30th Sunday Year B

See Commentary Mark 10:46-52


Homily 1 - 2006

The blind man – Everything conspired to tell him he was useless: he couldn’t work (and there was no Centrelink, no Social Services); he couldn’t support himself and he couldn’t support a family – if he had one (in fact, he would have been one more mouth for them to feed).  He missed most of what was going on. He was a nuisance – begging, perhaps an insistent beggar. Had he ever got to Jerusalem, he would have been barred from the temple.

Why was he blind? Had he sinned? probably most of those who knew him thought he had. Did he have friends? He lived on the margins, hardly even a half life. When he called out to Jesus, people quickly told him to shut up: He didn’t matter! Totally discounted! But he didn’t shut up. He shouted more loudly.

Why was he healed, and a lot of other blind persons apparently not? At least we hear little about many others.  Whatever others thought of him, he had still, apparently, preserved a sense of his own dignity. He had not written himself off as useless.  He hoped for change. He hoped for justice. He hoped for dignity.

And somehow he trusted that Jesus shared that sense of his dignity, too – that Jesus, too, wanted change and justice and dignity.  He trusted that Jesus did not discount him, did not share people’s sense of his uselessness, and would not put him on the margins.  He was right. With such trust as his, he had only to meet someone like Jesus, empowered by God, and his life would be different.  Jesus called him. He answered swiftly, trusting totally in him.  He threw off his cloak – all he possessed, and, with only his need, his hope and his trust, he stood up and let himself be led to Jesus.

Unlike the rich man of a few weeks ago, the one who walked away sad, the blind man did not ask: What must I do to inherit eternal life? He was not full of himself. Indeed, he had emptied himself, and pleaded only, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.  Jesus simply asked him: What do you want me to do for you? He got him to articulate his desire; and then went on to say: Your faith has saved you, your faith has provided the basis for your sight. He could see, and he followed Jesus on the way – the way of discipleship,. He had already lived his own Calvary - so for him the way led to new and unimaginable life.

The way to life is pretty much the same for us: a sense of our own dignity, a clear awareness of our own need, a strong hope that change is possible and an irrepressible refusal to be put off by the world’s discouragement, an unshakeable trust that Jesus shares a sense of our true dignity, and that Jesus, too, wants change. a clear, quiet trust that Jesus wants to make the difference.

Lord, that I might see! That I might throw away my cloak, my masks, my fears, that I might follow you along the way!


Homily 2 - 2012

I read a book a couple of months ago written by an Irish woman, Marie Keenan.  She was reflecting on what had been revealed in the Government Inquiries into clerical sexual abuse in the Irish Church.  Her main concern was to get behind the behaviour of the offenders - and to seek to understand why they behaved the way they did.

Of the perpetrators who consented to be interviewed by her, all of them had started off their formation wanting to be good priests or good religious.  What went wrong? She spent time examining the clerical sub-culture within the context of the culture of the Church as a whole.

In many of the submissions made recently to the current Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry, people have strongly condemned "the Church".  In most cases they are referring to the bishops, sometimes to the offending priests and religious.  Perhaps, we are all inclined to speak loosely of Church like that.

Whatever about the past, as we live the present and look forward to the future, we are all responsible, in our different ways, for the shape that the Church will take into the future.  By far the greatest group in the Church is the laity.  We all need to change.  Easier said than done! Conversion is a never-ending process, an ever-deepening process.

I don't know if you have noticed the Sunday Gospels over the past few weeks. Jesus wants us to follow him on his journey to freedom and to fulness of life, but he could talk about it only by way of paradox – greatness by becoming servant, even slave, first by becoming last.  Earlier in the Gospel he had spoken about finding ourselves by losing ourselves.  Two weeks ago it was acquiring what we lack by giving away what we have.  Before that, coming fully alive with eternal life by cutting off our right hand, pulling out an eye, cutting off a foot should they get in the way.

The way that Mark tells his story, the disciples didn't get it.  They heard the words, but they didn't get it.  Most of us don't get it.  But Mark included today's Gospel incident, I think, to give us hope.  By the end of today's story, the blind man followed Jesus along the way – the way of discipleship, that would in fact lead to Calvary, and then to resurrection.  The blind man was not one of a kind.  With due respects, we are all blind.

