“Lord, Have Mercy”
“Lord, Have Mercy”
Jeremiah 31:7-9 Psalm 126 Mark 10:46-52
October 27, 2024, Reformation Sunday and All Saints Day observed rm
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
On a Sabbatical the summer of 2017, I began that time away with a solo retreat at Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. At Glenstal there’s a trail through a ravine into a wooded, more remote section of the grounds, and there’s an old altar made of stone which is kind of like a cave that’s now covered with moss as the woods reclaim this space. This is where Catholics met for worship when it was illegal to be Catholic.
For about 270 years, from 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics were not allowed to practice their faith out in the open. So, the church went underground, they hid and did things in ways that could go unnoticed. For example, the Christmas carol, ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is from someone during that era who wrote this as a catechism song to teach young Catholics. There’s a surface meaning plus a hidden meaning.
We see code words, such as that first day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree. The ‘True Love’ is code for Jesus Christ, for Christmas is when love was born. A surface level singing is more like a sweat heart, a boy or girlfriend. But to know the code, you know it’s about Jesus. Each verse with the ascending items has corresponding codes and it’s fun to play with this. But for now, we simply recognize that to get any of this teaching, words need to be more than mere words. The song is just a song, but the symbolism, that below the surface; this points to larger truths. (Original Source: Fr. Calvin Goodwin, FSSP, Nebraska, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/advent/customs-and-traditions/the-history-of-the-twelve-days-of-christmas).
The scriptures are similar, and as we read from Mark about Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, a blind beggar sitting by the roadside, we hear the surface level of the drama, the story line, action and movement; but symbolism also points to deeper meanings.
For example, “Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.” Some scholars suggest Timaeus represents Plato the philosopher who lived about 400 years before this scene. Much of Jesus’ ministry tries to undo the damage from dualistic thinking of Greek philosophy in western culture. Plato promoted a dualistic approach that denies the goodness and reality of the physical world. Greek philosophy taught people to assume that perfection only exists in some other realm or plane as a mind/body split, and physical/spiritual split, get emphasized from an egocentric point of view. We buy into this more than we realize, with ingrained assumptions that think heaven is holy and Earth is not, that the spiritual is more virtuous than the physical; but this is not a Christian message, this is Greek philosophy.
As the storyline goes, when the beggar hears it’s Jesus coming, he shouts out for Jesus, Son of David, to have mercy on him (a couple times he does this). The crowd tells him to stop, they assume he’s accursed having been stricken by blindness and should have nothing to do with such a holy man as Jesus the wise rabbi. But Jesus calls for him.
He gets up, “throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.” This is where it’s more than just words, more than simple drama. The son of Timaeus. Timaeus symbolizes Plato, and this cloak, for many, symbolizes Plato’s philosophy, the Greek perspective. The cloak is shed, cast aside, given up and left. What one would assume is a vital shelter, the only thing this beggar has, is nothing of the sort and not worth keeping.
If that cloak represents Plato, then rather than a shelter, it’s Greek philosophy that holds him down as he sits along the road, and he and everyone else except for Jesus try to define him from outside. It’s Jesus who invites him to walk on the Path, the Way, the journey, not stifled alongside the road, but on the road, unencumbered, walking with Jesus with each step. And it is Bartimaeus who gives Christ permission for transformation in his life.
That stigma of being blind as someone cursed by God, as if God punishes him for sin of some sort. Thankfully for us, Jesus reverses this through Incarnational ministry. How can someone created in the image and likeness of God be cursed, really? Contrasting Greek thinking, Jesus is focused on Incarnation, and doesn’t look on the imperfections of things, but highlights the very divinity of things as matter expresses spirit and core identity can never be destroyed by imposed concepts.
The story starts out saying they came to Jericho, and then “he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho.” Remember Jericho, in the Hebrew Scriptures, it’s Jericho that’s a heavily defended fortress yet it’s walls come tumbling down and it’s the first stop as the people enter the Promised Land after 40 years of life in the desert. This first verse sets the tone, that something impossible will take place. It ties us in with God’s larger purpose, and this always involves partnership with God’s people in the movement of life and the dynamic flow of love, care, covenant, all elements of relationship with God.
The story starts out saying they were leaving Jericho, and Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by roadside; these terms or phrases are descriptions, identity. Bartimaeus discovers a truer identity.
On the surface, this is a movement from someone with position, a member of society, to someone marginalized, losing their name, thought to be cursed by God, a blind beggar not allowed in the mainstream of society. After Jesus calls him, he’s no longer called “beggar,” but he’s called “the blind man.” He’s now regained some of his humanity as he begins a process of redemption. But just like those walls crashed down and that cloak was cast aside, Jesus doesn’t just give him back what he had before. At a deeper level, his healing is more complete than that, more than just his eyes being fixed. His True Identity, his True Self is revealed.
Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” That question echoes to us this very day as Jesus asks, “What do you want for me to do for you?” It has nothing to do with our lists, or our wants. It’s a philosophical question that cuts away the superficial, even that which we thought was true.
As those who have inherited western culture with Greek philosophical assumptions, our ego-centric worldviews are shaped by three-dimensional thinking and the limitations of a mental structure of consciousness that promotes a deficient form of rationalism.
