The Cry for Mercy

Who prays to one who cannot answer prayer? The Jesus Prayer and a Brotherhood tradition.— A sermon for Proper 25

Proper 25b • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
When Bartimaeus heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Today’s Gospel from Mark presents us with a turning point in Jesus’ ministry as he heads from Galilee and makes his journey on to Jerusalem. This passage also includes Mark’s last record of Jesus performing a healing — for Mark chooses not to record that Jesus healed the man whose ear was cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There are many features to this short Gospel. Consider the fact that Jericho is mentioned twice at the opening of the passage but only to say that Jesus came and went; nothing is said about what happened in-between. This does give us the opportunity, by the repetition of that name, “Jericho,” to remember that “Jesus” in Hebrew is “Joshua” — and who can forget what happened when Joshua fit the battle of Jericho!

Then, in addition to this repeated reference to Jericho, there is the immediate repetition of the blind man’s name, because Bartimaeus means “son of Timaeus.” Also note how the blind man cries out twice for Jesus to help him, before the crowd orders him to keep quiet, and again afterwards. I’m tempted to say, “Is there an echo in here; or rather three echoes?”

As soon as the echoes die down, we witness the eagerness with which the man throws off his cloak and springs up; and then Jesus asks what he wants him to do for him — which is another echo, for as Bill reminded us last week, this is the same question Jesus asked the disciples James and John in the immediately preceding passage.

Perhaps most importantly, Mark reports the speed and simplicity of the healing itself — unlike earlier healings involving physical actions and incantations in Aramaic; here the healing takes place with one word, “Go,” and the affirmation that the man’s faith has brought him healing.

All of these points are noteworthy and could be subjects, each of them, for a whole series of sermons; but today I want to focus on the third set of echoes at the beginning of the passage: the words the blind man shouted out when he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” It is notable how the economical evangelist Mark repeats this phrase twice, along with all of those other repetitions, those other echoes, both before and after the people tell the man to keep quiet. As I’ve said before, when the shortest of the gospels takes the time to say something twice, and does it three or four times in this short passage today, it is Mark’s way of drawing our attention to it. It is almost as if Mark is waving at us, and saying, “Pay attention! This is important!” So let us pay attention.

First, this is the only time in Mark’s Gospel when someone addresses Jesus as “Son of David,” and it serves as a reminder and a preparation for what is about to happen, for the passage that follows immediately is the Palm Sunday account of Jesus’ entry into David’s royal city, there to fulfill the destiny prepared for him from before the foundation of the world. The blind man — think of it for a moment — the blind man is the witness in Mark’s Gospel, that this is the Son of David; he is the only one in Mark’s Gospel to refer to Jesus in this way. He is the one who has recognized that the Son of David has arrived, as long promised.

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But even that is not my focus for reflection this morning. Rather it is on the prayer of the blind man, “Have mercy on me!” This is, naturally, the prayer of any beggar seeking relief, with his hand outstretched,“Have mercy on me. But it is also the natural prayer of anyone at all seeking God’s mercy — seeking what only God can give. To some extent, great or small, rich or poor, all of us are petitioners reaching out to our generous God, asking for God’s mercy. And because we only ask for help from one whom we believe can give it, this petition is in itself the sign of faith; as it is a sign of the man’s faith that Jesus is the one who can heal him; it is a sign of his faith, the faith that Jesus assures him his faith has brought him healing. “Have mercy on me” is the prayer of a faithful heart, for who asks for something from one who cannot give?

