Blind

 Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 24, 2021

                                                     25 Proper B

If you have been in my office over the last two and a half years, which I realize hasn’t been easy thanks to Covid-19, you will know that I am madly in love with two small humans named Evelyn and Collins.  Photos of the two girls line the front of my desk, facing outward for anyone who enters my office to enjoy.  The girls are also in photos around my computer monitor where I can easily see them.  There are photos of them playing, photos when they were infants, photos with their great-grandfather, photos of the family, and on and on.  Feel free to drop by anytime and watch them grow up on my desk.

On Tuesday, when I returned from my trip to England, my hands were full when I entered my office and I was thinking about the many things I needed to do that day.  I was in the office early thanks to the gift of jet-lag so no one else was here yet.  When I went to turn my computer on I noticed that something was horribly wrong.  The photo of Evelyn that is by my computer was now a photo of an angry, wild orange cat!  This was not jet-lag.  This was a real photo of a cat.  Cats are not my favorite of God’s creatures-my apologies to all the cat lovers-and I am allergic to them, which made the photo all the more shocking.  There are only two people who have the kind of access to my locked office that would allow such a thing to happen.

When Mario-the organist- and Kathy-the Parish Administrator came in, I held up the photo and said “Do you know anything about this?”  They looked both guilty and puzzled simultaneously.  We all had a good laugh at their clever prank, then Kathy asked “Did you not see the rest of your photos?”  I had walked right past the long line of photos on my desk without noticing that every single one of them with two exceptions was now a photo of a cat.  A cat in a snow hat.  A cat wrapped like a burrito.  A cat in a tie.  A flying cat.  A puzzled cat.  And on and on.  I had been so focused on getting into my office, putting my things away, and getting on with my to-do list, that I had not noticed what my colleagues had done to the photos of my beloved granddaughters.  I was blind to the hysterical prank that was staring me in the face. 

The disciples are also focused on the work ahead this morning, and they don’t see much either.  They are headed to Jerusalem and were it not for a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, they would have passed right through Jericho.  When the blind man hears that Jesus is coming, he cries out “Jesus, Son of David! Have mercy on me!” The disciples try to hush the blind man but Jesus comes to a stop and says “Call him here.” And Jesus says to Bartimaeus “What do you want me to do for you?” 

“What do you want me to do for you?”  We heard those very words from Jesus last week when James and John approached Jesus and said “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”  What James and John wanted Jesus to do for them was to grant them to sit, one at Jesus’ right hand and one at his left, in his glory.  Jesus cannot grant that request because it is not his to grant.  What Bartimaeus wants is to see again.  Apparently sight is Jesus’ to grant, because Jesus says “Go, your faith has made you well” and immediately Bartimaeus regains his sight and follows Jesus on the way.

What do we make of these two stories, which we hear on back to back Sundays?  In both stories Jesus asks “What do you want me to do for you?”  In one, Jesus’ very own followers are denied their request.  In the other, a blind man on the side of the road, an outcast, is granted his request.  And the underlying question is “how do we make sure we are among those for whom Jesus will grant our requests.”

There is a lovely passage in the book of Isaiah (59), a book Jesus knew well, in which the prophet describes darkness as a condition where justice is far from us, where righteousness does not reach us, where salvation is far from us, and truth is lacking.  Darkness is that place where the outcasts and the marginalized are invited to stay on the outskirts and remain on the margins.  Jesus could not grant the disciples’ request last Sunday to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in glory because that request perpetuates their blindness to see the world as Jesus sees.  On the other hand, Bartimaeus knows he is blind and he asks Jesus to let him see.  There is the difference in the two stories.  Bartimaeus knows he is blind.  The disciples do not.  Jesus cannot grant a request that perpetuates darkness. 

The real question these stories raise is not “how do we make sure Jesus will grant our request.”  The real question is “what do we not see?”  What, or who, do we not see that Jesus does see?  Just as I did not know I missed the transformation of my photos until it was pointed out to me, I believe there are people and issues right in front of us that we do not see because we are so caught up in getting where we are going, or what we are doing, or because we choose not to look or because we are blind.  However, Jesus does see them.  There are people who feel they have no place in Hudson because of their color, religion, sexual orientation, or marital status, and we seek to include them.  We know that there are people in our community who need groceries at the end of the month, or help with rent or utilities, or Christmas presents, and we try to help.  We know that the needs of the larger community of Summit County are great, and we work to help through Open M, or the Domestic Violence Shelter, or Habitat for Humanity, or Family Promise.  But my guess is that there is injustice that we walk right past, not because we do not care, but because we cannot see.  Those of us who are white may be blind to the situation of people of color. Those of us who have much may be blind to the culture of poverty.  Those of us who are educated may be blind to what life is really like for an adult who cannot read.  But Jesus sees everything and wants to heal our blindness so that justice can be near us, righteousness can reach us, salvation is close and truth is abundant.  To sit at Jesus’ side in glory is not Jesus’ to grant.  But “Teacher, let me see” is a request Jesus can grant.  And the darkness will be lifted, we will see what Jesus sees, and we can be people of light.       

Amen.