Brief synopsis of the readings: From Jeremiah we read about how God has delivered his people from the remnant of Israel. God will return them, even the blind and lame. Though they left in tears they will return in joy. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus was leaving Jericho with a large crowd when a blind man, Bartimeaus, called out for healing. Some in the crowd tried to silence him but Jesus asked for him. He again asked that Jesus heal him and Jesus told him: “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Bartimaeus’ sight was restored and he followed Jesus.

At first glance our Gospel doesn’t look much different than the other healing stories. Jesus comes upon someone in need of healing, marvels at his faith, and heals him. But there is one aspect of this reading that struck me: we know his name.

Ordinarily the emphasis of Jesus’ healing stories is the healing itself. We learn about lepers that are cleaned, the woman whose bleeding disorder is halted, and the lame who walk again. But we aren’t given their names, because their names didn’t matter. After all, while the stories of Jesus life were passed down from person to person, Mark didn’t actually write his Gospel until nearly 40 years later. So why did Bartimaeus’ name survive all the oral telling and still matter?

Ultimately we don’t know. I read that his name literally means “honorable son,” and was unusual because it was a Greek name. Perhaps Bartimeaus later became someone whose name was known and was passed on or because Jesus healed a Greek and that was noteworthy. There were Jews who lived in Greece and spoke Greek but there was an often uneasy relationship with the Jews who spoke Aramaic. There’s a real possibility that when Jesus’ followers saw Bartimeaus they wanted to keep him away from Jesus because he was Greek.

In any case we have to give props to Bartimeaus, if not for his faith, at least for his tenacity. This wasn’t the only time someone approached Jesus and had been blocked by Jesus’ followers but Bartimeaus would not be denied.

It’s worth asking why Jesus’ disciples tried to block Bartimeaus. As I said there’s at least the possibility that it was because Bartimeaus was Greek and they didn’t see him as a “real Jew” and didn’t deserve access to Jesus. It sounds crazy because we know that Jesus’ power to heal is limitless and why wouldn’t they want Jesus to perform another miracle?

OK, candidly, we see this more often than we like. I once worked at a parish where pastor instructed the receptionist that her job was to protect him from the parishioners. One day a family registered in the parish and asked if they could meet the pastor. She told him that was impossible while at the same time she saw him coming around the corner; rather than introduce the pastor to the new parishioner she signaled him; he turned around and ran up the stairs to the living quarters. In fairness she was just following orders but it looked to me like the exact opposite of what a welcoming parish.

We are, simply put, not in charge of who should be able to ask for healing, or at least we shouldn’t be. Talk to people who identify as ex Catholics and many of them will talk about how they felt that it was all about following the rules and only then getting what we want (e.g. the ability to marry in the church). When they seek a closer relationship with God they are told by others that they don’t deserve it. Last week I talked about the lure of ambition to build ourselves up and I have to confess that as I age I get less and less tolerant of that.

We may not like immigrants and we may think they are out to harm us, but they are no less deserving of God’s love and our support than anyone else. Those of us who are puzzled by people who identify as nonbinary don’t get to decide how God sees them or what they need to do to be “normal.” As I’ve said before if we intend to live a Christian life we need to truly understand that God has no respect for our prejudices, regardless of how well reasoned they are.

There is no such thing as a voluntary refugee and nobody navigates the Mediterranean Sea on a raft to luxuriously live of the labor of others. When Jesus commanded us to welcome the stranger he wasn’t talking about people who look like us, speak like us, or act like us.

In fairness Jesus also never said that anything we (or others) do is fine with him and we shouldn’t hold ourselves or others to a common standard. But too often we use the “higher calling” to advance our prejudices. I’m currently reading an excellent book on the decade leading to the Civil War where the issue of slavery nearly ended our nation. I’m struck by how extremists on both sides claimed absolution from the law because they believed they were answering to God who outranked the US Constitution. Gandhi and Martin Luther King showed us that there is a place for civil disobedience but the idea that God somehow blessed slavery stretches the imagination. They argued that people of color were inferior (intellectually and morally), needed the supervision of white people, and were generally happy with their lot in life.

At the end of the day we live in a world where some people are healed and others are not. We’ve never figured a way out of this seeming randomness and God has never felt any need to explain this to us. But we need to tread carefully around the urge to decide we can find order in this. We need to stop deciding that poverty is self inflicted, that God is behind (or at least supports) the conflicts that cause people to flee all they know. We need to understand that when Jesus beckoned Bartimeaus over his disciples objections he didn’t care that Bartimeaus spoke Greek: he cared only that he was in need of healing.