“Seeing Again”

Sermon Preached By The Rev. Bruce Sanguin
October 29, 2006

Mark 10:46-52

          The easiest way to read this morning’s parable from Mark’s gospel is to treat it as a straightforward story of Jesus’ restoring the sight of a blind man, Bartimaeus.  Read as such, it affirms that Jesus was a great healer, and that we have good reason to follow him. I have no doubt both are true. But there is a more challenging way to read it, namely, for each of us to identify with the blind beggar.

          Bartimaeus is us, in other words, and even if our eyesight is 20-20, we are blind beggars in other ways. This blindness impoverishes us, not physically, but at the soul level. The physically blind have one distinct advantage over the sighted. They know that they cannot see. They are able to cry out, like Bartimaeus, for help. Spiritual blindness, on the other hand, is susceptible to denial. There are none so blind, the saying goes, as those who will not see.

          We look out upon the world and see so little of what is actually present. Yet, we assume that what we see is the sum total of all that is actually there. Not true. On a physiological level, our eyes are only able to pick up on a very small band of light, relative to the entire light spectrum in the universe. Sitting here this morning the light we can’t see is far more abundant than the light we can see. Our vision is at best partial. Compared to an eagle or a dragon fly, human beings are practically blind.

          We see only partially, says St. Paul, but look forward to a time when we can see the whole (1 Corinthian 13:12). We come to church and pick out the pew we’re going to sit in. But do we actually see the pew? To us, it’s a seat to hold us up, and a pretty uncomfortable one at that! We don’t see the hands of the people who fashioned the pew, or the scraped knuckles of those who installed them. We don’t see the faces of the people from previous generations who thought of the very place you now occupy as their seat. We don’t see what Col. Fallis, the founder of this sanctuary, saw the first time he looked out upon this sanctuary; the faces of the young men and women who died in France and for whom these pews were constructed. We don’t see the trees from which they were hewn, nor the forest from which the trees were taken. When we look at the pew, we don’t see the light from the sun, which fed the leaves which grew the tree which gave us the wood. We sit our bums down in the hard pews and get ready for worship.  

          We see only in parts. But there is another, holistic way of seeing. To see holistically is to see the parts from the perspective of the whole. Or to put it another way, it is to see the part as a microcosm, or a perfect reflection, of the whole. The pew you’re sitting in tells the story, not only of the history of this congregation, but of the entire universe. The whole is contained within the part.  I once went to a science exhibition at which some very smart people did some very interesting things with laser lights. They beamed lasers through an apple, bounced the light off some mirrors, and refracted the light it in such a way that it split apart into thousand points of light. Within each point of light was the complete image of the original apple. One might have expected each piece of light to contain just a part of the apple, like pieces of a jig saw puzzle. Then when you put them all together, the whole apple would appear. But that’s not what happened. I was surrounded by a thousand perfect apples. The whole was contained within each part. This is, as you may know, a holographic image.

          Here’s what Jesus knew, and what we only glimpse from time to time: when the heart of our Creator came flaring forth into time and space 14 billion years ago, it broke into trillions of little pieces. This event was the extravagant scattering of love. Within each little piece is the whole heart of the Creator, a perfect image of the love of God in created form. Bartimaeus, sitting there by the side of the road, was a nobody in the eyes of the world, with no business crying out for Jesus’ attention. But   in the Nazarene’s eyes, he was a radiant manifestation of God’s heart.

          Jesus desired to teach his disciples only one thing: to be able to see the world as he saw it--everywhere, the heart of God yearning to be noticed, crying out for attention. I don’t know all of what might have been in Madonna’s heart in adopting the African child recently.  Perhaps all these stars flying over to Africa is little more than the rich and famous filling up the hole in their hearts left by the false promises of glamour and celebrity. That’s my cynic speaking. Or just possibly, they see these little children as worthy of more than a life of poverty and disease. Perhaps, they hear the cries of orphans from across the ocean, and like Jesus, see the heart of God in these little ones. While the cynical criticize, and go on with their lives, some are stopping for these little ones, sitting by the roadside of privilege. Perhaps Madonna is seeing the whole in the part, God’s image in the forgotten ones.

          At Canadian Memorial, Susan, our minister of pastoral care, has been giving her time to advocate for the residents at Hampton Court. The Health Authority announced that they would have to move. But they didn’t bother to ask Richard or William, members of our congregation, if they wanted to move. No one thought to sit across from Richard and ask him if he liked sharing a room with a friend. No one asked if he had a church family in the neighbourhood and what it would be like if he had to leave. The residents were treated like blind beggars, with no right to cry out for mercy. Since they were served noticed that they had no choice in the matter, three of the residents have died. Thanks to the vision of Susan, and the courage of Richard who, like Bartimaeus, refused to be silenced, the Health Authority is re-considering.

          Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and leaps up to follow Jesus. Beggars used their cloaks to gather alms, spreading them out on the road before the passers-by. By leaving his cloak behind Bartimaeus was signalling that he was finished with his old life. There was new life for him, made possible by Jesus. What are the cloaks we need to throw off to indicate that we’re willing to see the world through Jesus’ eyes? The answer will be different for each person here this morning. Typically it will have something to do with fear. To see in each part, each being, each nobody, the whole heart of a loving God is a frightening thing.

          The story is told of man who was blind from birth. A new drug was able to temporarily restore his sight for a few days. They were the most terrifying days of his life, and when it became clear that his blindness would return there was a sense of relief. The cloak which I cling to more often than not is fear of love. I am afraid that I would fall in love with this whole radiant creation to such an extent that I would have to live with an unprotected and undefended heart. On a bad day, it’s reason enough for me to see no further than the end of my nose.

          But the Good News is that Christ is patient with us. It may take a life time for us to see as Christ sees. The other piece of good news is that we have each other. So many pairs of eyes to see the heart of God and report to one another what it is we’ve glimpsed. Sometimes I will need to borrow your courageous eyes. Other times, I will tell you what I have seen of God’s heart in the world. What matters is that we leave our cloaks behind and leap up to follow the one who can help us to see.