Critical Perspective

Mark 10: 46-52
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

When we read this Gospel or others like it where someone has a healing encounter with the Lord, it is a common and very good meditation to place ourselves in the scene as the one who is receiving the healing, whether it is an emotional healing like the woman at the well, or a physical healing such as in this story of Bartimaeus, the blind man. 

But I’m going to shake up the common perspective and ask you if you have ever thought of putting yourself in Jesus’ place instead or imagining yourself as one of the disciples being trained to follow in the footsteps of Jesus? Do you always imagine yourself as one of the needy, one of the blind or deaf, one of the outcast or one of the leprous ones who encountered Jesus? This is certainly where we begin in our journey with Christ. But we must not stay there. 

1 Peter 2:9 states “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

At some point, we all need to seriously face the fact that we are not called to remain poor and needy. That does not mean to say that we should become arrogant or have an over-inflated sense of our own importance. It doesn't mean that we should never have failures, problems or needs. It simply means that we have been called to the Priesthood of the Laity – the Royal Priesthood. It means that we have been called to walk with the same dignity and authority in which Jesus walked and in which the disciples grew and flourished as the Church had its beginnings. It means that we have been chosen to be other Christs to the world and to our brothers and sisters. 

When I first wrote this reflection a few years ago, we were all shocked by the arrest of the Bishop in Antigonish who had child pornography on his computer. Before then and ever since, there have been many instances of priestly misconduct here in Canada and around the world. These scandals have not only caused anguish and huge trauma in the laity but have also deeply wounded those good priests who are faithful to their calling to serve Christ and his people with all their hearts. They are wounded because the scandals have undermined the integrity of their calling in the public’s eye. We feel betrayed but so do they. Fewer young men perceive the priesthood to be a desirable calling and the ministerial priesthood is overworked, heavily burdened and deeply discouraged. Many good priests and bishops struggle daily with depression and anxiety. 

There are solutions but no quick fixes. However, we lay people must begin to grasp that we have been called to the priesthood of the laity and there is a huge need in the church for people to wake up to that call.

We all have images in our minds of an ideal priest and only a small part of these images are of one who faithfully administers the sacraments to the people. The rest of our images of the ideal priest are of a man who is full of mercy and compassion, who listens, who has wisdom and balance, who doesn’t isolate himself from the community, who has a sense of humor and can relate to the young, the old and everyone in between. Our “wonder priest” supports community events and the people who organize them. He really listens to people, hears their wounds, allays their fears, assures them of Christ’s love and builds up confidence. He teaches with authority. He is always available. He inspires. He blesses. He is a walking sign of God’s grace.

 
As a lay priesthood, we are not called to administer the sacraments but we are called to everything else in the above description of a great priest. Through baptism, we were anointed for this calling and we can no longer leave all these priestly attributes to the ministerial priests. It’s not easy for people to suddenly stop thinking of themselves as sheep and begin to start thinking of themselves as shepherds with responsibilities as grave and necessary as the responsibilities of the ministerial priesthood but that’s the journey we are all called to make as we grow to maturity in the Spirit. 

It’s a decision…and it’s a conversion. It’s a realization that at some point the follower of Christ must grow into being a co-shepherd with Jesus the Chief Shepherd. We must be willing to move from being blind or disabled sheep to being people who have sight and mobility and who have received the graces and gifts necessary to be priests and shepherds to others who are just beginning the journey or who have suffered deep wounds. 

We were anointed for this at baptism; we were anointed to live with great dignity and authority. Authority to do what? If you recall last week’s gospel, it’s certainly not the authority to have power over other people and to “lord it over them’ or to seek positions of status. The authority we are called to is the authority to love like Jesus loved, listen like he listened, to touch others with the very same compassion as he did, to bless people, to offer insight and wisdom, to set the entangled free, to ease the guilt, to support others and to help carry the burdens. Do we really believe these things are part of our vocation as a royal priesthood – or are we content to leave it all to the parish priest and then complain when he doesn’t meet our expectations?

This week, take the Sunday Gospel and find a few moments to sit quietly to meditate on the scene conveyed. Put yourself in Jesus’ place. Visualize yourself responding with love and compassion to a blind man and then listen to the blind man speak to you about his needs. Listen to the wounds in his heart and to the lonely struggles he has endured because of his blindness. Feel your heart touched by the fact that he has called your name out loud even though he can’t see you. Talk to the Father about him and allow the Father to share with you his own deep love and compassion for the man. Then listen for the Father to tell you what to do.

Jesus said, “I only do what I see my Father in heaven doing,” and it wasn’t always the same action in every situation. Jesus made no assumptions about what the Father wanted. That’s why it’s so important to develop the habit of listening to God the way Jesus listened. It’s through knowing who you really are and listening to the Father with the heart of a shepherd that you can begin to discern the voice of God saying to you,

 “The Spirit of the Lord is now upon you to bring good news to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to set the prisoners free, to give sight to the blind and proclaim this a time of God’s favor.”

Listen. Perhaps you will be moved to say to someone, “What do you want me to do for you?”