30th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, B

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RISKING HARD



Jesus heals Bartimaeus!  What a sight! Im sure people took notice and many believed after witnessing this marvelous event. Everyone seemed to know the blind man, even remembering his name, and his father’s (Mk. 10: 46ff). A miracle is always an occasion for faith. Miracles generate faith.

But the gospel today is more than just a miracle story. Above all, it is a story of faith.

You see, faith comes in two ways. One is faith as certainty, as being sure of something.  It is easy to have this kind of faith. If life is good, then God exists. If life is comfortable, manageable, smooth-sailing, then all praises be to the Lord. if we seem to stand on a sturdy and immovable rock of certainty about life, health, finances and the future, then faith and gratitude are our response to God.

There is another kind of faith, faith as risk, faith as trust. When we cannot see anything but darkness, like Bartimaeus… when we cannot find the answer to our sickness… when we do not have solutions to our problems… when we are not sure what will happen tomorrow… when we seem to be alone in our struggle… this calls for the faith that is risk, the faith that trusts in a merciful God who hears us and one day will stop by to touch our lives with the miracle that is his gift.

Bartimaeus never met Jesus before. He probably heard good things about him though. He did not even know if he would care to stop and listen to his cry. But he trusted, even if people told him to shut up. He continued to cry: Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!

He took a great risk. Jesus may never pass this way again. His words may be drowned by the shouts of people around the Lord. And who was he that the Son of God would stop and take notice? He was just a blind beggar. But he trusted. He took a risk because in his heart something told him that Jesus loved the likes of him.  His faith was rewarded.

Do we have faith only when everything is sure? Or can we believe as Bartimaeus did, in a merciful God who listens to the poor, the sick, the abandoned, the lonely, the desperate, the scum of society?

Lord, give me this gift of faith, this gift of risking, this gift of trusting, even in the midst of darkness. Amen.


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