Have you ever been part of a crowd? Yes, today’s question comes without a warning, so in case you missed it, I’ll ask you again: Have you ever been part of a crowd? The answer for each one of us must be “yes.” We are, right now, here in this place, a crowd of people. For one definition of crowd is: an audience or those in attendance. But there are other kinds of crowds. There are crowds when we go to a football game, except maybe an Oilers game, and there are crowds of shoppers, especially in another few days when the stores take down their Halloween decorations and put up the ones for Christmas.
Karen and I were recently on vacation in London, Paris and Rome. We had our share of crowds of tourists there, even if September is not supposed to be the tourist season. And, yes, we spent a great afternoon with Fr. Brendan who is enjoying Rome very much and is trying to separate his new Italian words from his old, Spanish vocabulary. He’s, also, lost a few pounds, but that’s probably because he has no more farewell parties to go to. Anyway, he’s doing fine.
But back to crowds. We found them in the big cities and in the usual tourist places like Pisa, Florence and Venice. And whether we were in Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City or in Saint Mark’s Square in Venice, we were constantly warned to be aware of pickpockets. Crowds are like that. They include all sorts of people.
The crowd which followed Jesus as he left Jericho were like that. Some people in that crowd thought of him as a great teacher, a rabbi or, in Aramaic, a rabboni, a title which means “my master.” Others believed he was a wonderworker, who could cure lepers and make the lame walk, the deaf hear and the blind see. Still others saw him as a son of King David and a new leader of Israel. The crowd following Jesus included the wealthy and the poor as well as young men who were zealots and strong of limb. Others were crippled by disease. There were tax-collectors, prostitutes, and beggars.
And there was one who did not follow Jesus, but, rather, sat by the roadside: a blind beggar, who was known merely as the son of Timaeus. A man who had no name or identity of his own, but was known only as Bar-Timaeus, son of Timaeus. A blind man who called out another name, “Son of David.” An unknown man who called out his own desire: “have pity on me.”
If you had been part of the crowd there outside of Jericho that day when blind Bartimaeus called out, what would you have done? Would you have been one of those who scolded him, who told him to shut up, don’t make a scene? Would you have shoved him aside so Jesus would not be disturbed by one more dirty, blind man, so Jesus could walk on, unhindered by the problems of the world, oblivious to those around him?
But Jesus was not oblivious. Above the shouts of the crowd, he heard the call of Bartimaeus, just as so long ago his father had heard the cries of his people in Egypt and sent Moses to lead them. Just as God had heard the cries of the Israelites in Babylon and sent the prophet Jeremiah who proclaimed in our first reading: “Shout with joy … exult … and proclaim your praise … the Lord has delivered his people … I will gather them from the ends of the world … with the blind and the lame in their midst. … They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them.”
Jesus heard and called to the blind man who had cried out. It was then the fickle crowd changed its tune. Now, they encouraged Bartimaeus to go to Jesus. As they said to the blind man, “You have nothing whatever to fear from him.” However, it appears to me Bartimaeus never feared Jesus in the first place. He had asked for pity from the Son of David. And when he stood in front of Jesus, he called him “my master”, “my esteemed teacher,” “rabboni.” It was then he was healed. Healed because of his faith. Faith in a man he had never seen but who was merely passing by.
As in all of the stories about Jesus, each one of us is encouraged to take an active role, to become part of the story which is not only about what Jesus said and did some two thousand years ago, but is also the story of how Jesus comes to us in our present lives.
Today, we have a choice. We can be part of the crowd which blows with the wind and discourages or encourages others depending upon the general climate or what is proclaimed by an authority figure. Or we can be like Bartimaeus, a person who has grown up without an identity of our own, merely the offspring of past events, but one who now recognizes the presence of the Lord and is able to call out “have pity on me.” Help me to change. Help me to see. Help me to get on with my life in new and different ways. Although crowds of nay-sayers may surround us, each one of us, today, is given the opportunity to call out and to hear the promised response: “Be on your way! Your faith has healed you.”
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time; October 23, 1994
Jer 31: 7-9; Heb 5: 1-6; Mk 10: 46-52