Sunday, October 25, 2015

Sermon for Pentecost 22
Proper 25 B  ~  October 25, 2015
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
                                                                                         
That we may obtain what you promise, 
make us love what you command.
                                                                                                                                             
+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity,

Long ago, commentators noticed that the cry of the blind man resembled the Jesus prayer: Jesus Son of David, have mercy on me and Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.  So, this healing miracle may be interpreted as a figure of the spiritual life. I can’t resist the temptation to regard this formal similarity as permission to interpret the story as an allegory. [I say temptation, because allegory was out of favor fifty years ago when I was in seminary, and doing what I am about to do produces guilt-feelings such as I might experience if I considered shop-lifting, but here goes!]
· Bartimaios keeps repeating his demand, over and over, just like practitioners of the Jesus Prayer.
· Bystanders rebuke him and try to get him to stop, just as our thoughts interfere, whenever we try to pray the Jesus prayer.
· Jesus summons the blind man, whereupon the bystanders turn into supporters.
· Bartimaios throws off his cloak – everything he has – and comes to Jesus.
· Then he receives his sight, the mystical vision.

Let’s go through these one by one.

· The New Testament enjoins us to “pray without ceasing.” On one level, the practice of the Jesus Prayer fulfills that literally: constantly invoking divine aid, just as the blind Bartimaios persevered in his loud appeal, despite the scorn of the onlookers.
· If you attempt this kind of prayer you hear immediately from the bystanders, advising you to shut up. Distractions pour in to consciousness. In traditional language, these thoughts are demonic. Not necessarily diabolical, but demonic. Nowadays, we would say that they are sub-conscious. The fathers say, just ignore them. Don’t let them vex you. They can’t hurt you. Just keep on saying the prayer. Follow the blind man’s example.
· Then, eventually something happens. The demons turn into angels, assisting us in our spiritual process. “Take heart,” they say. The Master is calling you. Or some such encouragement. That is very nice to hear. The danger is that these angels can be just as distracting as the demons. The pleasant feeling of their consolation is not the goal. Ignore them too, and keep on saying the prayer. Adepts report that, with perseverance over a long time, the prayer eventually seems to say itself. Some unconscious part of ourselves – or some Other – is praying within us. This is called the Prayer of the Heart. Maybe that is the allegorical meaning of the advice to “take heart.” The Prayer itself descends into one’s inmost core, operating at every level of conscious and sub-conscious being.
· Then comes the grace to Love what Jesus commands. His command is to come to Him, and we can leap up, discarding everything. To a beggar, the cloak was not just an outer garment: it was a bedroll and a roof. It was all he had, a necessity to bare survival. Throwing it off is throwing off everything – not just material possessions, but emotional and even spiritual consolations. To come to Jesus, as the blind man did, the cloak must be left behind. When we can love doing so, and only then, can we receive what He promises.
That is, we receive our sight again. Apparently, Bartimaios could once see and then lost his sight. Maybe that is true of everyone in some way. Maybe it is related to the mysterious pronouncement of a few weeks ago that no one can enter the Kingdom of God except as a little child. At the risk of sentimentality, this may have something to do with immediacy of perception and innocent wonder at the beauty of Reality. Anyway, the last state is better than the first; the sight one receives again is better – incomparably better – than the sight that was lost. One who receives sight again, like Bartimaios, sees Reality as it is. Bartimaios  sees Jesus; he sees God.
Finally, by the way, I can’t think of any other people Jesus healed  whose name we know – except for Lazarus. We know the names of some of their parents, but not their own names. So let’s get really allegorical and notice the meaning of the blind man’s name. Actually, even Bartimaios is a patronymic – Son of Timaios, but it was his name. Tim-aios means precious, or costly, or valuable, dear. So Bartimaios is the son, the heir of what is valuable and precious – what is MOST precious in the world. In his inmost self, Bartimaios is the most exalted of God’s creatures, the Image of God, human consciousness, which is to say created matter conscious of itself. But, somehow, that consciousness is impaired, darkened, blind.
Jesus is here to cure that blindness, to restore the sight and to bring to consciousness what never was seen. Jesus also tells Bartimaios – as He tells many He heals – “your faith has healed you.”  In other words, our co-operation is part of the miracle. Bartimaios has to persevere, ignoring the bystanders, even the encouraging ones. Then he has to jump up and leave everything behind. Active human participation is part of personal salvation and cosmic redemption. In order to obtain what He promises, we must co-operate with grace, growing to love what He commands.

AMEN
MARANATHA

COME, LORD JESUS!

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