HOMILY FOR THIRTIETH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR
Did you know that in the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus are known as “followers of the Way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9m 23)? That is the earliest title given to these followers of Jesus, even before they were known as “Christians”. Why? Well, first of all, Jesus described himself, in John 14: 6 as “the Way” as well as “the Truth “and “The Life”. He is the way to the Father, the truth from the Father the very life of the Father. He is the Way to the Father, for he said “No-one can come to the Father, except through me “(John 14:6). To follow the way of Jesus, in other words, to become a disciple of Jesus, is to come to have personal relationship with God as His Father, and our Father. So, we see, in our gospel today, that Bartimaeus, “follows Jesus on the way”. He could have chosen not to, once he received his sight. Jesus left him totally free to choose, as he does with each one of us. “Go”, he says to Bartimaeus, in other words “you are free to go whichever way you choose”. This is very important for those who think that somehow God forces us to become a disciple of Jesus. No, God has left us free will, and he will not interfere with that, or ever take it away from us.
Then, to follow the way of Jesus is to follow the “way of the cross”. When Jesus and his disciples leave Jericho in our gospel, they are only going one way – to Jerusalem, where Jesus has made it abundantly clear, over and over again, that, there, he is to face persecution, arrest, torture and death, but after three days, he will rise again from death. Anyone who aspires to become a disciple of Jesus must prepare themselves for difficulty and hardship “Whoever aspires to serve the Lord” warns the writer of the book of Sirach solemnly, “must prepare themselves for trials” (Sirach 2: 1). Jesus also tells it like it is: “If anyone wants to become my follower, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). As I said in my homily last week, this does not necessarily mean physical martyrdom, though for some, it may. But it always implies a willingness to die to our own selfish desires and ambitions so as to live a life of charity and service for the Lord and for others, just as Jesus did. Remember how he said, “I came not to be served, but to serve” in last week’s gospel? You adults know, and you will already be teaching your children this as well, that only a life given away to help and support others is worth having. To live selfishly, and greedily, cruelly, unforgivingly, will not, in the end, produce genuine happiness in your life. You will also be telling your children that nothing worth having in life is to be had without effort, determination, and discipline. Exactly, when we are talking about the best riches of all, an eternal life of blessedness in heaven, what effort, determination and discipline should we not be willing to put into achieving that destiny?
You young people, listening to us, and your parents, may already be going “Uh-huh, you know, this doesn’t sound much fun, this being a disciple of Jesus. If that is what being confirmed signs me up for, I think I’d better pass”. So let me sweeten the pill for you a little. In being confirmed, you are signing up for, or your children are signing up for, a way of love, in imitation of the perfect, unconditional, undying love of Jesus for each one of us. St Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12: 31 promises to show us “a still more excellent WAY” before launching into his most famous chapter on Love. You remember those lines of Scripture, don’t you, brothers and sisters? Perhaps some of you had them read at your wedding. “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant, or rude. It does not insist on its own WAY! it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8). These are what is known as “the fruits of the Spirit” (cf Galatians 22-23) and are a part of what the Holy Spirit does in us at our baptism and confirmation. He molds us into the image of Christ and breathes into us the spirit of holiness. Your young people who are going to be confirmed next year, you are being shaped into disciples of Jesus who will change the world by living lives of holiness, love, faith and hope at the service of a world which is desperately in need of such.
Finally, one more aspect of becoming a disciple of Jesus, following his way, and not the way of the world, or one’s own way, In the gospel, we are told that the blind beggar’s name is Bartimaeus. One meaning of that name is “son of uncleanness”. The other meaning is “a prize” or “something of value” People commonly in Jesus’ time, considered blindness, as well as other physical sufferings, to be punishment from God for their sins. As such, they would not have seen much value in the blind beggar. Jesus would have seen “value’ in Bartimaeus that other people overlooked. For Jesus, he was truly “a son of value” and Jesus gave him value as he followed him as a disciple. Those of you who are going to be confirmed must know that it was not you who chose to be a follower of Jesus, but Jesus who chose you to be his disciple. Because he sees real value and worth in you and wants to shape you into someone who will, through the Spirit, be able to see others through the eyes of Jesus, see value in them, that others don’t see, because they don’t have the Spirit of God in them..
The Bible, from first to last, makes clear to us, brothers and sisters, that we have two ways to go: the way of selfishness, self-entitlement, self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, or the way of the Lord, the way of selflessness, of self-commitment, of self-sacrifice, of love towards others. (Psalm 1). One way leads to disaster, condemnation, devastation. The other leads to fullness of life, of love, of light.
Which one will we choose?