What prevents us truly seeing?

Meister Eckhart, fourteenth century mystic said, “Some people want to see God with their eyes like they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow. They love their cow for the milk and cheese and profit it makes them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do no rightly love God when they love him for their own advantage. Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have on your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inner most truth. God, rid me of God. “

Job and his friends obeyed God for the life promised in reward. The disciples followed Jesus in the hope of being on the winning side when “the messiah” won the day and the life promised in reward. They were like the blind man that Jesus took two goes at healing, who saw giants. It would take a lot, a confrontation with God, a crucifixion and resurrection before they began to see as clearly as Bartimaeus. It takes time to see properly.

These stories are filled with people only understood as categories and not as people. Job’s so called friends stopped seeing a friend and instead saw a sinner. And with the sanitised ending attached later on to make Job more palatable, do we see a person still grieving for all that was lost despite what new life is restored, or just a good person rewarded?

The person, Bartimaeus, gets lost too amongst the others healed. He stops being a real person and becomes a way Mark can make a point. We fail to see his despair and grief over a life lost, or a life never lived because of blindness. Jesus truly sees him and invites those who see Bartimaeus only as a noisy beggar whose place is on the edge and in silence, to call him. Jesus does not assume he knows this Bartimaeus or what he wants. He invites him to speak for himself and to name what it was he most deeply desired. When asked the same question James and John wanted power, wealth, and honour. They are the blind ones. Bartimaeus wants life. And he follows Jesus on the way of/to the cross to that life.

What is it we need to be rid of? Who do we not see? What blinds us to the people around us who we conveniently label? What prevents us truly seeing?