Walking trees.

08Aug
Jesus asked, “Can you see anything?’ And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’ Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
- Mark 8: 23 - 25

In the Gospels there are so many examples of Jesus giving sight to the blind that it seems the archetypical miracle. What gift could be more practically wonderful for the previously blind individual and also more metaphorically apt for what Jesus brings to all who believe? “I once was blind but now I see” applies to all the faithful, not just those who were once biologically incapable of vision.

But in this one story from Mark we encounter something different, something strange. At first the partially blind man sees people “but they look like walking trees.” It is only after Jesus reapplies his hands and his intent gaze that the healing is finally complete. What are we to make of this oddity?

No one thinks of most trees as having individuality, having personality, having identity. We might be able to tell a maple from a live oak or even remember one favorite tree from childhood that we used to climb, but one tree is pretty much like another to most us, banished to the background of life. Telling them apart is really not all that important.

How easy is it for us to see the people in our lives whom we hardly know – the passersby on the street, the beggar at the stoplight, the clerk at the counter – as “just another person,” a “walking tree” so to speak, that has neither identity nor personhood. 

When faith in Jesus opens the eyes of the blind, I believe part of what we learn to see is that ALL people are beloved of God, ALL are worthy of respect and care, ALL are individuals of infinite value to God – and therefore should also be to us.

If we all really lived with that vision of one another, Christ’s vision, what a different world it would be!

Musical Reflection - You Don't Know Me - Ray Charles

God of light and truth, open our eyes to see your likeness in everyone around us that we may never dismiss another of your children as worth anything less than the best we have to give AMEN.
GospelKingdom of God
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