Homily February 14, 2016

 Luke 18: 35-43

by Sr. Rebecca

1.    Prior to our Gospel today, Jesus and his disciples have just left Jericho, which is near Jerusalem.  In the previous section the disciples seem to assume that they are Jesus’ chosen ones, and yet two of the disciples ask Jesus for the privilege of sitting at his right and left in his glorious Kingdom.  The disciples just don’t see, don’t get it. They are forever stuck in their small minds: they think that Jesus is talking about a kingdom that is “of this world.” They have not yet realized that the kingdom of God is first and foremost of an interior realm, which requires a conversion of heart and mind: an enlightenment.  In today’s Gospel, what follows, then, is the event of Jesus’ healing the blind beggar, sitting not in glory, but in abject humiliation and powerlessness. 

2.    We can identity five distinct moments in the encounter between Jesus and the blind man:

a.    In contrast to all those crowding and pushing around Jesus, the blind man is alone, apart, sunken in his misery.  No one knows better than he how needy, how powerless he is, left to his own means.  This alone shows us the first condition for being a disciple:  not to deceive ourselves, rather to acknowledge our interior state, i.e., not conscious or aware of ‘who’ I really am, and so often relying on our own steam, even in the realm of our spiritual lives.

b.   When the blind beggar heard that Jesus was passing by, he began to cry out:  “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”  How did this man know about Jesus? We have no clue except that perhaps he must have heard about Jesus and the goal of his mission, since he associated Jesus with being son of David, meaning that he trusts that Jesus is the Messiah.  And his profession of faith in Jesus’ messianic identity is not merely intellectual, a “knowing about,” since he cried out from the very depths of his being.  He sees with his inner eyes what others are blind to.  The huge crowd, pressing around Jesus, rebuke him, trying to shut him up.   But Jesus, having no interest in faceless crowds, only in needy individuals, suddenly takes notice, stops, and commands the blind man to be brought to him. 

c.     Mark’s Gospel adds an interesting piece:  Throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus.  This gesture, throwing off the mantle, is very telling.  The mantle has served him against the elements: weather as well as a pad to sleep on, cover himself, and maybe too, at times, providing a space to hide himself against the stares, the humiliating gaze of passersby.  Hearing Jesus calling him, he  somehow knows he no longer needs this wrap.  He springs up like a rocket coming before Jesus, just as he is, ragged, and dirty.  Perhaps there is something in the tone of Jesus’ voice that goes right to the core of who he really is, and so it no longer matters to him what he looks like on the outside. 

d.    Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” The man replies, “Lord, let me receive my sight.” Jesus wants the man to say what he wants.  Jesus is interested in our desires.  By getting in touch with our desires, we are, by that very awareness, in touch with our emptiness, our inability to fill our deepest needs. Jesus says to him, “Receive your sight,” and then he adds, “Your faith has made you well” or “made you whole”.  Relationship here is crucial in the healing.  Intimacy:  to becoming truly whole and alive, we need to be consciously connected with the Source of our being but also to the very human person of Jesus.  This event is one of many witnesses to what Jesus' ministry is about:  “The kingdom (or realm) of God is within you.”  For this awareness to take root, we need to experience our own powerlessness and be receptive to the consciousness of God within us.  Every healing in Jesus’ ministry is a revelation, a manifestation of God’s desire for us to be made whole from within ourselves.  

e.     The story ends with the man receiving his sight and following Jesus.  “Following Jesus” means becoming a disciple.  

3.     As we prepare to enter Pre-Lent next week, may we take time for silent reflection on this encounter of the blind man with Jesus, putting ourselves in a similar space of openness to God’s inner call.    Recalling the exhortation at the end of Br. Stavros’ homily last week:  Let us sit in solitude and silence and allow the experience our own difficulties, blindness, all the apparent dead ends of our lives, to be exposed patiently to God’s compassion.  May these become as stepping stones to loving surrender to God.  Let us remember, too, that this requires a practice of prayer with concentration and focused energy.  Since we have only a limited supply of attention, we will be too scattered if we squander our spiritual energy in needless directions.

Someone asked Helen Keller, “Isn’t it terrible to be blind?”  She replied, “it’s more terrible to have eyes and not see.”  In a poem she elaborated: “It’s a great pity / that in the world of light  / the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience / rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.”

May the former blind man and Helen Keller beckon us to look beyond appearances into the depths of the way things really are.  This means to open our inner eyes and perceive God before us, God beside us, God within us, God who calls us to a journey of wholeness and inner freedom to step out into the unknown with trust and follow God wherever and however God leads.