I wasn’t always a minister, I used to be a schoolboy. But seriously, I have served time on the pews myself and I remember the panic of frantically tidying up the living room when I knew my minister was coming round to visit. You’d set out the best cups and saucers along with a lovely plate of biscuits for such an esteemed visitor (hint hint). You’d have been mortified if the minister had come round when your house was in a state and there were dirty dishes everywhere. Yet, the truth is, when I visit, I really don’t care about stuff like that. I know life is busy and messy and there’s more important things to worry about than where the good china tea service is. As humans though, we like to create the best impression of ourselves and get uncomfortable at the thought of being embarrassed by something that is less than perfect in our lives.

Our reading today is about the healing of Blind Bartimaeus. While it’s a good wrap up of our last three weeks of teaching in Mark’s gospel, we tend to focus on the main characters of Jesus and Bartimaeus. To do so misses an important aspect namely the attitude of the crowd as Jesus passes through. The whole town seems to have turned out to see this famous teacher pass through. Among the crowd that day is the blind beggar Bartimaeus who calls out to Jesus to heal him. The crowd “sternly order him to be quiet”. Is this blind beggar giving Jesus a bad impression of their town? Does it reflect badly on them as a town that this blind beggar is making a nuisance of himself? Do they want Jesus to think that their town is better than having people like Bartimaeus there?

As a society I worry that we take a similar approach at times. Do we seek to brush over and pretend there is no one needy among us because it makes us look bad or because we don’t want to think about them? Do we try and dehumanise the poor so we can pretend we don’t have any responsibility towards them? Do we try and steer visitors to our area away from areas that we think might make it appear we live in a “bad area”? Do we resent anyone drawing attention to those we consider “undesirable” among us because it shows we are failing in our core Christian duty to care for the least among us? What about our churches? Are we modelling places that welcome and accept everyone or do we fear that some types of people will “bring us down”? We need to see everyone the same way Jesus did. Everyone is a valued and loved child of God. Everyone has dignity bestowed upon them by God. It is up to us to accept that and ensure we are creating a society that welcomes and accepts everyone as Jesus would.