ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at High Mass on the Last Sunday of Trinity, 25th October 2009

Readings: Jeremiah 31. 7-9; Hebrews 7. 23-end; Mark 10. 46-end

The Portuguese writer Jose Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 three years after the publication of his novel Blindness. This was made into a film last year. Saramago specialises in the fantastic. He's been compared to Kafka and to William Golding. So if you've read The Trial or The Lord of the Flies you'll know what I mean. Saramago uses strange situations to unearth the hidden and often murky depths of the human condition.

Blindness begins on an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary city. A man is driving home from work. He stops at traffic lights and within a few moments he's gone blind. Blindness becomes contagious. More and more people start losing their sight. The government panics. The blind are herded into a disused asylum. Soon chaos reigns. There are scenes of cruelty and bestiality. Strangely, one person keeps their sight: the wife of a doctor. She pretends to be blind but uses her sightedness to become a guide. She's a sort of a redemptive figure. She collects together a small group (a remnant) and builds a little community within the disorder.

At the end of the book normality is restored and people wonder if the grisly events have been a bad dream. It's certainly been nightmarish. As one character says: "I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see". This is one of the great themes of literature going back to Plato. In his Republic Plato likens the human condition to being seated in a cave watching the play of sunlight and shadow on the wall at the back of the cave. We don't see reality, only its pale imitation.

This morning Jesus is accosted by a blind man, Bartimaeus. We know nothing about him except his name although that's an improvement on Saramago's novel where none of the characters have names. They're only known by their role or a distinguishing feature: 'the doctor', 'the doctor's wife', 'the girl with dark glasses' and so on. As one character says chillingly early on: Blind people need no names.

But as always the scriptures urge us to go beyond the surface. Sight and blindness have subtle meanings. It's not just about physical seeing or not seeing. There are inner lights and darknesses as well. Mark's Gospel is a series of episodes. This morning's verses bring to an end a section that began at ch 8 v 22. There we hear the story of another blind man who was healed at Bethsaida. You may remember that on that occasion Jesus spat on his eyes. The healing wasn't instantaneous and initially he saw people walking like trees. Jesus touched him again and he recovered his sight.

In between these two stories the theme of sight and blindness, good guidance and being misguided are dominant. In Ch 9 we have the account of Christ's Transfiguration. He was seen for what he truly was although the disciples found it hard to fathom. Either side of this event, Jesus and his disciples argue. Before the Transfiguration Peter make his confession at Ceasarea Philippi: Christ is the Messiah. But they row about what this means especially when Jesus says that he must suffer and die.

After the Transfiguration, at Capernaum the disciples fall out over who is the greatest. The question of who is the most important rears its ugly head again just before this morning's gospel when James and John, the sons of Zebedee ask Jesus to grant them the position of sitting at his right hand and left hand in the kingdom. We would have heard that gospel last Sunday if we hadn't kept the Feast of St Luke the Evangelist.

Only Christ, it seems keeps his head. While those around him are being chaotic and selfish Christ, like the doctor's wife in Saramago's novel works away at trying to 'open people's eyes', to guide them, to enable them to see that that life is something that we do together. We see because of others not because of ourselves. Christ and the doctor's wife keep light and sight alive. They are the bearers of hope. They're the only ones who see. When there's no seeing there's only despair. When there's only despair there's a deep and destructive withdrawal into the self. When there's selfishness there's disorder with terrible results.

In some ways Bartimaeus isn't blind. OK, he can't see physically but he hasn't given up. He hasn't wrapped himself up in his cloak and thrown in the towel. He certainly hasn't lost the use of his ears or larynx. He's been listening to what people have been saying. He's heard about Jesus. He knows that Jesus brings things that he cannot get elsewhere. Here is someone that he needs. He desires to be different to how he is. He wants to see. So he shouts. He shouts so loudly that people tell him to shut up. But that doesn't stop him. And finally, the crowd comes round to his way of thinking as Jesus turns the moment: Call him to me says Jesus. Take heart says the crowd to Bartimaeus.

For the Jews the heart wasn't the stuff of the pink fluffy nonsense that we get up to on Valentine's Day. The heart was the centre of the person. Feelings were located lower down especially in the bowels. The heart was the centre of the body. A very loose translation would be the crowd saying to Bartimaeus: 'Spot on', 'You've got it right'. He may be blind but he sees more than anyone else around him. Bartimaeus knows what is central to life: that Christ is the light and the author of seeing. Christ is the centre of all things. Take heart, says the crowd and he does.

Taking heart (plucking up courage) has an immediate physical effect. Rise (Stand up). The Greek word is one that has a wide range of meanings. It can mean 'to excite', 'to awaken', 'to arouse'. It's used by Paul and John in phrases that indicate 'raising from the dead'. As Jesus goes towards Jerusalem in this latter part of Mark's Gospel 'raisings' are coming to the fore. They are indications of the triumph that are coming Jesus' way.

The turning point of Saramago's novel is when the group of the blind bond together led by the doctor's wife. They establish a routine. They help each other. They become a body. They realise that the guards keeping them in their squalid conditions are blind, too. So they walk out of the hospital without being seen. They are free.

Take heart. Rise. He is calling you. He is calling you. He is. Jesus calls us. He calls us to see. He calls us to respond. Mark's Gospel portrays all sorts of responses to Christ's call. In the earlier story of Jesus healing a blind man at Bethsaida we're told that the man didn't see clearly at once but saw people like trees walking. It's only after Jesus lays his hands on his eyes again that he sees clearly. That man gradually came to see physically, just as the disciples gradually came to see spiritually.

In today's reading, at the end of the section, Jesus heals Bartimaeus who this time sees immediately and follows Jesus. The implied question is whether the disciples will see enough to be faithful followers on the way through the last difficult week as they enter Jerusalem. Will we? Will we see enough? Will we, like Bartimaeus have the courage (the heart) to throw aside whatever we possess (our 'cloaks') and follow Jesus to Jerusalem and beyond?

Saramago's novel ends somewhat bleakly: "I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see". Not so the Christian story: Take heart. Rise. We are being called.