Looking Smart

Learning to see deeper with eyes of faith

10/24/2021

Mk 10:46-52 As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, son of David, have pity on me." And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, "Son of David, have pity on me." Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you." He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see." Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you." Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

Do you think people who wear glasses are smarter than people who do not wear glasses? If that is true, then I must be smarter than all of you here today with perfect eyes! That is what I believed in elementary school. My best friend, David, always made really good grades, while I struggled to squeeze out a C. I wondered: what made him so smart?

Then one day I realized he wore glasses and that must be his secret to smartness! I even feigned a little fuzziness in my vision and convinced my parents to get me glasses and be as smart as David. But sadly my grades stayed the same, even though I looked so smart! Of course, as the years went by and I entered my 40’s, I really did need glasses to help me read as my eyesight slowly started to fade.

And here is the funny thing: when I turned older and needed glasses for real, I did become sort of smarter. How so? Well, I finally began to see and understood what my parents and priests and teachers and coaches were trying to tell me as a teenager. I thought I was so smart as a teenager, walking around and being able to see everything clearly. But when I started wearing glasses, I could finally “see” what they were teaching me, and I saw they were right about many things. That is, sometimes the less you see physically, the more you see spiritually. That kind of seeing is what makes someone really smart.

The gospel today gives us a great example of a blind person who sees better than people with perfect eyesight. A blind man named Bartimaeus is begging by a roadside when he hears Jesus was passing by. He called out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And when Jesus asks him to come closer and state his request, Bartimaeus says: “Master, I want to see.” The fact that Bartimaeus addressed Jesus as “Son of David,” and as “Master,” showed that he already believed Jesus was the Messiah.

And notice how he did that before he got back his physical eyesight. Even though Bartimaeus was blind physically (before his healing), he had a kind of 20/20 spiritual vision, that helped him to see exactly who Jesus was. When our physical eyesight decreases, therefore, our spiritual eyesight increases. Why? Because we must see with the eyes of faith. And that kind of spiritual seeing is what really makes you smart.

My friends, I would suggest to you that this spiritual seeing with the eyes of faith helps us not only to identify who Jesus is as the Son of God, but also to identify who each other is as sons and daughters of God. What do I mean? Well, in 1 Jn 3:1 the Beloved Disciple writes: “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.” Then he adds this crucial verse: “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

Notice how the verse begins with the word “see.” But the seeing St. John means is not the kind your optometrist would give you an “A+” for after you read every letter perfectly on the eye chart. Rather, it is the seeing of a blind man like Bartimaeus, who saw with blinding clarity who Jesus was. And John adds that same faith also allows us to see the spiritual depths of each person as a child of God. “Yet so we are.” Faith, in other words, helps us to perceive how everyone is a child of God, beginning with Jesus, the firstborn Son of God.

So, let me test your eyesight a little this morning. What do you see when you look around at the people in the world? For example, when you look at United States Congress, do you see merely Democrats and Republicans wrangling, do you see children of God? When you look toward our Southern border, do you see only immigrants and illegal aliens entering our country, or do you see children of God? When you look over at the troubled Middle East, do you see merely Muslims and Jews blowing each other up, or do you see children of God?

Closer to home, when you see a beautiful woman and, as Taylor Swift sang, “the fella over there with the hella good hair,” do you see an object of lust, or do you see children of God? And closest of all, when you look in the mirror each morning, do you see what the world sees (the wrinkles, the receding hairline, the glasses), or do you see a child of God?

In other words, we need faith to see who Jesus is, for sure; but we also need faith to see who others are, even to really see who we are. I need faith to really see you, and you need faith to really see me because our deepest identity is as a child of God. And sometimes those who are physically able to see less, are also those who are spiritually able to see more. And only when you look at the world through the eyes of faith are you really looking smart.

Praised be Jesus Christ!