I don't care if you're blind... Can't you see I'm busy!

Matthew 20:29-34

You get little snippets of Jesus' life with the stories from the gospels. The kind of stories you tell about your old friends. This one time we did this... Oh and another time he said this. Lots of memorable events and such.

Here, there is a large crowd following Jesus. Next stop, Jerusalem, and the entourage is eager for what they figure is coming next. The two blind men are a bit of an annoyance. "Can't they see that we're in a hurry?" (pun intended). The blind men didn't seem to have much value in the eyes of the crowd. "Shut up!" they yell. Why? These blind men were hoping Jesus would heal them. But that was an inconvenience to the crowd. Any one who is not of the norm is most often an inconvenience, whether it's a disability, a social awkwardness, a dissenting view, etc. It's often difficult to find compassion in these sorts of spots. I wonder if the crowd learned their lesson in this instance. Jesus had compassion on the blind men, even when the crowd did not. They had a different agenda (heading to Jerusalem for the "triumphal entry"), but those sorts of things are never as important as the needs of real people. Jesus had the time to stop and heal those men.

Too often, we are too busy with things, and don't have time for people. Our churches have programs, but people fall through the cracks. Most people seem to like it that way. Well, I shouldn't say that, because I don't know most people. It's what I think I observe. But maybe they are more like me, going through the motions because you don't know what else to do. In most churches you can slip in and out on a Sunday and not be obligated in any way. I never really liked that, but it's how I acted, because I didn't know what else to do. I'm at a new church now, a smaller one. I'm taking it upon myself to make other people important. I want to know them, and them to know me. How else will we be able to respond to the needs of each other the way that Jesus responded to the blind men. Jesus loved other people, and He practiced that all the time. However, we are the ones who need the practice. Hopefully, that circle of compassion will expand ever outwards, beyond the church and our friends, but you gotta start somewhere.