Conversion [or repentance as it is usually translated] is not primarily changing our behaviour.  It is first learning to see.  But to learn to see, we need to want to see.  And to want to see, we need to accept that we don't see.  I think that to want something strongly enough to seek to get it, we also need to have hope.  Bartimaeus knew he couldn't see; he wanted to see; he put his hope in Jesus - and it all came together.

In the Church, we sometimes tend to think that we know all the answers.  We're right.  It's all there.  Until we realise that we don't see, that there is so much that we don't see, we learn nothing.  We don't grow;  we don't mature.

As Jesus insisted over the past few weeks, what we need to learn to see is that being last, sitting lightly with [even giving away] all we rely on, not lording it  over others, are good for us.  Painful – but necessary.

Bartimaeus had it right.  Jesus, have pity on me.  Rabbuni, let me see again.  Robbie Burns, the Scottish poet, got close to it when he wrote: "Oh that God the gift would gi' us to see ourselves as others see us."  Better still: "to see ourselves as Jesus sees us".  As Mark said of the rich man: Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him.  Try it and see what happens.

The current Inquiry won't go very far.  It may help a bit.  But there is so much that we need still to do ourselves – and it will be on-going.  Lord, let us see – again, and again, and again.


 Homily 3 - 2015

Pope Francis has made some wonderfully memorable one-liners over the couple of years that he has been our Pope. One I like is his description of the Church as a “field hospital” with its company of walking wounded - rather than the home barracks with soldiers marching around neatly in step and the sergeant major keeping a strict rein on everyone. Another of his colourful images is his firm preference that people with responsibility in the community have “the smell of the sheep”. Those sayings of Francis fit well with last week’s comment of Jesus about himself, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for the many”.

Today’s story from Mark’s Gospel presented Bartimaeus as the symbol of the enlightened disciple who, once enabled to see, “followed Jesus along the way”. You might be familiar with a similar story two chapters back where Jesus cured another blind man but needed to do so in two stages, because the first stage turned out to be incomplete. Between that story and today’s one, Mark listed a series of incidents and teachings where Jesus, having completed his message about the Kingdom, proceeded to open the eyes of his disciples to their life together within the community. His main concern was to lead them to see that, like him, disciples of every age are called not to sit around and expect to be served. Rather they are called to serve each other; and to give, if not their lives, at least their time and talent in the service of the community. Then, supported by a vibrant community, they can effectively build the Kingdom by serving the world in which they live.

Over recent years the number of priests in the diocese has been lessening, as has the number of actively involved parishioners. Where might God be in all this? I often wonder whether this might not be God’s way of coaxing us all to a richer experience of Church. With the priest’s workload being constantly stretched, we more clearly recognise that things need not be as they were in the recent past. In fact, many of those things previously done by priests are being better done, even if differently, by you parishioners. This increased involvement so often has led to a deeper, more informed and more satisfying faith experience for you.

I think it is great that over recent months parishioners have had the opportunity to get together and, through the Rebuild program, to look at the parish with renewed gaze, searching how you might better respond to present and future opportunities to deepen and enliven your Christian life and your mission to the world. The current Parish Stewardship Program comes at a providential moment as you each review your store of time, talent and treasure in your service of each other.  It fits well with the overall parish undertaking.

 We might well ask the enlightened and liberated Bartimaeus to take our hand as together we “follow Jesus along the road.”


 Homily 4 - 2018

Seven Sundays ago we had the story of Jesus healing another blind man, though surprisingly he did it in two stages – first a partial cure, then the full cure.

At a time when the Royal Commission has invited the Catholic Church to look seriously at the destructive effects of clericalism and our endemic blindness to many of its expressions, we could well go back seriously over what Mark has given us these past seven weeks.

On three different occasions Jesus has mentioned his coming passion and death, and warned the disciples that a life dedicated to preaching and living a message of unconditional love would bring its share of suffering for them, too. We had Peter, the natural leader, disapproving of Jesus talking about his coming death – only to be answered sharply by Jesus telling him, “Get behind me, Satan! because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.”

