Reading Francis

Get out of the way.

There’s a little story in Mark (10:46-52, this Sunday’s Gospel for you Catholics) about the healing of a blind man named Bartimaeus. It’s a pretty straightforward story that only takes a couple of verses, but even a small story like this has details worth reflecting on.

Jesus and a crowd of followers are leaving Jericho when they pass Bartimaeus, who hears who is passing by and starts shouting, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” trying to break through the noise and get Jesus’ attention. The first reaction to Bart’s yelling isn’t from Jesus; it’s from his followers, who basically tell the poor beggar to shut up and quit bugging Jesus. When Jesus notices Bartimaeus, he asks his followers to call him up, and they change their tune really quickly, encouraging Bartimaeus to come see Jesus. After Jesus heals him, Bartimaeus joins the gang.

There’s an obvious lesson here. God doesn’t want us to protect Him from the riffraff who don’t fit in; He wants us to bring them to Him to be made whole.

A lot of times, the institutional Church and we as individual Christians are really bad at this. We think that people who are undesirable by our standards are undesired by God, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. I know a lot of people who may not have given up on God, but who feel like God’s alleged people have given up on them.

God doesn’t need us to protect Him from anyone; He made them and loves them and knows them better than we do. God welcomes us to help bring others into the circle. 

Maybe there are people that rub you the wrong way so much that you can’t bring yourself to do that. In that case, maybe the least we can do, when they call out for healing, is get out of their way rather than telling them to shut up.