Sunday, October 25, 2015 | Reformation Sunday | 8:00 a.m.

Sight

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 34
Job 42:1–6, 10–17
Mark 10:46–52

“My darkness has been filled with the light of intelligence, and behold, the outer day-lit world was stumbling and groping in social blindness.”

Helen Keller

There were four bell choirs in the first church I served. Once each year the congregation was treated to a very special concert, featuring those bell choirs and held in the church gymnasium, preceded by a luncheon. One of the gifts of that event was that the four bell choirs were arranged around the edge of the gymnasium, one bell choir on each side; the luncheon tables were in the middle. For some pieces, just one bell choir was featured. For other selections, maybe there were two of the four bell choirs ringing. And sometimes all four choirs were playing at the same time. At those moments, it was a “surround sound” experience. And it was always marvelous.

At one of these concerts, a blind couple, Dale and Pat, members of the church, were in attendance. Everyone knew this couple, first of all because we were all aware of their coming into a room or going out of a room, their coming into worship, their leaving worship. We were aware of them because we all were a bit spellbound by their courage. We had all seen them making their way wherever they went, each one with a tall slim white cane in one hand and holding onto each other with the other hand. We watched them find their way, and we admired their courage. But they were known not only at a distance, but also because there was such grace about them. It never took them long to recognize who was greeting them. They were always able to return the greeting, readily knowing the first name of the person talking with them, even though neither of them could see any of our faces.

During this one particular bell concert, I noticed them seated at another table across the room from me. At the end of the concert, the last selection was always a grand finale with all four bell choirs, perhaps as many as sixty ringers. As the music came to an end, in the split second before the applause started, I saw Dale and Pat struggle to their feet as quickly as they could, canes tucked under their arms, leading the clapping. They were the first to stand up in ovation. Their faces, marked by their visibly damaged eyes, eyes that could never focus in any direction, were filled with inexpressible joy and appreciation. In that one moment, this couple, neither one of them sighted, made me realize the gift of being able to hear music. Their instant and joyous appreciation made me wonder how much more precious the sounds of that music were to them, given that they had no sight.

It was a moment of paradox for me—one of those moments in life that come every once in awhile, a moment that sticks. Dale and Pat, though they couldn’t see, helped me to see more clearly, to more fully appreciate my sight, yes, but also, in that moment, to more fully appreciate my ability to hear. And I found myself thinking that I wanted to hear like they must hear.

The story of blind Bartimaeus comes at the end of a long section in the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus is doing a fair amount of teaching, directed at his disciples. Over and over again there is a lesson he imparts, and over and over again his disciples don’t get it. They try to keep little children away from him; they bicker over who might be first and who might be last; they want to hold onto Elijah and Moses and Jesus on top of the mountain, because the awe of that experience was so incredible; they continually get hung up on the rules of the past and repeatedly focus on the wrong details. They have been spiritually blind, over and over again.

And then, after all of those stories, there’s this story of a blind beggar. He gets who Jesus is, even though he can’t see as the crowds pass. He calls out to Jesus, using the name Son of David, the traditional label for the hoped-for Messiah. He doesn’t hesitate to spring up and run to Jesus when Jesus calls him. In fact, he throws off his cloak, his outer garment, when he does so. He’s blind. Jesus heals him of his blindness, but even in his blindness, he’s spiritually sighted in ways that the other disciples aren’t. It’s another one of those surprises that keep coming up throughout our scriptures. A blind beggar considered absolutely worthless, easily discarded and dismissed by society, is the one who helps us see more clearly what Jesus wants us to see.

This story has made me think about own our own blindness these days. Or at least fuzzy-sightedness. Bartimaeus had been cast off by the rest of society. His world was dark and no doubt lonely. Yet something inside of himself allowed him to trust goodness, to trust in the goodness of this man walking by. Dale and Pat lived in a dark world too, and they somehow were able to fully appreciate the beauty of the music they heard. I think we’ve become fuzzy-sighted in our ability to trust goodness and to see and appreciate beauty. There is so much bad news that comes our way in this digital age. You know what the bad news is. I don’t have to start listing it all. Moments of simple, authentic goodness and experiences of beauty are hard to hold onto for any length of time. Our ability to trust goodness or to relish moments of beauty is so threatened by a constant flow of bad news and cynicism. We start to lose our sight.

