When it
comes to the commandment to love God and to love our neighbor, are we humble
enough to recognize that we may be blind with respect to other persons or
groups of people, or even to the rest of creation? When I get in my car, I have enough sense and
humility to know that I can have blind spots when I’m driving. The car has a rearview mirror, and side
mirrors, and in some of the newer cars, a system that has a light that blinks
when there’s another vehicle coming up on one side of me or the other. I also have the sense to follow the training I
received in Driver’s Ed and look to the side and a little behind when I want to
change lanes. But can I have enough humility to recognize that I may have a
blind spot when it comes to certain people or groups of people? And am I willing to ask God to let me see?
When we have
trouble seeing others as God sees them: as those beloveds of God, there is
blindness there. It can be comfortable
to stay in our blindness. We may be more
apt to jump to conclusions than to be like Bartimaeus and jump up to be healed
of our blindness.
Does this
mean we should turn a blind eye, so to speak, to evil and injustice? No, we have an obligation to speak up for what
is right and just. We are to work for
justice and peace and the common good as our way of helping build up the kingdom
and following the commandment to love. But does that have to involve being blind to
the humanity of the “other?” Does it
mean we try to take God’s place in condemning others? I think not.
Bartimaeus
reminds us to ask for God’s grace to see clearly; to see others and all of
creation as we are meant to see them.
