Homily offered by Dcn. Michael Schlaack on Luke 18: 35-43
Although we may not realize it, Jesus is always closer than we think He is. When we get caught up in the crowds and noise that surrounds us, we can sometimes have a problem seeing the Son of God and experiencing His healing touch. We become like the blind man in today’s account, hearing the commotion around us but not being able to see the reason for all the excitement. But through faithful persistence, Christ will see us first, even if He seems to be nothing more than a distant voice in the crowd.
People of faith seem to be asking a common question today: Where is God? If we allow ourselves to be totally absorbed in the news and social media, it may very well seem to us that God has forgotten us. Between the chaos in the streets, a global pandemic, and dysfunction in our political system, we can sometimes feel like a blind man on the side of the road, never sure what exactly is happening around us. Can our cries for help be heard above the crowd? Is there a God out there who truly cares about the fear and the suffering of His creation?
Today’s Gospel account from St. Luke shows us what we must do to be heard above the din and confusion of the crowd. It’s not enough to simply be there standing in the crowd; we must demonstrate the strength of our faith by persistently seeking the face of God, even if we cannot physically see him. It is therefore important for us to cry out to Christ when He passes by. Jesus is always nearest when we need Him the most. As we see from our Gospel lesson, when the opportunity presented itself, the blind man did not hesitate to cry out to the Lord despite the ridicule by the other people in the crowd. They were probably there just to see this prophet from Nazareth. Maybe they were all in good physical health and did not see a need to cry out as the blind man did. Or maybe their faith was not strong enough to be able to provide the fertile ground required for such healing miracles to take place. In any case we notice that it is the blind man who received the mercy of God because of his persistence.
This type of faithful persistence is a common theme that we find throughout the Gospels. We remember the account of the Canaanite woman with the with the sick daughter who followed after Jesus, calling out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed” (Matt. 15:22). Her constant cry for mercy was to the point of even annoying the disciples: “Send her away, for she cries out after us” (v. 23) the disciples told Jesus. But her persistence paid off, and even though she was not of the Jewish faith but a Gentile, Jesus could see into her heart where His disciples could not, and because of her great faith demonstrated by her continuous plea, Jesus declared her daughter healed “from that very hour” (v. 28). Jesus was passing by and the Canaanite woman would not take “No” for an answer.
In another example of faithful persistence from St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us of the importance of being bold and tenacious in our prayers. In this parable of the widow seeking justice (Luke 18:1-8), Jesus relates a story about a widow who was seeking justice from a city judge who did not fear God. The widow constantly demanded justice from the judge, but the judge kept ignoring her. Finally the judge gives in, not because he feared God but because her constant pleas were wearing him down: “’yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she will weary me’ ” (v. 5). The point of this parable is not that God will continually ignore our prayers until He gets tired of hearing us; the lesson Jesus was bringing to our attention is that our persistence is a sign of depth of our faith. As we pray with boldness and tenacity, our faith increases. Christians know that they cannot go through periods of suffering without being changed, either for the better or for the worse. Those who come into the situation with faith will only get stronger. Faith that is only the size of a mustard seed will continue to grow as we call out to God without ceasing.
But why does it seem that God makes us beg and suffer? If He is such a loving God, then He would grant us our petitions without so much pleading. Or maybe He would cure our diseases and relieve our suffering even without us asking. We will never know how many times we have been saved from injury, disease or suffering by some holy intervention even before we know we are able to feel the pain. Just maybe God is loving, and He is watching over us keeping us safe from harm. Could it be that we receive so many blessings from our Heavenly Father that we have become so blind ourselves to the fact that we really are being watched and loved? When was the last time we took an inventory of just how good we have it, and taken the time to thank God for those blessings? If we did, we will see that God is never that far away, and that His love and mercy is much closer that we may think.
The blind man’s tenacity resulted in the immediate restoration of his sight. The blindness that was cured, however was both physical and spiritual. We see that the Gospel account tells us that the formerly blind man followed Jesus, glorifying God (v. 43). An encounter with Christ, especially one so miraculous as this one, has an immediate affect on the faithful. Through this encounter, Jesus made another disciple, another follower who will help to spread the Good News by glorifying God. It is important to remember that before we can become effective evangelists, we must first learn how to become faithful disciples. We must know how to follow Christ before we can lead other to Him. Even the Apostles had to undergo an extensive training period, learning directly from the Son of God Himself, before they were ready to spread the Gospel to the rest of the world. If discipleship was important for the Jesus’ disciples, then think about how much more important it is for us. We must follow Christ in order to learn from the Master so that we do not become the like the blind leading the blind, where they will both fall into a pit of misunderstanding and heresy (Matt. 15:14). The job of the true disciple is to learn to be a follower and thereby lead other by giving God the glory.
We should take some time to reflect on this Gospel lesson and ask: Are we living our faith “out loud?” Do others notice that we are calling out to Christ? It is not enough to say “Lord, Lord” on Sundays and expect that we are doing all that needs to be done to receive our salvation and to lead others to Christ: We must also do the will the Father in Heaven (Matt. 7:21). Living our faith loudly means being able to be seen, as well as heard, above the noise of the crowd that is often trying to suppress Christ’s message. Jesus is passing by us every minute of every day, and we must be ready to call out to him with the strength of faith so we can be heard above the deafening noise of the world. We must be able to see with both our eyes and our heart in order to know when Christ is passing by.