Jeremiah 31: 7-9; Psalm 126; Hebrews 5: 1-6; Mark 10: 46-52
In this year of the priest, how appropriate that our second readings on the Sundays of October and November are from Hebrews which focuses on Jesus our only high priest, and on the new covenant he embodied. Our first reading today is God’s promise of that new covenant, one of ingathering, bringing everyone, even the blind, lame and outcast home. God will personally gather from the farthest part of the earth the blind and the lame—those judged to be sinners in Jesus’ Judaism. “Those who sow in tears will reap rejoicing,” the psalmist proclaims. Bartimaeus doesn’t weep but yells out for God’s mercy made tangible in Jesus. “Many sternly ordered him to be quiet.” Reflecting in this year of the priest, we notice that priests can be like God, welcoming the lame, blind and sinful; or they can be like the crowd, telling those most in need of mercy to be quiet. Hebrews highlights Jesus’ priesthood, mediating not between us and God, for God already is covenanted with us, but between the outcast and the righteous. Pope Benedict says: “The heart of scripture is that God desires mercy, not sacrifice” (June 8, 2008).
We were brought up to see priests as mediating, like Jesus, between us and a wrathful God. No longer. We, so immersed in scripture, are beginning to believe what the Pope says. Can you believe it? Good news: you are loved, unconditionally and forever. Ask to believe, to trust God’s steady love, and ask that all Christians might give up fearing God, judging others and might welcome the outcast instead.
Open our eyes! Have mercy on us, we shout to you, Jesus. Help us to take into our hearts all those whom the world despises. Give us your heart of mercy, please.