That was soon followed by the story of the exorcism of a deaf and dumb spirit from a young boy, the interesting thing there being the inability of the disciples to cast out the spirit, despite their trying, and despite their previous successes when they had been earlier sent out on mission around Galilee. When they queried Jesus afterwards about their failure, Jesus commented that this kind of demon could be driven out “only by prayer”. What did that say about the prayer-life of the disciples?

The rest of the material in between has had to do with personal interactions within the Christian community and the particular traps facing disciples as we relate to each other. We had the story about the disciples arguing among themselves as to who was the greatest. That gave Jesus the opportunity to insist that all who want to be first must make themselves last of all and servant of everyone else; and he used a little child to illustrate his point.

John then proudly related how he and others had come across someone using Jesus’ name to cast out devils and they had stopped him, since he was not one of them. Jesus proceeded to puncture their self-importance and exclusiveness by stating simply that “anyone who is not against us is for us”.

Not long afterwards, John would be at it again – he obviously was still not seeing too clearly. Along with his brother James, he asked Jesus to promise that they would be big time in the coming kingdom, sitting one at his left and one at his right. The other disciples were not much better, just slower off the mark. This led Jesus to insist for a second time, and even more clearly, that “anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all.”

In between those two incidents in which the disciple John had figured, Jesus took the opportunity to speak about disciples who in the prevailing culture were regarded as having no rights and being of little consequence.

Firstly, he mentioned “the little ones who have faith”, those disciples who have got the message of humility though perhaps still tentatively. In quite strong language [cutting off your hand, tearing out your eye] he warned of the danger of “bringing down” such “little ones” – perhaps particularly by drawing them, like themselves, into the fruitless business of “who is the greatest?”.

He then warned the males of the community, in a radical challenge to the prevailing culture where women had no rights, to face up to the fact of the equal dignity of women, and have no part, for example, in the common practice whereby men could and did divorce their wives, virtually at will.

Even children, in Jesus’ mind, had a dignity that needed to be recognised and respected – and learnt from.

We could do well to make our own the heartfelt plea of today’s blind man of Jericho, “Master, let me see again!”; and resolutely “follow Jesus along the way” of enlightened discipleship.


Homily 5 - 2021

It’s a great little Gospel incident we have today. There is Jesus and the disciples; there is the blind man, Bartimaeus; and there is the large crowd. We all know the story but let us look at it today freshly.

Bartimaeus, sitting forlornly by the side of the road, started shouting — and he got louder and louder. The crowd abused him, and told him to be quiet. Crowds can do that, can’t they. Often enough in the Gospels, we have heard of the apostles doing the same thing.

It makes me think of the situation constantly facing us here in Australia, as asylum seekers arrive unannounced on our shores — terrified, traumatised people, most of them, courageously fleeing for their lives, often from countries where we have made it impossible for them to live safely. We abuse them, label them as “queue-jumpers”, “illegals”. They are a nuisance. They will make demands on us. They risk interrupting our accustomed ways of life. We ignore them after a while. No way do we want to engage with them. It is not just the politicians — because we are the ones who keep on voting them into power.

Back to the story. “Jesus stopped”. He engaged with the blind man. The man wasn’t a nuisance to Jesus. He was a person in need. Jesus did not just do the generous thing; he did not see him simply as one more person in need. He related to him. He spoke to him as an individual: “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man replied, not as a nameless statistic, but as the unique individual he was, "Master, let me see again". Jesus went on to congratulate him for how he had cooperated: “Your faith has saved you”.

Jesus wanted Bartimaeus to become aware of the change happening in himself. From a nobody, when summoned by Jesus, he had thrown off his cloak; he had jumped up; he had stood tall; able to own his powerlessness; and felt confident enough in himself to trust Jesus.

It didn’t stop there. As his sight returned, “he followed Jesus along the road" — the road, in fact, to Jerusalem and to destiny.

Whom do you identify with most — with the crowd? with Bartimaeus? with Jesus? Or is there even a bit of all three, perhaps, there, somewhere in you?