Sermon preached on Proper 25, St Peter's 26 October 2003

Revd Mark Bonney

Many of us will have frustratingly uttered the words "Oh they can't see it at all." -torn our hair out trying to explain something to someone that's obvious to us but they can't see at all. - They're blind. And it's a kind of blindness, spiritual blindness that our gospel is about this morning.

The healing of Bartimeaus is the last healing miracle in Mark's gospel - it's the climax to a theme that has been so important to Mark of spiritual blindness and sight. It comes at a crucial point following predictions of the passion - and then before the entry into Jerusalem and the start of the passion itself. Jesus' teaching on the nature of his messiahship is complete, but the disciples continue to be blind about that as we noticed last week - arguing about superiority and status. By contrast Bartimeaus, the physically blind one, immediately recognises the identity of Jesus calling him Son of David and asking for mercy - and interestingly this is the first time in the gospel that such a recognition isn't met with a rebuke and a request for silence. And the vivid language of throwing off his cloak and rising up suggests the throwing off of an old life and the putting on of a new one (just like baptism) - and most importantly the story ends with the words "he regained his sight and followed Jesus in the way" - linked with the teaching of Jesus in the previous section that the would-be-disciple must follow in the way of the cross - this is the bit that the disciples haven't grasped yet.

Let's look a little bit more at spiritual blindness. To do that I want to begin with baptism. In the old BCP baptism service, which I confess I'm not sure I've ever used there's a splendid throwaway line "Seeing that all men are conceived and born in sin." The sin in question was original sin - for which baptism was the remedy. Such a stark description isn't flavour of the month these days - it has often led to misunderstandings of inherited guilt, or a negative balance in a heavenly ledger, or else it has seen the process of conception as transmitting sin as if it were a sexually transmitted disease. But get rid of those understandings and the doctrine of original sin expresses the view of all NT writers - which is that all human beings, though capable of union with God, are born out of communion with him - it might be better to call it 'original alienation' - we feel alone and exiled in a strange, unimaginable vast and otherwise apparently empty universe whose meaning and purpose aren't clear to us. The prospect of our own death and the death of ones we love can make it seem meaningless. The fact of sickness and suffering can make it seem hostile. The power of sin and selfishness in our society oppresses us. Yet, at the same time we have intimations that there is meaning to our existence that transcends the physical world. - we find it hard to believe that that our highest values and experiences of love or beauty are simply reducible to a few base chemicals. Most of us still have an instinct to believe in God - but we don't know for sure. We can't be certain that God isn't just a projection of our own needs and longings, a way of keeping going when it might otherwise seem pointless.

This self-enclosure, this existential unrelatedness is the spiritual blindness of which Scripture speaks, and it takes God to pierce through it. In different ages and different cultures people have seen something of God's light and reality but the Christian claim is that in Christ the fullness of God's light broke into a darkened world and offered us a new way of relating to God. Jesu Christ incarnated all that God and humanity held in common - sharing the human condition even to the point of sharing death, and demonstrating in his resurrection that when our humanity is reunited with God, death isn't the end. 

The good news of the gospel is above all about restored relationship - the baptism service makes a great deal of talking about a movement from darkness to light and our becoming children of God. But coupled with this is the fact that enlightenment and conversion to Christ are always partial and gradual - "we walk by faith and not by sight." It's easy to have a dig a the disciples in Mark's gospel for not understanding - but the truth of the matter is that it takes us a lifetime to understand the implications of the commitments we made at our baptism - or were made for us and we took on at our Confirmation - but 'following the way' will demand service and sacrifice.

We also have to face the disturbing fact that as individuals or as a church we can lose our sight - in the book of Revelation there's church of Laodicea - the rich, complacent, lukewarm church that still thinks it sees, but in reality seems to have turned its gaze in on itself - and the writer tells them they are "wretched, pitiable, poor blind and naked" and that he would spew them out of his mouth. "Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you may be rich; and salve to anoint your eyes that you may see."

Such a church or such a Christian desperately needs new vision and may frequently pray for it - but in fact doesn't want new vision at all, but only the energy to carry on doing the same old things in the same old way. New sight, new vision, God's new vision always brings challenge and change - but if we rule change out beforehand, it negates the prayer.

Bartimaeus represents us all, for he is blind and there are none so blind as those who will not see; begging on the edge of life, this blind beggar is a picture of the human race in alienation from God; how appropriate it is that the Church has adopted the words of Bartimaeus and unashamedly uses them often at the opening of its liturgy "Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyries eleison" - Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, lord have mercy.

May the merciful Lord open our eyes and enable us to se more clearly his wonder and glory, that we may be changed from glory to glory and serve with all our hearts the one and only living God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.