PROPER 25, YEAR B

Sunday 24 October 2021

Saint Uriel’s, Sea Girt

Mark 10:46-52

One of my favorite prayers, from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is called the Jesus Prayer. It’s repetitive, said over and over again, like a mantra. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Repeat.) 

An effective way of praying it is to coordinate it with our breathing: breathe in – Lord Jesus Christ; breath out – Son of the living God; breathe in – have mercy on me; breathe out – a sinner. (Or, some people break it into two breaths instead of four: breathe in – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God; breathe out – Have mercy on me, a sinner.)

Rhythmically reciting the Jesus Prayer can be very helpful when we want to pray, but don’t quite know yet what we want to say, and we just need to settle down, be quiet, and focus. The priest who taught me this prayer remarked that in just a few words, it brings home profound truths of the Christian faith: we call upon Jesus as Lord and Christ; we confess him to be the Son of God; we acknowledge ourselves to be sinners; and we implore his mercy.

Moreover, the Jesus Prayer echoes several prayers recorded in the Gospels. One is that of the tax collector in the temple who stood afar off and would not lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast and cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” Another is the cry of Bartimaeus in today’s Gospel: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” For Bartimaeus, it was a repetitive prayer as well: despite being ordered to be quiet, the Greek text literally says, “he kept on crying out, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me.’”

Who was this Bartimaeus, the blind beggar sitting by the roadside? Saint Mark tells us that he was the son of Timaeus, which is exactly what the name Bartimaeus means. Of the hundreds of blind, lame, deaf, and sick people healed by Jesus, only a few are named in the Gospels. Some commentators speculate that they’re the ones who became members of the Church and were known by name in the communities for which the Gospels were written. 

In the early fifth century, however, Saint Augustine suggested that to be named in Saint Mark’s Gospel, Bartimaeus and his father Timaeus must have been prominent and prosperous residents of Jericho. In that case, Bartimaeus had fallen on hard times when he went blind. The Greek text of this passage suggests that he was not blind from birth; for a better translation of his request, “Master, let me receive my sight,” would actually be something more like, “Rabbi, let me see again.” And a better translation of the concluding sentence, “Immediately he received his sight …” would be, “Immediately he regained his sight …” 

In any case, Saint Augustine proposes that blind Bartimaeus begging by the roadside visually symbolizes the condition of fallen humanity. He who could once see clearly, and enjoyed great wealth and possessions, now sits in darkness, having lost almost everything, unable to help himself. 

A basic principle of Christian spiritual theology concerns those dry spells when we feel forsaken by God, and it seems that that we’re sitting in darkness—when we feel that we can’t pray and wouldn’t know what to say if we could. At such moments, however, our very desire to pray, to return to relationship with God, no matter how hopeless a prospect that may seem, is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence and movement within us. We’re not abandoned, because God himself is drawing us in. As Saint Paul says in his Letter to the Romans: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” 

Moved by the same Spirit, Bartimaeus calls upon the name of the Lord. When he hears that it’s Jesus who’s passing by on the road out of Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, he’s able to articulate and repeat the simple supplication, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

On hearing his cry, Jesus stops and tells his disciples, “Call him.” This command foreshadows the Risen Lord sending his apostles into the world to preach the Gospel. The disciples obey the command and call the blind man: “Take heart, rise, he is calling you.” As Bartimaeus springs up, he throws off his cloak – probably his most valuable possession. Here we have a palpable contrast with the rich young man who just a short time ago went away sorrowful because he was unwilling to part with his wealth to follow Jesus.

Jesus invites Bartimaeus to specify his request: “What do you want me to do for you?” It’s exactly the same question he asked last week of James and John, the sons of Zebedee. But their answer was full of pride and ambition: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” By contrast, Bartimaeus’s answer is simple, humble, and direct: “Master, let me regain my sight.” 

And so Jesus grants Bartimaeus his request: “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” But then notice what the text says: “Immediately [Bartimaeus] received his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.” In the early Church, the Christian faith itself was known as “the Way.” So, instead of going his way, as Jesus has bidden him, Bartimaeus decides to follow Jesus on the Way: the road from Jericho up to Jerusalem, where Jesus will die on the cross and rise again. In addition to regaining his physical sight, Bartimaeus has received the gift of spiritual vision. The blind beggar sitting on the roadside has been transformed into a disciple—indeed, a model of faithful discipleship for us all. Fallen humanity has been transformed into redeemed humanity.

Today’s Gospel invites us to imagine Jesus posing the same question to each of us: “What do you want me to do for you?” During the coming week, we might reflect on how we would respond. Like Bartimaeus, we can give no better answer than to ask for the spiritual wisdom that will allow us to follow Jesus on the road to eternal life.

SAINT MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS

Transferred to Sunday, October 3, 2012

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Genesis 28:10-17

Psalm 148:1-6

Revelation 12:7-12

John 1:47-51

“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” The first article of the Nicene Creed thus calls our attention to God as Creator, and hence to God’s creation as well.

