Healing of the Blind Man, Ethiopian artist
One evening in the spring of 2013, I did not want to be recognized. It was May 13, the first day that I chose not to drink alcohol. I decided later that afternoon that I wanted to go to an AA meeting, and I knew there was a Monday night meeting at the church where I was assigned as a deacon. I drove down to the church, found a parking place, and began to walk toward the building. Almost immediately I saw someone I knew, walking into the building. I texted a friend. “Do I really want to go to this meeting?” I asked my friend. “It’s been three seconds and I’ve already seen someone I know!”
I decided to go in, which proved to be a sound choice. I found a place near the back, on the left side. The room was thoroughly familiar: I had led formation events in that room; I had sung in a little choir for Sunday afternoon worship in that room; I had spent dozens of coffee hours in that room. But now I was there for another reason.
Someone came over to greet me. I tensed up. Who was this person? What were they going to say? Here it comes. “You look familiar,” said the person, a kind, older gentleman, looking serene and content. I said, “Well, I work here. Do you know me from church world?” “Oh yes,” he said. “You were our deacon at [another church], some years ago. You…” He hesitated, smiling. “You have looked better.” I smiled and said, “Well, that’s fair. I’ve had a little bit of a day.”
As days stretched into weeks, I accumulated coins that marked my sobriety: 30 days, then 60, then 90. Soon I had six months, then a year, then 18 months. I love sobriety. I love how much life there is on this path. And no matter how many years go by, I remember my first friend in sobriety, a kindly but also assertive older gentleman who recognized me, right from the start.
You see, he didn’t just know me from church world. He recognized other things. Somehow he sensed that I could bear some good-natured teasing. He would go on to tease me more deeply, always with affection. How grand I look in the finery of a Eucharistic minister! And yet how far down I have fallen as a drunk who needs a higher power to save his life! My new friend appreciated me exactly for who I am, the strong parts of myself, and the weak ones, too. My new friend saw me. He recognized me. He recognizes so many people, so easily, so affectionately. He just knows.
As I went to meetings in the months after that first evening, I would notice my friend across the room. He always came to the meeting dressed comfortably, but dressed well. He held himself together with affable grace. I thought, “That’s what I want. I want that. When I am older, I want to be able to relax in a room with other people, knowing who I am, feeling healthy, at my ease. I want to have the wisdom of an elder who has learned from his mistakes. I want to offer the friendship of a companion who can see instantly who he’s greeting, and tease them skillfully. I want that.
This is who our sibling in the faith, Bartimaeus, is. He is called a “blind beggar,” but he actually is a visionary. He is an exemplar. His contemporaries in the story mistake him for an annoying bum sitting on the curb, but he actually is an insightful follower of Jesus, right from the start. Mark the evangelist uses the same Greek word for “roadside,” where we first meet Bartimaeus, and then “Way,” as in, the Way of Jesus, the Way Bartimaeus chooses to walk at the end of this short encounter.
Now, Bartimaeus is not a flawless saint. He is “blind.” This can mean more than one thing for us. We could assume that he is literally blind, unable to see with his eyes. A casual reading of the story supports that. Or we could assume that the title “blind beggar” means he is blind to the ways or practices of others: maybe he has a neurological difference, and doesn’t grasp the finer points of the Law, but is ingenious in his understanding of other things; or maybe he is culturally different and therefore socially disadvantaged, so he doesn’t know how to read the signals and carry himself in so-called “proper” society; or maybe he has just been thrown aside so much that he never learned how to stand and walk, to live and thrive. He is a “blind beggar.” And yet Bartimaeus can truly see Jesus. He knows instantly who Jesus is. He wastes no time crying out for help from Jesus, because he just knows that Jesus will help him.
(And what does this say about Jesus, that a blind beggar recognizes him first?)
The longer we rest with this story, the more we realize that the truly blind ones in the story are the members of Jesus’s entourage, the ones who immediately assume that the embarrassing man shouting from the roadside needs to be silenced. They turn back toward him with kindness only after Jesus corrects their mistake. Then they change their tune. “Take heart!” they say, encouraging Bartimaeus. “Get up. He is calling you.” Now, they do have a positive role in the Jesus Movement, so we will not be harsh with them. Many of us, myself included, are like these insiders, often enough. Somebody seems like they don’t belong here, so I feel that old instinct to exclude them, to do or say something that moves them off the scene. It’s a lousy way to build community, and Jesus has no time for it, but I understand it. Do I really want to be a member of a club that would have someone like Bartimaeus for a member?
But then I realize, like the small-minded entourage around Jesus, that if there isn’t room for people like Bartimaeus in this movement, then there isn’t room for me. In this story, everyone but Jesus has strengths and weaknesses. We have our gifts, our unique contributions to make, but we also are blind: sometimes we don’t see or understand Jesus for who he is. Sometimes we don’t see or understand how Grace Church is welcoming for some but not for others. Sometimes we are crushing it, but other times we just don’t get it, and we blow it.
Twenty-four hours before I met my new friend at that meeting, I would never have dreamed that I would be in a church basement the next evening, admitting that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable. I was awakening slowly—oh, ever so slowly!—to the problem, but my blindness to it was profound. Even now, nearly eight and a half years later, I am still unsure I truly understand all of it. But my new friend was hardly different. He was happy and self-assured, but he too was there for his own sake, to confront his own blindness, to ask for help so that his own eyes could be opened. He was an alcoholic just like me.
And so we find, or better said, our eyes are opened, to this teaching: everyone here is blind to something, and everyone here can see something. If you’re Bartimaeus, you may or may not be recognized as an insider church person (a dubious honor anyhow), but you can see Jesus for who he truly is. And if you’re an insider church person, you know your way around this church, but (if you’re like me) you might sometimes miss the overall, the whole point of why we are here, and for whom we are here.
And so we keep coming back. We come back to this table, week by week, so that God can open our eyes. In our table practice, when we receive the bread, the bread minister says, “The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven.” Sadly, we don’t have a set script for a response. Maybe you say “Amen.” But I think I may take up a new practice for a while, and see if it helps me truly receive the gift God offers to us here in this place. When the bread minister places the bread in my hand, I think I may respond with a prayer, addressed to God in Jesus, who calls me to follow him on the Way: When the bread minister says, “The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven,” I think I may pray this:
“My teacher, let me see again.”
***
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52
Preached on the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 25B), October 24, 2021, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.