you would be subjected to continual poverty,
reduced to begging for a living.
You were dependent on the mercy of others.
And all of these messages usually led up to the same big finish:
But (__________’s) faith made (Him/Her) whole.
Hallelujah!
That was the moment
she could feel the eyes of the community upon her
viewing her
not as a skilled professional with two graduate degrees—
not as the life of the party,
loving mom,
legal shark
and ace brownie baker,
but as the blind beggar by the side of the road,
desperate to be made “whole.”
As she got older,
she began to think that maybe,
just maybe,
she was whole
exactly the way she was.
She began to wonder if the story of Bartimaeus
was really a “healing” story after all.
She began to appreciate
that the truth of Christianity
lies in the resurrection of Jesus Christ—
a God whose hands and feet and side
bear the marks of profound physical impairment.**
She began to understand
that encountering the resurrected Jesus
means encountering a God who was rejected,
broken,
tortured,
physically abused,
embodied as we are,
and yet living still!
We are embraced by a God
whose arms are stretched out upon a cross. **
She began to realize that the boundaries between
dis-able and able;
between blindness and sight
between broken and whole
are shifting,
ambiguous,
transitory,
and in God’s view,
unimportant.
She began to believe that the story’s point
was not the curing of eyes,
but the calling of a disciple.
Jesus stopped and said,
"Call him."
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
"Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you."
Maybe the point of the Bartimaeus story
is not his need,
his begging
or his healing,
but his calling—
A call as powerful
as the call of Simon and Andrew.
A call as surprising
as the call of Matthew or Mary Magdalene.
A call as dramatic
as the call of Paul.
She began to understand that
call and response
lie at the heart of each and every Gospel story,
no matter who is begging by the side of the road.
She embraced the truth
that vocation
is not defined by role or function.
It is not defined by beauty,
ability,
charm,
money,
physical strength,
or the possession of two working eyes.
Vocation is defined by something greater—
something riskier—
something far more profound—
The courage to throw off what binds you
and say “yes” to the call.
© Dr. Susan Fleming McGurgan
**Dr Nancy L Eiesland is the author of The Disabled God: Toward a Liberation Theology of Disability (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).
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