Sunday 27th of October 2024 - 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 31:7-9/ Psalm 125(126)/ Hebrews 5:1-6/ Mark 10:46-52

Who are the ‘in crowd’ in our lives? We are encouraged by the world around us to conform to the accepted norms of the day. If we are considered to be out of step with current thinking we can find ourselves outcast from the mainstream of society, unfashionable, ill-informed, and risk becoming unpopular. These are all traits that in these days of social media influencers we are under pressure to avoid at all costs. Our Christian faith will often require us to be counter cultural in that our way of life will be in opposition to the values and norms of mainstream society. Many of the attitudes of modern western culture are now considerably misaligned with our Judeo-Christian values and the values apparent from natural law. Although it is disappointing to find ourselves at odds with modern thinking it is not something to be concerned about, indeed, with things as they are and the way they are going we should be content in the knowledge that we are not following the popular thinking of the supposed in crowd.

In the gospel today we find the in crowd following Jesus. Bartimaeus, a blind outcast, was considered to be a sinner, his blindness a punishment. In fact the crowd were the blind ones with Bartimaeus having the true sight to see Jesus for who he was. He was ready to throw off the cloak symbolising his old life and had the bravery to shout out his faith in Jesus confident that Jesus had the power and willingness to heal him. The crowd were dismissive of Bartimaeus, possibly even embarrassed by his outburst. Once Jesus was seen to be taking notice of this shouting, worthless, beggar, the attitude changed, and the crowd turned their attention to Bartimaeus. How fickle humanity can be when seeking to be on the right side of the fence, and how quickly the fence can be jumped when opinion changes? Bartimaeus shows us what it is to have faith, to be courageous in proclaiming it in a sceptical world, and how determination and persistence will be rewarded by God.

We need to feel the courage our faith brings us so that we can ignore the in crowd and call out to God with courage, going against the shallow and passing fashions of contemporary thinking, always returning to the fundamental truths that God’s word in scripture, and the natural law gives us. We too must throw off the heavy cloak of a world laden life and move towards God through a steadfast, unwavering faith in Jesus and his willing ability to cure us of our blindness. A blindness that is often caused by the bright lights of the world shinning in the eyes of our souls obscuring our vision of Jesus, who he is, and why he came to us as one of us. Jesus is there willing to heal  but, as with Bartimaeus, we must move towards him in faith. Once healed by Jesus we should continue to follow him, become a disciple, ignoring the risk of ridicule and hostility from the world.

We can continue through life blind, sitting on the side of the road begging, groping through the mire of this world searching for the answers to life. Or we can look to Jesus, shout out our faith in him, move towards him in confidence, disregarding what others may think about us or seek to do to us, and become a disciple, following Jesus along the road down which he wants to lead us through this life into God’s eternal kingdom.

God Bless

Brendan