Contemplating the beauty of creation leads us to the praise of the Creator. We discover God’s wisdom, goodness, and beauty reflected in the things he has made: from the farthest galaxies seen through the Hubble telescope to the tiniest organisms visible through an electron microscope. So, the psalmist intones in Psalm 104, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches.”

Yet the Nicene Creed affirms that God is the creator not only of the world we can see – the physical world of time and space – but also of an unseen spiritual world. God is the creator of “all that is, seen and unseen.” (Here the Rite I translation really is far superior: “all things visible and invisible.”) The feast of Saint Michael and All Angels directs our attention to this invisible dimension of God’s creation, the unseen realm of spiritual beings known as angels.

The first point to get clear is that, no, we do not become angels after we die and go to heaven! Our hope is in the resurrection of the body, whereas the angels are purely spiritual beings, without bodies. For this reason, the Eastern Orthodox tradition calls them the “holy heavenly bodiless powers.”

The second point to get clear is that the angels are not what many modern thinkers have tried to make them: impersonal cosmic forces or abstract spiritual principles. They are instead personal beings, created with intelligence and free will. They have individual names – such as Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel – and also ranks – Archangels, Seraphim, Cherubim, Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, and Powers. 

And in Scripture it becomes clear that the angels have three principal offices, functions, or roles: first, they worship and serve God in heaven; second, they carry messages between God and human beings; and, third, they protect and defend God’s people on earth. 

The first role of the angels is worship. Today’s Psalm opens with the joyous acclamation, “Hallelujah! Praise God from the heavens; praise him in the heights. Praise him, all you angels of his; praise him, all his host.” In his vision in the Jerusalem Temple, the prophet Isaiah is granted a glimpse of the Lord seated on his heavenly throne surrounded by seraphim flying back and forth crying out “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Participating in the temple liturgy, the prophet suddenly finds himself transported into the heavenly courts. Likewise, at certain moments in our worship today, we may be granted a similar vision. The veil between heaven and earth grows thin. In the corner of our eye we catch a fleeting glimpse of bright wings, or hear the faint echo of an otherworldly song.

The second role of the angels is to serve as messengers between God and human beings. The word angel itself comes from the Greek angelos, messenger.  In the Book of Genesis, the patriarch Jacob experiences in his dream the vision of a ladder between heaven and earth with the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. Our Lord takes up that image in today’s Gospel when he tells Nathanael, “You will see heaven opened, and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (In this way, incidentally, Jesus identifies himself as the ladder, the meeting place of heaven and earth.) And in both readings the angels function as the diplomatic corps of heaven, going out on and returning from their missions as God’s envoys and messengers in the world. 

The third role or office of the angels is to protect and defend God’s people on earth. The invisible dimension of God’s creation comprises not only the good angels, who worship and serve God, but also the fallen angels, the spiritual forces of wickedness who’ve rebelled against God and who tempt and assault us, desiring to lead us astray and deflect us from our heavenly goal.

And so, today’s reading from the Revelation to Saint John gives us that wonderful vision of Saint Michael, the supreme commander of God’s armies, defeating the dragon – that ancient serpent who once deceived Adam and Eve – and casting him out of the heavens. In a similar way, the angels serve as our allies, protectors, and defenders in the struggle against temptation, sin, and evil. When we find ourselves assaulted by the spiritual forces of wickedness, we can do no better than to call upon Saint Michael and his legions to come to our aid. And what a wonderful privilege it must be to belong to this parish, set under the oversight, care, and protection of the fourth Archangel!

God is the creator, then, not only of the visible creation that we inhabit, but also of the invisible world of spiritual beings that we call angels. This invisible world is not far away or walled off from us. Rather, it mysteriously surrounds us and interpenetrates our world, if only we had eyes to see.

In one of his sermons, John Henry Newman describes the nearness of this invisible world: “… there is another world, quite as far-spreading, quite as close to us, and more wonderful; another world all around us, though we see it not, and more wonderful than the world we see, for this reason if for no other, that we do not see it. All around us are numberless objects, coming and going, watching, working or waiting, which we see not …”

In another sermon, alluding to an Old Testament story of the prophet Elisha, Newman writes of the visible Church on earth as but a small outpost of the vast invisible army of angels and saints in heaven: “When we are called to battle for the Lord, what are we who are seen, but mere outposts, the advanced guard of a mighty host, ourselves few in number and despicable, but bold beyond our numbers, because supported by chariots of fire and horses of fire round about the Mountain of the Lord of Hosts under which we stand?”

So, the angels worship God in heaven, they carry God’s messages to earth, and they protect and defend us from the assaults of the enemy. Today’s feast heightens our sensitivity to the reality of this invisible creation. In the Bible, moreover, when angels appear to human beings, the first words they often speak are “Be not afraid.” That detail alone suggests that their initial appearance can be very frightening. If, then, we should ever meet an angel, we may possibly be awed or even terrified – but we needn’t be surprised.