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This particular phrase, “Jesus, have mercy on me,” formed the central part of a great prayer from the monastic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church: a prayer known simply as “The Jesus Prayer” or “The Prayer of the Heart.” A Russian monk wrote of his experience with this prayer in a short memoir, The Way of a Pilgrim. In it he describes how he wanted to do as Jesus taught and, “to pray always,” or as Saint Paul told the Ephesians, “to pray in the Spirit at all times.” He wanted to fulfill these commandments and so he sought out a wise old monk who told him to pray in this way, “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” To keep this prayer always in his mind with every breath he took, the old monk instructed him, with every breath he took, to breathe in as he said the first part in his mind, “Jesus, Son of God,” and then as he breathed out, the second part of the prayer, “have mercy on me, a sinner,” and to follow his breath in his mind’s eye, picturing his breath rising up through his nose, over the arch in back and then down into his heart, and then back up and out as he breathed out. I find it helpful to think of a pulley running up through my head and down into my chest, lowering my breath down into my heart, and then brining it back up again. This is the prayer that the man was taught and this is why the prayer is called “the prayer of the heart.” It is a profoundly meditative form of prayer, and you can see at once how it is based on the prayer of the blind man Bartimaeus, recognizing that Jesus is far more than the Son of David; he is the Son of God.

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But there is more to this prayer, and I want to share it with you this morning; and I think it is about time, as I’ve been part of this parish for thirteen years - it will be thirteen years next month. As you know, I’m part of a religious community called the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory. It was founded in 1969 with the help of a very wise woman who was a Roman Catholic nun, a member of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. She was the Mother Superior of the convent up in Riverdale, just northwest of here, and our Brother Founder met with her over several years to develop the Rule by which I and over forty other brothers now live. Some years later she visited us, the brothers, when we were on a retreat, and she introduced us to the way her community of sisters had been praying the Jesus Prayer in common — as a group — for many years, perhaps going back to the founding of their community by St Francis de Sales in 1615. I want to share it with you this morning.

It is sung — and I want you to join me in singing; remembering how Saint Augustine said, “Whoever sings prays twice.” The prayer alternates between the leader and the assembly, and all you need do is repeat after me — as you slowly breathe in as I am singing, and I will do the same as you sing out with the breath you have just inhaled. The words begin even more simply than those of the Eastern Orthodox version: just, “Jesus, Son of God, mercy” — and the prayer is repeated and grows with other petitions using the many titles by which our Lord is known, and the various prayers with which we appeal through the course of our lives; but at the heart of it is the prayer of the blind man, Bartimaeus. Let’s begin; you might find it helpful to close your eyes and raise your hands with your palms upward, reaching out as we all do to the mercy of God as we pray... Jesus, Son of God, mercy... +

Get What You Paid For

Wealth sticks to the wealthy like an acrylic sweater fresh out of the clothes dryer... a sermon for Proper 23b

Proper 23b • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Because you trample on the poor, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

During the economic boom of the 80s, someone came up with a T-shirt that read, “The one with the most things when he dies, wins.” This was the era of free-for-all speculation on Wall Street. Investments moved further and further away from actual commodities or industries, from real products or services, to speculation on commodity futures, and indexes, and margins, and even futures of indexes and margins. No longer were people trading just in pork bellies, or even in what pork bellies might be worth some day; They were trading in what the market might think pork bellies might be worth some day. People were trading not just in things, but in what people thought about things — and in what people thought about what people thought about things, if you can believe that — building on a very shaky foundation — if any foundation at all!

Some people managed to make huge fortunes in this rarified world: people like the fictional character Gordon Gecko from the film Wall Street, whose motto was, “Greed is good.” Governments were persuaded by this gospel of acquisition to repeal laws that had been put in place after previous economic disasters, laws designed to prevent a melt-down of the economy. Credit extended beyond the prudent , and people were sold mortgages they could not possibly afford, even in the best of times; and the value of homes came to be keyed not to intrinsic value, intrinsic worth, but as if they only could be worth more and more as time went on — no one would imagine that to be true of a car, yet people had no trouble thinking about it for a house! Meanwhile the distances between the salaries of workers and the wealth of the owners grew greater and greater. The rich grew richer and the poor poorer, and it really did begin to look like the one who died with the most things would win. The balloon kept getting bigger and bigger, and no-one expected it to burst.

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As we all know, this out-of-kilter pile of optimism came crashing down like a Jenga game just a few years ago. The chickens came home to roost to an astonishing degree, and the henhouse was full to overflowing. And sad to say, most of the chickens were dead ducks!

