ORDINARY SUNDAY 30

During my service as an Army Chaplain one of the activities I always enjoyed being involved in was in the selection of young soldiers for training as future officers. Their enthusiasm was infectious. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if some of them saw themselves as a future “Monty” or Eisenhower!

One of the processes of selection was a test of observation. An officer from the Army Psychology Corps would walk along in front of each row, held up a sheet of paper and asked them to look carefully and tell him what they saw. After much intense scrutiny and searching, one would proclaim, “A black dot in the top right hand corner”. It would take several of these answers before one would say, “I see a sheet of red paper with a small black dot in the top right hand corner”.

Had the others not noticed the sheet of red paper, or were they not supposed to see it?

We have a saying don’t we about seeing the big picture – or seeing the situation as a whole?

Here is another example of a different way of “Seeing”.

Someone has just explained in simple, understandable terms a very complex situation, at the end of which we say “Now I see what you mean”.

But we haven’t seen anything – we have heard a lot of words, but they have given as a picture we can relate to.

Really seeing the meaning of something has as much to do with the heart and mind as it does with the eyes.

In today’s Gospel reading a young man, blinds, pleads with Jesus to notice him. The man and his condition were obviously well known. Unlike many who come to Jesus he has a name – Bartimaeus. This being so, does not Jesus’ question to him seem a little odd? “What do you want me to do for you?” What else would a blind man want but his sight?

Jesus” question to him is the same as it is for us. He challenges his faith, the challenge is met and his faith is rewarded. But notice what happens now – “he followed Jesus along the road”.

The events of this past week have no doubt presented many of us with a test and a challenge.

Do we see just the black dot in the corner? Is that our comfort zone? Is it the familiar pattern of discipleship that we have always known? What of the larger picture of the sheet of red paper? It has after all been there all the time too. Shall perhaps the opening of our eyes mean we follow Jesus down the road – a road we have never traveled before – but remember, He is going ahead of us.

For the last 450 years or more we have been accustomed to seeing Christians, for all sorts of reasons both worthy and shameful – walking away from each other.

Now, if we want to, we can see Christians beginning to walk towards each other, with perhaps hesitant steps, but towards each other nonetheless.

Perhaps if we first of all commit ourselves anew in faith and loyalty to Him, we shall see something else, which after all, if we are really serious about our Christian discipleship, we have been looking for a long time.

We shall perhaps see the beginning of the answer to Jesus’ prayer to the Father about us: “that they may be one as we are one”.

Father Lewis Firman