Seeing and Believing

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Pentecost 23, Year B, Track 1,10/27/24

Lessons: Job 42:1-6, 10-17, Hebrews 7:23-28, Mark 10:46-52

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

While reading Mark, I sometimes wonder if sight is overrated. Generally we regard sight as the most valuable of the senses. Some 2,400 years ago, the philosopher Aristotle ranked the five senses in hierarchical order, and praised sight as the most noble of them all. No doubt he was influenced by his teacher, Plato, who wrote that sight was the foundation of all knowledge in a work called Timaeus, which some biblical scholars associate with our Bartimaeus, the blind beggar in today’s Gospel lesson, whose name literally means ‘Son of Timaeus.’ This is possibly an ironic head nod to the wisdom of an unsighted man overturning the wisdom of a man praising sight.

Whatever the case may be, sight is often afforded a nearly divine status. We say that “seeing is believing,” right? But what about when our sight fails us? Not physically, as in becoming blind, but when sight actually obscures the truth from us. Artificial Intelligence is a prime example of this. We can see all manner of things on the internet, particularly in the lead up to this election, which seem to depict reality, but are actually engineered to do the opposite; to manipulate our vision to confirm the version of reality we or others want to believe.

And the truth is, we’ve already been rather good at using sight to confirm our biases for thousands of years. Take for example the crowd in today’s Gospel reading. As Jesus arrives into town, they see this man, Bartimaeus, physically. They know that he is there, and yet they fail to actually see him. To see his worthiness of Jesus’s attention. Their value system has told them that people who are blind and poor are not worth being seen, especially by people like Jesus, who they believe to be a king, and so they shush Bartimaeus as he cries out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” For what kind of king has time for a blind beggar?

Then we have Bartimaeus himself, who is the archetypal inversion of the crowd. He is a blind man who does not see Jesus, physically, and yet believes he is worth being seen by him. And we know, that Bartimaeus, like the crowd, also believes Jesus to be a king because of the way that he addresses Jesus. He calls him Jesus, “son of David;” David being the heroic king of Hebrew Scripture who saved Israel from the Philistines and established a famous monarchy. Now what kind of king do we think Bartimaeus might have believed Jesus to be? We can’t know for sure, but we do know that before his death and resurrection, Jesus was often, even by his own disciples, regarded as a king who would raise up armies and triumph with force over their Roman political enemies. A king who would be very much like Caesar himself, only stronger and Jewish.

If Bartimaeus believed Jesus to be a king like that, it’s doubtful that he would have cried out to him as he did, for why would a king like Caesar have time for a beggar like Bartimaeus? But for whatever reason, perhaps having heard of Jesus’s miraculous healings in other villages, Bartimaeus believes that here is a king who has both the power and interest in healing him. And thank God – literally thank God, Jesus the Son of God, that he was right. And because of his faith, he is healed.

So to recap, we have a crowd who can see but does not believe in this blind beggar’s worth. We have a man who cannot see but believes this king Jesus can heal him, and we have Jesus, who both sees the blind man and believes him worthy of healing.

Let’s pause for a minute and ask ourselves – in which of these camps are we?

I’ll be honest, I am usually among the physically sighted yet spiritually blind crowd. The one whom Helen Keller may have been referring to when she purportedly wrote that “the only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision.” And in defense of the crowd, I think there is a way of reading this where they are too preoccupied with excitement about seeing a new political savior who can possibly deliver them from the intractable mess than they in, than are believing that this savior could be different than the types of candidates they are used to. Their sight obscures their vision. And as they strive to see what kind of king Jesus is, what Jesus essentially does is turn the mirror on their sight and to show them what they really needed to see: a blind beggar reaching out in faith. The one who was regarded as least is the one who reveals the truth for us all. The truth of who Jesus is and the truth of what our faith is about.

Yes, the miracle Jesus performed for Bartimaeus is certainly remarkable, but what I think is far more remarkable is the miracle he did for the crowd. This story is as much about Jesus restoring sight to a believing blind man as it is about Jesus restoring belief those with sight but no vision. And through Bartimaeus, we too are invited to share in that vision of faith. A vision in which the lowly are exalted, in which leadership looks like servanthood, and in which we can see with greater clarity than we ever imagined, the love which God has for us. 

So whatever happens next week at the polls, I want you to remember that we still have our king who sees us, who loves us, and who longs for us to keep our eyes fixed, with steadfast faith, on the glory of his loving reign. Amen.