Some years on, it is still true a tiny portion of the population controls a disproportionate amount of the wealth of the world. And these days in the election season, who can turn on the TV without seeing a politician, or a surrogate, or a PAC, or a super-PAC, appealing to a particular worldview — either that prosperity will come by letting the wealthy trickle their wealth down to the poor who eagerly wait below like drought-stricken farmers able to receive this gentle shower of rain; or on the other hand that the government should take more from the wealthy so as to redistribute it more effectively — but still from above, as far as those below are concerned.

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Of course, as our Scriptures from Amos and Mark remind us, there is nothing new in this. There is nothing new about the magnetic attraction of wealth — how money wants to stay where other money is rather than trickling down to where it isn’t; how the rich always seem to get richer, taking advantage of the poor. And those who have the guts to challenge this, people like Amos or Jesus, get branded as malcontents or trouble-makers. As Amos says, those with power and wealth abhor the one who speaks the truth, and in times like these the prudent will keep their mouths shut; and we know what happened to Jesus when he upset the apple-cart of a society in which religious leaders worked hand-in-hand with the politicians to keep things profitable for the few at the expense of the many.

Even some with good intentions, like the rich young man in the Gospel, is disappointed when Jesus tells him what he needs to do for his own good, and the good of his soul — to say nothing of the good he could do for the poor. He could not have been the only rich person to go away sorrowful, wanting to follow Jesus but not able to do as he counseled: unable to break that magnetic attachment of wealth. The Gospel shows us how hard it is for wealth to trickle down — it wants to stay with the wealthy; and the wealthy want to stay with it!

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This is why greed, far from being good, as Mr. Gecko believed, is such a poisonous affliction. It’s an addiction that can never be satisfied — those who think having more and more is the point of life can never get enough to make that hunger stop. Because there always is more, isn’t there? It is like drinking salt-water when you’re thirsty — it will only make you thirstier, and in the end, it will kill you.

Greed is a thirst for the wrong thing, you see. No one really needs more money than it takes to live, to provide for those practical real realities of shelter and food and a modicum of comfort and leisure; and the money and the things left when they die, as indeed they must, is beyond their employment or enjoyment. While you live, your possessions and wealth can serve you and others, but the things you have but which you do not use serve no one — not even you. There is an old saying, “The second coat in your closet, the one you never wear, really belongs to someone else.” Hanging there in the closet it keeps no one warm, not even you. Yet, there it hangs.

Just as the financial markets moved further and further from reality, to focus on speculation itself as a thing to speculate about, so too the desire for wealth and possessions moves away from the good that wealth can do — to the wealth itself, and not to using it, but just to having it. Rather than a means to an end, it becomes an end in itself — a dead end.

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I mentioned politicians a moment ago and I’d like to end with not a politician, but with a First Lady. Mary Todd Lincoln suffered much in life — she lost three of her four sons to early death, at the ages of four, twelve, and eighteen; and she suffered the horror of her husband being shot as he sat next to her in the theater, her hand in his. She was far from a perfect person, and was what used to be called “high-strung.”

One of her great failings was her unrealistic relationship with money. When her husband was elected President, she went wild; she had no sense of proportion, and began to spend his new-found salary lavishly refurnishing the White House like there was no tomorrow. When tomorrow came and Lincoln was assassinated, and then with the death of her young son, Tad, just a few years later, she fell into a cycle of madness; imagining she was lost to the world, doomed to live homeless, out on the streets.

One day she was in fact found wandering in the streets of Chicago. And it was discovered by those who took her in that all the while she bemoaned the lack of money, living in panicked fear of poverty, she had over $50,000 in bonds sewn into the lining of her dress — a huge fortune in those days. But it wasn’t even enough to keep her warm. She died a few years later, never able to enjoy any of that wealth.

Julie Harris as Mary Todd Lincoln, and your preacher, in his former life as an actor, portraying Tad Lincoln, who died shortly after his 18th birthday. Photo by Martha Swope.

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It is painfully easy to say, Well, she was a bit crazy, wasn’t she? But isn’t anyone who hoards more of the world’s goods than he or she needs to live — even to live comfortably — equally out of touch with reality? How many are like the rich young man, wanting to be free but unable to let go of the very thing that holds them down.

