“This Gospel passage today in Mark, the setting is one of the oldest cities on Earth, a town called Jericho about seventeen miles or so from Jarusalem. Now a first century Jew hearing this story would know everything about Jericho. Jericho had a lot of significance. Jericho in the Old Testament was the city that blocked the entry of Joshua and the chosen people. In a sense it kinda was a metaphor for resistance to God’s people, opposition to God. You could call it in some sense a city representing sin. It blocked the entry to the promised land. Do you remember the Old Testament story of marching with the Ark of the Covenant around Jericho and the walls falling? That’s what the Jewish mind would have immediately thought of when the mention of Jericho takes place and there was a man there, a blind man. He sits on the sidelines as the crowd passes by, the crowd with Jesus is going by him. He wasn’t engaged in the life of a disciple. He was no follower of Jesus. Blindness had him on the sidelines, physical blindness, but I think for Mark more of like a spiritual blindness. That’s his point. He’s one of the few people healed by Jesus in the scriptures that we actually know their name. Usually it’s, oh the son or daughter of this person or that person. We don’t even know their names, but this one we know their name probably because he was a witness, probably because the early Church actually talked to him about his healing. The name Bartimaeus means son of honor in Arimaic means Son of the unclean. We’re not sure exactly what’s Mark’s purpose of using that name was, but for the Jews many times they thought that physical ailments were a result of sin, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he was named that because they thought he had sinned and that’s why he was blind. The scripture says, ‘On hearing it was Jesus of Nazareth he began to cry out and say, Jesus son of David have pity on me.’ On hearing, on hearing about Jesus something within him cried out. Bartimaeus all the sudden realized his dire state. The first step in conversion is always conviction of sin. If we aren’t convicted of our sin, we don’t need a savior. If I’m okay, you’re okay, we don’t need Jesus. We only need Jesus when we realize we can’t save ourselves, when we realize our dire situation and often that conviction comes from hearing.Remember that Pentecost account when St. Peter on the feast of Pentecost when he gets up in the crowd in Jarusalem and he tells them how they’ve crucified the one who was Messiah and Lord, how they’ve crucified the Lord of Life and the crowd all of a sudden is convicted. They realize, ‘Oh no what have they done?’ and they say to Peter and the others, now when they heard this they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brother’s what should we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you.’ Bartimaeus is in that situation. He realizes all of a sudden his need and he cries out, ‘Son of David have pity on me.’ It’s the cry of the heart from one who realizes that they are a sinner and that they need a savior. Mark puts this here not just by chance. He puts this story after three other accounts. We’ve read about them from the last three weekends. Four weeks ago we heard about the Pharisees who were so hung up in power that they try to trick Jesus with some testing on divorce. They are so convinced that they’re the authority, that they’re in power. The next week we hear the Rich Young Man who can’t follow Jesus because he’s addicted to his possessions. He thought he had it all figured out, ‘I followed all of the commandments,’ but he realized he’s addicted to his stuff and then last week we have his own disciples, James and John, that think greatness comes from being in positions of honor, from prestige, from being at Jesus right or His left. They all thought they had it figured out. They all thought they were seeing rightly, but Mark by putting this passage here about the blind Bartimaeus reminds us that they were spiritually blind. They were blind to their miserable state. They were blind to their pride and they were blind to their reliance on themselves for salvation. They thought, ‘I have the answer. I have the solution. I can fix it.’ That’s always a dangerous move in the spiritual life. In the Gospel account, Mark is inviting those who hear to ponder the question of their own blindness, spiritual blindness. It begs the question, am I comfortable in my modern version of Jericho? Am I embracing a world that seems contrary to God? Do I feel pretty comfortable in it? Do I feel right at home in a world that calls evil good and good evil because that’s what’s happening today? Am I sitting on the sidelines like Bartimaeus as Jesus and His followers pass by? That’s the point that Mark’s trying to make to all those in the first century and I’d say even today who are hearing his gospel. Does the world around me, does this Jericho around me rebuke me like it did Bartimaeus? ‘Be quiet! Don’t talk about such things of faith. Don’t express of your need to repent. You’re okay. I’m okay, you’re okay, don’t be so hard on yourself!’ Now you’re here, maybe I’m preaching to the choir, but for every one of you that’s here there’s many that aren’t. There’s many sadly that send their children to our Catholic school that don’t regularly come to class or have their children in our faith formation program that only occasionally come to Mass. Jericho has convinced them that other things are important. Even for us, those of us that are here, do we see as we ought? Do I see, as your pastor, do I see as I ought? Are we still overly influenced by our present day Jericho by a life that resists the reign of God? If honest, I think most of us would say at least to some degree, yes or at least sometimes, so we begin every Mass with a variation of Bartimaeus’ cry to Jesus. He said, ‘Jesus son of David have pity on me.’ We say, ‘Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.’ because we realize that we can’t save ourselves. Conversion always begins with this recognition of our own spiritual blindness, of our need to see rightly, of our need to see rightly, of our need to trust not in ourselves, not in the things that we think we have all figured out, but in God’s grace and in His mercy.
The Gospel goes on to say, ‘Bartimaeus sprung up, tossed off his cloak (which is a symbolic way of saying he turned from his prior way of life) and came to Jesus and said, Lord I want to see.’ We too, you and I, I hope we say, ‘Lord I want to see. I want to see rightly. Show me the way I should walk. I can’t do it on my own.’ It was trust in this divine help that brought Bartimaeus to Jesus. It was blind Bart’s surrender to Jesus, it was his reliance on something greater than himself, it’s there that he found sight. It’s there that he found salvation and Jesus told him, ‘Go your way. Your faith has saved you.’ and immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the way.
Sisters and brothers, we live in Jericho, in at least a metaphorical Jericho in a world that so often prioritizes autonomy, self-reliance, comfort and distorted notions of tolerance that accepts even praises, glorifies evil sometimes. We come to Mass because we recognize at least at some level our blindness and we, like Bartimaeus, we want to see. We want to leave the sidelines and walk more closely with Jesus and Jesus says to us as he said to him, ‘Come to me. Let me restore your sight. Then you too, like Bartimaeus, follow me on the way.’ That’s the invitation that Mark gives in the Gospel and that’s the invitation that Jesus gives each and every one of us at every Mass.”