Homily for 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
At this moment, nestling in your pocket there may be a mobile phone. Now is not the
time to wave it about; instead marvel with me at this silly piece of trivia: it was reported
recently that Samsung’s mobile phones are most popular with the over 55s whereas half of
people aged between 16 and 34 have an iPhone. This persuaded one newspaper to run a story
about it under the headline ‘It’s official: Samsungs are for old people.’
I mention this silly piece of trivia because increasingly those of us who own a mobile
phone say it is the one thing we wouldn’t want to leave behind somewhere or have taken from
us. I was on a train one evening last week and I noticed in what was a crowded carriage that
there was only one person who did not then have in their hand a mobile phone. It wasn’t me; it
was a baby. The rest of us were checking emails, making calls, playing games, listening to music
and doing all the other things you can do with a mobile phone. This modern gadget has become
the one thing we can’t do without.
In this Sunday’s gospel we encounter someone who has no mobile phone but ends up
leaving behind the one thing we would imagine he could not do without. Mark the gospel writer
tells us that Bartimaeus is a blind beggar and like the beggars we sometimes encounter on our
streets he is sitting at the side of the road begging (Mk 10). And what is he sitting on? His cloak,
the one thing he can’t do without. His cloak keeps him dry when it rains, it keeps him cool when
the sun is hot and it keeps him warm when at night he sleeps under its protecting cover. Unlike
our mobile phones which we could do without if we really had to, Bartimaeus needs his cloak.
But in one of those tiny details in the gospel which are always significant he leaves it behind.
Bartimaeus’ cloak is replaced not by something but by someone, Jesus. Bartimaeus
decides he cannot do without Jesus. When he hears that Jesus is about to walk in his direction
he shouts out ‘have mercy on me’, when told to keep quiet he shouts all the louder. And when
told, ‘get up, Jesus is calling you’ the gospel writer tells us ‘throwing off his cloak Bartimaeus
jumped up and went to Jesus.’ Why does he leave behind his cloak? It is because he has decided
his faith in Jesus is the one thing he cannot do without. And the gospel ends today with the
words ‘and immediately his sight returned and he followed Jesus along the road.’
The cloak is important and so too is the road. What is that road? My friends it is the road
of discipleship. The first Christians used to refer to themselves as a people of the Way, the Way
of Jesus and in a sense it is to travel a road. Bartimaeus began walking this road this way of
Jesus just outside Jericho, a town which pilgrims today still pass through as they travel from
Galilee to Jerusalem, a journey which geographically runs from north to south. ‘See’, said the
Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, ‘I will gather my people from the land of the North. I will guide
them to streams of water.’ (Jer 31) My friends, it is our Christian belief that what the Lord told
Jeremiah came true centuries later when in Galilee Jesus invited the first disciples to follow
him, a journey which took them to Jerusalem, to his death and resurrection and yes to their
profession of faith in Him.
Bartimaeus is said to have followed Jesus along the road. We don’t know how long he
stayed a disciple or where he ended up living. But what we do know is that tiny detail of him
leaving behind his cloak, the one thing you would think he could not do without. That gospel
detail is something to remember, it can inspire us to stay on the same road, on the road of
discipleship, walking with Jesus from our own Galilee to Jerusalem. Where did you first hear of
Jesus? It may have been here in Portsmouth or someplace further away but wherever it was that
was your Galilee, that was when you began the road of discipleship and today it’s brought you
here to a place called Portsmouth or is it Jericho. Here you like me choose to stay on the road of
discipleship, staying with Jesus because we believe he is the one person we cannot do without.
And that’s no exaggeration is it?
I’ve noticed that we are often quick these days to exaggerate the importance of
something or someone. We say things like, ‘I couldn’t live without him. She means everything to
me. My mobile phone? I couldn’t live without that.’ But really, we exaggerate don’t we? Often
we do have to live without someone or something. This does not have to be true about Jesus. He
is God’s greatest gift to us so let us not be afraid to respond to him like Bartimaeus.
Let us keep jumping up and coming to Jesus physically at Mass on a Sunday and mentally
in our daily personal prayer. Do we pray each and every day? To do so is to provide Jesus with a
daily opportunity to ask us the question he put to Bartimaeus: ‘what is it you want me to do for
you?’ Do you know as I get older the one thing I want Him to do for me is to stay with me. When
I get anxious or afraid about something I often pray ‘Lord, help me to remember your last words
in Matthew’s gospel: Matthew 28, ‘know that I am with you always.’ When I do remember them –
and sadly sometimes I forget – but when I remember Matthew 28 those words of Jesus ‘know that
I am with you always’ encourage me to keep going.
What do you want Jesus to do for you? Together let us think about this at Mass today. Let
us turn to Him like Bartimaeus did and follow Jesus along the road of discipleship, the road from
Galilee to Jerusalem. Do you remember that silly piece of trivia about Samsung being the most
popular mobile phone for the over 55s, trivia which was advertised under the headline: It’s
official! Samsungs are for old people? My friends, our gospel today proclaims a different kind of
headline, one which says: It’s official. Jesus is for everyone. He’s the one you cannot do
without. Who gave us this headline? God so let’s try not to forget it.