Homily for 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Oct. 28, 2018

Mark 10: 46-52
Salesians and Salesian Cooperators
Silver Spring, Md.                                                   

“Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.’  Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way” (Mark 10: 52).

Christ Giving Sight to Bartimaeus (William Blake)

I’m struck by the word way in that final verse of the gospel reading.  It appears twice, as you just heard, 1st in Jesus’ dismissal of Bartimaeus, then in Bartimaeus’ action.  The way that the healed man goes, the choice that he makes, is the way of Jesus.  Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and as Mark has made clear to us readers, and tried to make clear to the 12, he’s on his way to his passion and death.

In a sense, Bartimaeus is ahead of the rest of Jesus’ disciples, whom he’s just joined, following Jesus.  As we’ve also heard from Mark, the 12 apostles are following Jesus geographically from Galilee toward Jerusalem, but they’re not following him in faith, in understanding his message—neither his attempts to tell them what will be his fate as the Son of David (10:47-48), that is, Messiah, nor his attempts to convince them that they must be humble and must serve their brothers and sisters.

We’re not told that Bartimaeus understands all that either.  Rather, it’s left to our imagination.  We may read the verse as suggesting that he’s following the way of Jesus wherever it leads—giving Jesus his full faith (“your faith has saved you”).  We also remember that in the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus’ disciples repeatedly refer to his teachings and to their belief in his resurrection as “the Way.”  They are those who’ve finally grasped more fully who he is and what he taught, and are trying to live as he taught, even in the face of persecution.  This is “the Way”—to eternal life.  And Bartimaeus willingly chooses to make this way his way.

All 3 Synoptics record a form of this story.  All of them say that the healed blind man, or 2 blind men in Matthew’s version, follow Jesus, but only Mark uses that telling phrase “on the way.”  None of them, however, gives the healed man’s personal name, which is a 2d point in the passage that strikes me.

Bartimaeus means, as Mark tell us, “son of Timaeus” (v. 46).  It’s not his own name.  So in all 3 Synoptic versions, he’s anonymous.  In a sense, he represents all who put their faith in Jesus Son of David, Jesus Christ; who experience Christ’s healing, in any form that takes; and having been graced, choose to follow him.  He represents us if and when make a conscious choice to follow Jesus, even to Jerusalem, whatever form our own share in his cross may take.  “Go your way; your faith has saved you” is a choice put before us every day, never once and for all.  For that faith to continue to save us, we must continue to follow Jesus on the way.