Jesus is calling you

30th Sunday Ordinary Time

The disciples on the road with Jesus, eyewitnesses to his miracles and privileged recipients of his teaching, should have been looking for Bartimaeus, but they were too focused on themselves and their own concerns. They didn’t even see the blind beggar until he had made a ruckus. Bartimaeus, cast to the roadside, kept his sight outward, waiting with vigilant hope for the Son of David. The crowd that gathered with Jesus called for silence at the cry of the poor.

But Bartimaeus, with eyes of faith and a voice to proclaim it, called out louder for the mercy he knew was waiting for him. Earlier, the man who sought eternal life but chose his many possessions instead had turned away from Jesus’s path. Bartimaeus threw aside his only possession, his cloak, sprang up, and followed Jesus right into Jerusalem and the cross.

Bartimaeus’s example of true discipleship calls us to be better disciples ourselves. We must look to the peripheries for those society makes invisible, and be ready to find Jesus there. Amplify the cries for justice by those oppressed, and do not silence them out of a need to preserve order or our own comfort. And when anyone we encounter is in need of mercy, without delay we can turn to them and say, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”

This post was first published in “GIA Quarterly: A Liturgical Music Journal.”

Image credit: Photo by Peter John Maridable.

Read more reflections on the Sunday readings here:

• Restraint and Generosity
• Going Further
• Can we be salt and light?
• Who is advocating for those in need?
• Bonded to Christ’s Mission