Vision-quest
(10-25-2009)
"I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water on a level road, so that none shall stumble.” (Jer: 31:8)
The Prophet Jeremiah’s words bring such comfort in his message to us this Sunday. The Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel. The reading is addressed to the people in exile and the parallel may be drawn to the ways we may feel in exile at times.
What takes us away our personal center… ...our sense of security…feelings of wellness? Perhaps it is you or a loved one suffering from illness—and feeling isolated. Maybe it is encountering aging in ways unexpected that sets off feelings of strangeness—demands for surrendering. It could be any number of experiences that causes one to feel that they have entered into a “strange territory” or “away from home.” It is during such times, and many others, in our lives that we need to know that God has not abandoned us, and that somehow relief will come if we remain faithful and abide.
Very often during such suffering it is difficult to find the quietude to hear God call out to us with guidance and love, to bring us comfort and hope in those places of exile. However, if we force ourselves to sit and open our hearts God will search us out and lead us back. And who better than God knows how worn out we may be—how weary and broken. Worth repeating:
"I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water on a level road, so that none shall stumble.”(Jer: 31:8)
How does God do all this? We know that it is through one another. The witness of faith includes witnessing the love of God in our lives, and that witness is extended by the way we help one another—especially in times of alienation, illness, grief, struggling with life issues. God’s comfort comes through one another—above all when we see faith in God in one another—we see God here with us.
Such faith is expressed in our gospel from Mark for today. Bartimaeus, who was blind, cries out:
"Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” How often do we cry out similar words?
And how many of us would love to hear the answer that Jesus spoke to Bartimaeus who was blind?
“Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
What powerful words of healing, reconciliation and compassion. Jesus passes by and says "Have faith in me—I’m with you."
The result of the healing is a vision quest for Bartimaeus reverses the cliché that seeing is believing. For him, believing is seeing. He had faith that Jesus would take “pity.” Then Bartimaeus follows the Lord, and provides a vision for others to seek faith in Jesus.
Witnessing faith as a sign of being saved by Jesus is a gift offered to us and one another as we see one another at the Eucharist, our involvement with the life of the church, our faith family, the many ministries and support services, and all in our claim of faith in Jesus. And it isn’t easy to do so in today’s world where Christian values and morals are put to the test day after day.
Daily I hear of the many challenges our families face in economic survival, job survival, the issues our youth face in school, social gatherings, even on the sport’s fields-- around issues of drugs, sex, violence, gangs, and all the temptations and peer pressure you endure. God bless each of you as you struggle to see life with eyes of faith and hope—that Jesus is with us in our Christian witness. Your presence as a part of our faith family declares your choices to witness. And all of us grow to be better Christians by the presence of one another. Our faith family becomes one in Christ—one in the vision quest to see him and be him for one another.
I am inspired by all the good you are willing to do to help one another and the parish. How blessed we are to see you involved in all of our ministries.
One of the many lessons of the gospel today, is the powerful way we need to join Bartimaeus and pray: “Master I want to see.”
We need to see: the goodness in one another; how blessed we are in our faith; the gift of being a part of this faith family in the here and now. With all of our diversity in the many faces and races of God, with our age differences from young to elderly, and economic differences-plural—yet one in him who came to teach us how to see as he sees—with compassion, care, and hope. Let us pray to the Lord: Master let people see you in me.
Blessed Vision, Fr. Gordon
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