In this Sunday’s Gospel the blind man, Bartimaeus, sitting on the edge of the road begging, recognizes and “sees” who Jesus is and cries out to him, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Because, through the eyes of faith, Bartimaeus has seen who Jesus is and he is able to ask to be healed …“Lord I want to see”!

Those words could very well be our cry for clarity in the way we “see” the world around us…these words may well be the exclamation of our deep desire to live more fully in Christ and to see the world as Jesus saw it.

We want to believe more; we want to see more…but we are hindered by our individual and collective blindness, and it can hold us back from following Christ with complete and utter abandon.

The Word we hear today is meant to stir up our discipleship, to rouse our “Gospel sight” that we might see the world as God sees it -- that we might have our blindness removed and truly see the poor and marginalized as our sisters and brothers and reach out to them. That with our Gospel sight roused, we might see clearly the systemic injustices in our society; the scourge of systemic racism and bigotry, misogyny, the hatred toward immigrants and refugees and those who are “othered” by individuals and groups filled with hate.

Let this “Gospel sight” see the injustice of our broken immigration system that separates families and denies asylum to those honestly seeking a safe home, a place to live without the constant threat of death. That we might see how misogyny holds back our mothers, our sisters and our daughters and cheats our country of the richness of the gifts they have to share with the world.

Let us pray for “Gospel eyes” that help us “to see” solutions to the international wars raging around the world, solutions to local and global poverty, solutions for the hunger and suffering of migrants and refugees sojourning around the globe searching for freedom and justice…searching for a home. Let us pray to work for and “to see” solutions for all that divides our nation that we might live in peace and harmony, seeing each “other” as equals, as sister and brother, as God see us!

Amid all the suffering, hurt and fear in our families, our country and our world today let us, like blind Bartimaeus cry out: Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us, send us your grace to “let us see” a way forward to build up our families, our nation and our world, to become a people of peace, a people of hope, and create families and communities of openness and acceptance, where the stranger is welcomed, and the wounded are healed. Amen.

​Blessings,
Fr. Tim

I am amazed at the audacity of James and John in today’s Gospel, asking…no, telling Jesus that they want him to “do for us whatever we ask”! Who do they think they are? Better yet, do they really understand who Jesus is?

The audacity to demand that Jesus do whatever they ask of him is unbelievable. And of course, it ignites the ire of other disciples, I think most likely because, on a very human level, the others thought that James and John might be getting something more than they would get.

Jesus calls them all together and explains, once again, that to be a leader in the Reign of God is to be a servant…it is to make oneself available to the other. He says that the one who wishes to be the greatest among them must be a servant to the rest, and the one who wishes to be first must be slave to all.

This image of the Reign of God that Jesus gives us turns our vision of the world on its head because it proclaims to us that the most important among us is to act as the least and to serve the others -- especially the poor, the social outcast, the marginalized, and those in need.

In Jesus’ world, as in ours today, servants were considered to be on the bottom rungs of the ladder of society. They were and are considered by many to be the invisible ones, the expendable ones of our society, and they are often treated in the most undignified ways. Those who work as domestics and in actual serving roles are most often subjected to maltreatment, lack access to decent healthcare, are not paid just wages, have no paid family leave or sick leave and are denied job security. So, somehow, we have missed this central core message of Jesus on what we should be building, as we work to build up the Reigh of God in the here and now!

In the Reign of God, the servants are truly the special ones. By their service to others, they follow Jesus Christ’s example, and through their actions proclaim their citizenship in the Reign of God and put their discipleship into action!

So let us reflect this week on our own place in the world and in the Reign of God. As a disciple of Jesus, who am I being called to serve? Who are the people who serve me in one way or another in my daily life, and how do I treat them? How do I make myself available to the poor and the marginalized; to those in need of help in my life so that I might reflect Christ’s love to them and more fully live out my discipleship?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

In today’s Gospel Jesus warns us about becoming too complacent and comfortable in our faith. He warns that “some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last”. Note that he does not say that all who are last will be first nor will all who are first be last.

Jesus exclaims that the “gate to the Kingdom of Heaven is narrow” …he compares the size of the gate of heaven to “the eye of the needle”.

Jesus says that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven. So, what chance do I have of passing through this gate?

In reality, as I have shared before, “the eye of the needle” refers to a small door built into the huge gates to the entrance of the walled city of Old Jerusalem.

The truth is that a person could easily pass through the “eye of the needle,” but a camel could only pass through it if all of the supplies it was carrying were first “off-loaded”. It would be difficult, but the camel, stooping low, with saddle and supplies removed, could enter through the “eye of the needle” and into the walled city.

I believe the point being made is that we need to “off-load” our “stuff” and be willing to set down “things” that keep us from being about the work of building up the Reign of God.

The other image in today’s Gospel is also inspiring: the image of the rich young man who lived a righteous life and had kept the law and all the commandments but when Jesus asked him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor, it was just too much for the young man. He walked away from Jesus sad, seemingly because he was too attached to his many possessions.

The fact is that sometimes our possessions -- the “things” we own -- can own us. They can take up much of our time and we can become overly preoccupied with caring for them and using them and obtaining more of them and storing them. They can take our attention away from other things that we should focus on, like our relationship with Jesus and living out our discipleship by being at the service of others, especially the poor and marginalized.

And so, in light of today’s Gospel, we might ask…what things do I need to “off-load” in my life in order to pay more attention to my discipleship, and to building up the Reign of God by tending to the needs of my sisters and brothers in need my help?
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Blessings,
Fr. Tim

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sets aside the law of Moses regarding Jewish divorce law. Jesus makes it clear that while “the law” allowed a man, in a rather simple manner, to divorce his wife and kick her out of his house, Jesus found it unacceptable.

In the first century Middle Eastern world women were basically the property of men. They had little or no identity aside from that which they had through their connection to male members of their family. They were either a man’s daughter, sister, mother, or wife.

Women rarely had an identity of their own which was not rooted in some relationship to a male. When a man
divorced his wife, she lost her identity within the community. When she had married her husband her primary identity came through him, no longer through her birth family. By the action of her husband, the divorce would have shamed her and cut her off from many ties in her community. She would have been seen as bringing shame on her family of origin and therefore likely not welcome in their home nor in the home of another man because the divorce would have brought shame upon her, given that they lived in an honor-/shame-based society.

For all practical purposes, the woman (and often her children) would be turned out into the streets to fend for herself and for her children. Scripture scholars point out that it is this reality that Jesus found so unacceptable. In this case the woman and her children became the “the very least of the society,” those for whom Jesus claimed the rest of the society was responsible. Jesus’ concern is about
the woman and the children.

Mosaic law allowed for divorce but without concern for what happened to the woman. There was no court that divided up the property of the couple in an equitable manner; it all went to the man. The man was the owner of all the property and objects contained in the home. Moses didn’t take into consideration the shame that would befall the woman when he wrote the law concerning divorce. Jesus, speaking to the Pharisees, a group of men, said that it was because of “the hardness of their hearts” that Moses allowed them to dispose of their wives in this manner.

Given Jesus’ teachings on the marginalized and the outcast of society, how do I respond to the needs of the “rejected ones” and those “turned out” by our society today? And for us men…how do we view a women’s place in our society and societies around the world and in the church? And, how do I view women in my personal relationships…and are my views of, and my treatment of women in line with Jesus’
teachings?
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Blessings,
Fr. Tim