Jesus blesses and heals
the blind beggar
As I was leaving the grocery store today I saw what I thought was a blind person, next to an entrance to parking lot, with a sign. After putting my groceries in the car I went over to the person. His sign read “hungry and homeless need help.” As I got close I can see from his eyes and white cane that he was a blind beggar. He did not hear me coming so I greeted him and he responded. Not knowing what to say I asked where he stays. He gave me the only answer a ‘homeless’ person can give: “here and there.” I gave him a few dollars making sure to tell him the amount.
He thanked me and as I walked away I could not help but think of the blind beggar in the Gospels. When I was studied scripture one scholar told us when Jesus said “Blessed are the poor” what he meant was blessed is the blind beggar. Blind beggars in Jesus’ times were like many others, people completely dependent on others and God. If someone was ill or sick or even a window and had no family to take care of them they were the dependent, the ‘poor’. The majority of people in Jesus’ time were poor by our standards of poverty and wealthy, but the poor Jesus was talking about as blessed were those who did not have a community or family to take care of them. ‘Poor windows’ had to go to Temple for alms so the family could survive.
So this man today who was blind and begging was really the poor of our time. Sadly there are so many poor in our times and the numbers are increasing.
I have heard both at the Republican and Democratic conventions, the conservatives and liberals misunderstand the parable of the Judgment of Nations in Matthew 25 about the works of mercy. All the groups seem to put an individual slant on the story. They say it is what we do as individuals with the works of mercy that will be the basis of how we will be judged. In Jesus’ time there was no concept of the individual. Everyone, except the poor, was part of group, class or nation. Jesus was really talking about the ‘nations’ in the parable when he says: “And the King will answer, ‘ I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did those to the least of these brothers (sisters) of mine, you did it for me.’” (Matthew 25: 40)
When I was working on my Masters degree at Loyola I wrote a major talk on who the poor are in the gospel and what Jesus was talking about in the parable of Matthew 25. I am thinking of writing an essay of parts of it.
So yes my individual act of giving a few dollars to the blind beggar was nice but when will our nation, our government, locally and nationally, treat the hungry, poor, homeless, imprisoned the way the parable says we, as a nation will be judged on the last days? We will be defined as a nation by how we treat the poor. It is the Judgment of nations not individuals.
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