John O’Donohue, in a book called Divine Beauty, makes a case for the importance and sacredness of beauty. He says, “To see beauty dignifies your life; it heals you and calls you out beyond the smallness of your own self-limitation to experience new horizons. To experience beauty is to have your life enlarged” (John O’Donohue, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, p. 30).

It would have made more sense if Bartimaeus had been crusty and cynical, but something inside of him is able to trust goodness and to ask for goodness from God, despite how society’s norms had affected his life. He is blind, and yet he senses that there is in Jesus Christ a power that is not of this world but is operable in this world. The world hasn’t been able to crush Bartimaeus’s hope, nor has it been able to diminish his trust in goodness and beauty. He shouts out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me.” And Jesus asks him what he wants. And he answers, “Let me see again.”

There’s an ancient Iranian poem that says, “A blind person who sees is better than a seeing person who is blind.”

And yet we can’t look for beauty as a way to blind ourselves to the pain of the world. Or as a way to escape. Nor can we trust in goodness naively and not stay alert to the power of evil. We have a responsibility, as disciples, not only to keep our eyes open to beauty, to continue to relish it, and to keep our hearts open to goodness, trusting it, but also simultaneously to stay alert to the suffering of the world. We have a responsibility to see the pain of the world and to keep crying out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us.” We have a responsibility to act in whatever small or big ways we can. Moments of beauty witnessed and experiences of simple goodness trusted give us endurance and strength to see clearly the pain and evil that still exists.

Mary Oliver, in a poem titled “Long Life,” links the beauty of the world with moral questions: “What does it mean that the world is so beautiful? What is the gift that I should bring to the world? What is the life I should live?”

So perhaps it is true that we are also at risk of fuzzy-sightedness when it comes to looking at the pain of the world, because there’s so much of it. We can’t take it all in. We become desensitized as a way of protection. Seeing so much of it is discouraging. Sometimes all we can do is cry out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on us.” But we have a responsibility to keep our eyes open to it.

Beauty. Pain. We can’t afford to be blind to either.

When I caught a glimpse of the blood moon a few weeks ago and saw the pictures the next day, I marveled at how beautiful the moon looked. I wondered if people saw it in Syria? Or if they gathered in refugee camps to watch? I wondered if ISIS members watched in remote enclaves? The next morning I kept thinking that if we had all taken this beautiful journey together—this journey with our beautiful earth as we all traveled between the sun and the moon—shouldn’t we be able to see one another differently?

I want to stay clear-sighted—to the beauty of the world, to simple goodness, and also to the pain of the world. And it’s not easy to stay clear-sighted.

Bartimaeus has reminded me of something else: that we are all blind beggars in some way or another. Lost in a crowd, sitting by the roadside, wondering about our value, overloaded with worries and concerns, beaten down by disappointments, filled with all sorts of questions about our futures, about pain and evil in the world and in our lives. We want to see the way clearly to God and know that God loves us. We want to know that God still cares for this world. We want to believe that somehow, amidst all the pain, God truly is sovereign. Bartimaeus shows me that it’s OK to cry out to Jesus. And, he reminds me that when I do, Jesus hears and calls me to him.

Blind beggars all of us, in some way or another. That’s a good thing to remember, because being a disciple requires humility, requires a continual acknowledgment that we are dependent. I want to be that kind of blind beggar, so that when people look at me they might see someone who relishes beauty and trusts goodness still, despite all of the pain I see or the pain I’ve experienced. I want to be like Bartimaeus, so that when people look at me they see a person who is still alert to the injustice and pain in the world, too. And I want to be that kind of beggar who, when Jesus calls me to come and tell him what I need, will be able to throw off my cloak of pride and independence, will spring up again and go to him and say, “Please, Lord, allow me to see again.” And then maybe like Bartimaeus I’ll be able to follow again, eyes wide open in astonishment to the beauty and goodness of this world, and also eyes wide open and heart broken open to the pain of this world too. May it be so for me and for you. Amen.