Blind Man Stood By the Road and he Cried 10/28/18 Pentecost 23B

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Blind Man Stood By the Road and He Cried…. 

Oct 28, 2018         Pentecost 23-B       Mark 10:46-52

I like that commercial for an air freshener product that uses the words “nose blind” - like, this kid doesn’t smell his room anymore - but its full of old gym socks that almost make his mom pass out - he’s gone nose blind to the odor….There’s another version of a guy with a car he’s always carting his wet dog around in - his guests are overwhelmed by the odor.  But he was ‘nose-blind’ to it.  Its a clever use of the concept of ‘blindness’ to say that we get used to the smells around us.   And we do - we get used to behavior around us, too, or words used around us, or accepted attitudes around us.  In metaphorical usage, we are blind to them.

We use the concept of literal blindness to mean more than just literal blindness - we use it as a metaphor for things we can’t understand or comprehend - we can’t “see” them.  We don’t see the signs of our child’s addiction, for example - or we don’t see the connection of what we notice with drug use.  We don’t “see” the humor in certain jokes that we don’t have the context to “get.”  I hate explaining jokes to people - takes the fun out of them.  We don’t see that there are other layers going on behind the words people are using to explain their behavior - we’re taking it at face value, and not picking up the nuances.  We’re “blind” to it, in other words.  Other people can “see” it, or “get” it, or “hear” what’s going on, but others can’t.  We become used to cat calls at women, or sexual innuendos about women.  We become used to racial slights about “those people.”  We don’t hear them anymore as what they are; ear-blind perhaps? We take it for granted that a rich person in the church (not this one) verbally attacks people, and see it as just his normal behavior.  We become so accustomed to the privileges of being white in this country that we can’t see what white privilege even means. 

Until our eyes are opened or our ears unstopped by compassion for the other.

This man by the side of the road calling out to Jesus - he is physically blind, and the story is one of his healing.  It can work on us on many levels, like the word “blind.”  Let’s look at the literal story line for a moment.  When this blind man hears that Jesus the miracle-worker is coming by, he calls out and calls out, and Jesus stops. Its interesting that he calls for Jesus to have mercy on him. Then Jesus asks him an interesting question - “What do you want me to do for you?”  I wondered about this question - it seemed pretty obvious to me what the man wanted - to be healed of his blindness, duh!  Why did Jesus make him say it out loud before healing him?

After my year of chaplain training, it came to me that, “Jesus must have had CPE!” We’re taught, as a part of learning to really listening to the other person, not to let our own assumptions get in the way.  Like my take on what they want and need is good enough without hearing their take - I mean it IS their need and want, right?  I usually ask now if a person would LIKE me to pray  with them, and not just jump in with my religious language.  Some people do say, “No.”  Or “you can pray for me but not here and now.”  I’ve heard both of these, plus other responses.  The next question, if they say “Yes,” is to ask “What would you like me to pray for?”  I mean, its probably that they get better or that their family does okay, but again, its part of listening to not assume.  Once in a while the person says, “whatever God tells you to say” (that was a preacher); often, though, it opens up a path for what’s really worrying them. 

One time a woman said to me, “who’s going to do the barn chores with my broken leg? What’s going to happen to my animals? When I come out of this procedure, I’m going to have so much to do I’m just so panicked about it all already.” I wouldn’t have guessed that.  Another person, knowing she was the caretaker for her mother as well as some of her own grandchildren, knew that if she had ongoing heart problems, it was gonna really upset the delicate balance that they were keeping in their family, keeping mom at home, watching grandbabies. Things might have to really shuffle around. I wouldn’t have guessed that, either.  For both of these people, these concerns were weighing on them, even in their own health crisis.

A man told me, “my wife is having a really hard time with this - pray for her.” An elderly woman said, “Pray then I’ll go home soon.” I got a strong hunch that she might not be talking about the nursing home that sent her over.  So I asked her, “the way you said that, I’m wondering if you mean the nursing home…” She said, “I don’t mean the nursing home. I mean heaven.”  So I prayed for her being ready for her eternal home.  

One time I spoke with a person from a different denomination than I was, and she said I could pray for her as long as I didn’t say things like, “no matter what happens,” or to help her “deal with the outcome.”   She asked me to pray positively for her healing, and let no negativity or doubt in my words.  “Can’t let any of that in,” she said, “you have to keep focused on Jesus’ healing.”  That’s not really my belief system, so I was glad I asked what she wanted me to pray for.

So Jesus asks this man, and taking the story to be about any of us, asks us - “What do you want me to do for you?”   I mean, this man may have assumed he was blind for life, and was concerned for a daughter or son that he couldn’t provide for.  He may have wanted a place to live, or for his family to be more compassionate.  So Jesus doesn’t assume.  Jesus also knows that its good for us to be clear on what we want - its good for us to sort through our feelings and ‘see’ what it is we are wanting from God.  And own it.  This man asks, “Teacher, that I may see again.”  And Jesus makes it so. 

