Bartimaeus

Today's reading, following the lectionary year, is about Bartimaeus. This unsung hero's story is found in Mark 10:46-52. In our guest priest's sermon today I had another aha moment.
When the priest told us just "why" Bartimaeus was the hero in this reading, he used last week's reading (Mark 10:35-37) in which John and James asked Christ to let them sit on his right and left side, as comparison. Christ asked John and James, just as He asked Bartimaeus, "What do you want Me to do for you?"
In the case of John and James they wanted favor. In the case of Bartimaeus, he wanted sight.
But the aha came when I understood, when God spoke to my heart via this young priest, that the sight, is the insight to our own salvation. The sight that Christ is the Salvation of the world. The sight to understand that just knowing this isn't quite enough--but seeing it is everything.
It sounds simplistic when I say it this way, because we all, all God-fearing Christians, understand that Christ is our Salvation. But to SEE this is a bit different I think.
When God showed himself to Moses, Moses hid in a narrow crevice (Exodus 33:22-23) and God kept Himself from Moses direct sight. So too, sometimes we are out of direct sight. Sometimes we are even too far away. But when we, like Bartimaeus, can SEE that the way to all life is through Christ, our advocate, then something is lifted from the eyes of our soul, which are far too often turned inward. It is a seeing, not just knowing, but seeing, that what we want must come through Christ. And what we need is the understanding that only through Christ can the peace come. If we don't really GET IT, then we will ask for something like a lottery win, or health for ourselves, or even others. But when we do GET IT, it is by faith, and turning over to Christ, our lives which He gave His own for. This is the seeing that Bartimaeus got. Sure, his eyes were healed, but the seeing was really knowing the Lord as his Savior. And following Christ forever.

Nobel Peace Prize

My very favorite parable of all is found in Matt.20:1-16. This is the parable of the Laborers in the vineyard. In this parable Jesus says in vs.14 and 15 "Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man.....Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?"
In the days since President Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize our country's opinionators, from conservative talk show hosts to moderate columnists to the thousand of published bloggers have voiced their opinions on the "wrongness" of his selection.
I've been too hurt to post. Emotionally, I feel drained by the constant talk of it. And while I strongly feel that people do indeed have the right to their opinions and to speaking them publicly, I also notice that the negatives always seem to outweigh every other possible option.
While the 5 selectors of the Nobel Peace Prize are not God, by any stretch of the imagination, who knows for certain that their selection wasn't influenced by good and not evil? Why does a positive spin seem wrong? Why do so many people feel "incensed" by the committee's selection?
For my unsung hero/ine today, I nominate this 5 member committee that decides the Nobel Peace Prize. They certainly are "unsung". They are harangued and ridiculed.
Yet they may be far reaching optimists, God-guided, and fair minded people who follow a star we can't yet see. I would rather believe that than belabor a decision that is none of my business.
Like the owner of the vineyard, this committee decides who gets the prize. I feel that is, basically, the end of the story.