In a three-dimensional framework, so often we look to Jesus as Savior, someone sent by God to fix the mess we’ve made, or to help us be blessed somehow, to bridge a gap created by the illusion of separation, all of which in hopes that Jesus will restore our sinful soul, so we don’t rot in hell for eternity. This is an old doctrine, but not ancient. This guilt and punishment model has been around for a while but has more to do with other philosophies and very little to do with Incarnation and the embodiment of the Living Christ in all things, which is archetypal since the foundations of the world.
“What do you want me to do for you?” is a question that cannot be answered at the level of the mind, where Plato and rationalization and thought try to grasp. Reason is not at the core of this question.
The crowd changed from yelling at this guy to be quiet and take his place on the side of the road under the cloak to, instead, encouraging him to get up and they say, “take heart; get up, he is calling you.” That’s a pivot-point in this story, the crowd changes from condemning to inspiring. Getting up, shedding the cloak, this symbolizes a shift from the oppression of the mind to the liberation of the heart. Philosophies and doctrines can control and manipulate thoughts under their framework, but it’s at the heart level where true transformation takes place, and encouragement sinks in roots to grow.
“What do you want me to do for you?” This question is a lesson, when seen through the Wisdom Tradition. It’s like a riddle. Like the larger story itself, this question plays with our sense of identity, our concepts of how life is structured, as it challenges the philosophies we live by and takes self-awareness to rather deep levels. It’s a loaded question!
“What” is the word it starts with, and this is an objectifying word. “What” points to a thing, or object, or result or desire; you can write down “what’s” on a list. This reveals our dualistic thinking which objectifies reality, whereas Jesus comes from a unitive approach, where nothing is separate, and everything is connected and belongs. There is no separation because the Christ consciousness infuses all there is, seen and unseen.
Also, the word, “you” is listed twice. What do you want me to do for you? Let’s leave off the word “what” and break that sentence in half, like a poet does, and we read, “Do you want me…to do for you?”
“Do you want me…to do for you?” Jesus explores this man’s philosophy. Does he want Jesus to fix things for him? Does this man look for a utilitarian experience, an external situation where God comes from outside to set things right? Or is this man looking to discover a relational unity that involves Presence? Take heart is an invitation to look within, to claim deep connection that is already there.
In that question, the word, “YOU” is listed twice, almost like brackets, while Jesus says, “Me” in the central place. What do YOU want ME to do for YOU? Which YOU is Jesus asking? Define, “YOU?” How does our identity get defined? Is it our name? Our context? Our station in life, our wealth or occupation, something we do, or the family we’re born into? What makes a human being on one side of a line different than a human being on the other side of a line? Why are there lines? Is it race, politics, country of origin? What about qualities, like honesty, or kindness, or non-violent?
Whatever the label we use to define our understanding of self or others, those labels are incomplete. No single word, or even group of words, can capture the essence of a human life, or any life form.
Jesus invites this person, and us, to experience being fully human, to live not only life, but life abundant. Unlike Plato or Greek philosophy that shuns the flesh and puts down Earthly matter, Jesus lifts up and embraces Incarnation and occupies central place for all to see. The blind man’s vision is restored because he sees Jesus for who he is, and even his sense of self, how the word “You” is defined, is transformed.
Jesus asks a philosophical question, and the response is a philosophical answer. “My teacher, let me see again.” “Let me see again!” stakes his claim as a spiritual being having a human experience, fully in the presence of the living God. Out from under that cloak, this man’s created-in-the-image-of-God Self (with a capital S) is the new ME. Let ME see again. Reveal my original goodness and let it shine.
“Go, your faith has made you well.” GO is an active word, dynamic, flowing, unstuck. It’s a word that gives permission and release. After sharing from the heart what his true desire and intentions are, to seek relationship, unity, and love as his True Self is healed and restored, Jesus points out that the man’s faith has made him well. Jesus didn’t heal him. The man’s faith made him well. Not faith as a quantifiable object, but faith as an existential reality, connected to the basis of life itself, like a fountain allowing the spring of living water to flow. Faith is an experience of trust in a deep relationship with the Living God, the One who truly defines our identity as unique creations expressing divine consciousness, an identity deeper than any other label. Faith is a letting go, just as Jesus shows us the Way as we journey on the path of descent. This man dies to his old identity, to misguided cultural definitions and concepts, and he finds new life in Christ, and trust and love open his heart.
There’s more to the story, more drama and details, as well as more interpretations and deep meanings, symbolism and metaphor and philosophy all skate around this Gospel Pond.
In the week ahead as we hear the crowd of that story encourage us, saying, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you,” may we open our hearts to receive the call, to shed that which holds us down, to let go of even our most cherished and defended fortresses so we too can be unencumbered to claim God’s perfect love which sustains us on the journey of faith.
As the storyline goes, when the beggar hears it’s Jesus coming, he shouts out for Jesus, Son of David, to have mercy on him (a couple times he does this). Let’s echo this as a spiritual discipline. Go on a walk, and with each step, say to yourself a prayer: Lord Jesus, Have Mercy on Me. As the walk goes, and the steps come, feel free to shorten it however it works for you. Lord, Mercy, Lord, Mercy. As concepts peel away, like mercy being something Jesus, to deeper realities like mercy being a quality, who Jesus is, and that we already live within this mercy, allow the prayer to unfold while you journey on the way of faith.
Lord, have mercy. And may God be glorified, NOW,… even as forever. Amen.