I have trouble linking faith with literal healing, like some denominations do.  I mean, sometimes there are physical  healings that amaze the medical professionals - mostly, though, we have to come to grips with our bodies and their health - or lack of.  Many people pray for their loved one to recover from desperate injuries or disease, and their loved one dies.  Sometimes someone beats the odds, but usually they don’t. And we all will die at some point despite prayers for life.  So mostly I DO pray as that one woman asked me not to - I pray that the person will rest in God’s care, feel God’s presence, be comforted and strengthened by God’s Spirit.  Sometimes, my supervisor says, the ultimate healing can only be done in heaven.  And there is certainly a difference between healing and cure - healing can be on many levels - relationships healed, peace made with the condition, fighting and denial finally ending so goodbyes can be said.  

Its good for us to figure out just where our blindness is…., so we need to consider carefully what we are asking God to do for us. It may be that our blindness is that we can’t accept what is inevitable, and we are, if not in denial, then in active avoidance.  Just what IS our situation?   This can be personal, familial, church related, employment related.  It may be that our eyes need to see and accept the reality of a current situation, or we seek to understand how this person so different from us experiences the world.

For a crass example, I’m struggling with turning 65 at my next birthday - all the Medicare information being thrown at my by mail and online, its like salt in the wound.  I know I have to face the reality that I am no longer 35, no longer with the same physical resilience, no longer the same degree of attractiveness or hire-ability.  Yes, there are other factors like accumulated wisdom and experience, but despite how my mind imagines myself to still be 35, no amount of praying will make it so.  Its reality, whether I see it or not.

Another crass example might be my struggle with weight loss - I can pray and pray for it, because I know I would be better off health-wise at a lower weight.  But have I “seen” the truth that this is a journey of breaking bad habits of a lifetime and truly making new choices?  Really, this is in my hands, for better or for worse, and part of my blindness is in hoping Jesus can somehow magically make it so.  Like any addict, I struggle to accept the real and difficult responsibility I have for the needed changes - which includes emotional healing as well as just better choices.  Sometimes our prayers for a better relationship with a daughter or son or spouse, might ask for us to change some of our own ways, not just the other person! Sometimes its not just doing the same thing harder and harder that’s going to work - sometimes we need a new approach.  We can be blind to a lot of things.  We can be too familiar with how we’ve always done it, and be blind to  other options.  We can be blinded by our anger and not be able to ‘see’ that our anger is keeping us from what the other side is really concerned with.  We may need Jesus to open our eyes to bad theology, like the theology that told us women are cursed because of Eve sinning, or that black people came from Noah’s son Ham and were cursed.  I was taught both of those things - and they were wrong. 

 Our denomination struggles to face the reality that somehow we have failed in passing along our faith in God in a way that will keep our churches at the same level of importance in people’s lives that it has been.  It may be that many people were just going through the motions, and we are just being pruned.  It may also be that we held on to too many extraneous expressions of “church” and failed to teach the meat of what faith is.  It may be that we quit reaching out to the rest of the world, and what we need is grief and confession, a change of heart and a new pair of “glasses” to see correctly what God is asking.

I ran into the word “presbyopia” a few years back, and after resenting that it sounded like our denominational name, I had to look it up.  I know we take our name from our system of having Elders, or Presbyters. Yes, we are named after our governance.  In terms of eyes, presbyopia refers to the way elderly eyes lose their ability to quickly refocus, especially on objects close up.  It reminds me of how, as brains age, that memories of older events may be clearer than our memories of recent events.  And I wonder if that says something about our denomination’s difficulty in seeing our current situation clearly. 

I think of our hymn Amazing Grace, that includes the line, “Was blind but now I see,” in terms of spiritual blindness, and the opening of the eyes of the heart and soul to the truths of God, sometimes called an awakening, or being saved, or scales falling from the eyes as Paul had happen after he was blinded by a vision of Jesus.  “Open my eyes that I may see,” we sing in another old hymn.  We’re talking about learning to ‘see’ the vision that Jesus wants to teach us, learning to ‘see’ the realm of God, the kindom of heaven, that is all around us, as real as these chairs and pews.  Jesus tells us to lift up our eyes and see that the fields are white and ready for harvest, not just cotton ripening…  Jesus is talking about the need of hurting people who are just ready to respond to God if we would take them the word.   

Have mercy on me, Bartimaeus cried to Jesus, and make me see again.  Maybe our cry needs to be similar - have mercy on us, O Christ, and open our eyes to your work.  Have mercy on us, O God, and give us courage to live your way. Have mercy on our weakness, Have mercy on our blindness, have mercy on our lack of courage, have mercy on our lack of faith - cure us, heal us, show us the way.  Maybe Bartimaeus, blind as he was, had the right idea to stand and the side of the road and cry out to Jesus. Maybe when we do see, we need the courage to face what we see, and the wisdom to know how to then live…   AMEN