The disciples ask, Who then can be saved? And as Jesus answers, the implication seems to be that all can be saved from possession by wealth — but not through their own efforts, only through the power of God. We all need help detaching ourselves from the goods we accumulate, the things that seem to stick to us like an acrylic sweater fresh out of the dryer, and God has shown us the way to do so — to use the power of God that is within us, God working within us, to open our hands to give to those with less, to grow accustomed to letting go and not grasping, knowing our needs will be met a hundredfold.

And just as wealth seems to attract more wealth and drag us down, so too once we start the practice, the practiceof generosity will make us more generous; the practice of charity will make it easier and easier to open our hands, and let go of the weight that keeps us from following the one who can and will free us from all such bonds, even Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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Do As I Say

Jesus wants us to do as he says, and as he does... A sermon for Proper 19b.

Proper 19b • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes.

John Selden, a wise and witty 17th-century English lawyer, is the originator — or at least the recorder — of the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Many a parent or teacher has used this line as an excuse, when their children or pupils point out that the teacher has failed to follow their own teaching. It is an easy loophole to slip through, and Selden the lawyer noticed how poor an excuse it is for any teacher worth his or her salt. As Selden noted, while it might be common for a teacher or a preacher to fall back on this cop-out, saying, Do as I say, not as I do; what, asked Selden, “if the Physician had the same Disease upon him that I have, and he should bid me do one thing, and he do quite another — could I believe him?” No, when life and limb are at stake you want to make sure that the advice you follow is also followed by the one who gives it! Who, after all, would trust an obese doctor to give advice on weight loss, or a doctor who smoked like a chimney who advised against smoking?

Saint James, in the passage from his epistle we heard this morning, seems to offer a similar point: teachers need to be on their guard, knowing that they will be judged with great strictness should they make an error — as anyone is bound to do from time to time. “Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect,” James assures us, and we all know that nobody’s perfect! The best thing to do when caught in an error or a misstatement is to admit the fault, accept correction, and move on — without resorting to excuses or evasions like, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

James knew the wisdom of setting the record straight and accepting his own imperfections, not excusing them, but disciplining his sloppy and fallible tongue. Not an easy task, he goes on to say. If the tongue of even the wisest teacher may slip and speak in error, how much worse the wagging and wicked tongues of gossip and cursing. Better to keep silent, it might be wise to say.

Which, indeed, Jesus says to his disciples concerning his identity — picking up on the theme from last week’s gospel. Whether Jesus really did want the disciples to keep his identity secret, or this was just his way of setting their wagging tongues alight to spread the word, each of us must grasp as best able to do. I noted last week that the idea that Jesus really wanted to keep his identity secret seems not to be in keeping with his continued and open proclamation — as our gospel reminds us today, “he said all this quite openly” — so if he really meant to keep his identity secret — like a first-century Batman or Superman — he does not seem to have followed his own advice to the disciples not to tell anyone who he was, and why he came.

The Gospel shows us Jesus is not shy of speaking out — preaching from the mountainside and on the plain, from the shores of Galilee to the very courts of the Temple. And what is more, he not only preaches — he acts. To paraphrase the Epistle of James we heard last week, he is not a speaker of the word only, but most definitely a doer.

And so Jesus closes this passage today with a good example of the opposite of John Selden’s saying: Do as I say, and as I do. Any who want to be his followers must do as he has done, denying themselves and taking up their cross to follow him. Now, that may seem obvious — how can you be a follower if you don’t follow? But as with those who say one thing and do another, surely we know that the church is not lacking in folks who swear they love the Lord, but do nothing to serve him when they come across him in the form of those who are poor, or hungry, or sick or bereft. Those who are ashamed of him — sometimes in the form of the poor and the stranger, of whom he said, “as you have done to them, so you have done to me” — surely those ashamed of him will find him to be ashamed of them when he comes in unmistakable glory at the end of the age. And so he warns us in advance, to do as he has done.

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So, in this meantime, before his coming again in glory, what is the best course for us, in the midst of this adulterous and sinful generation? How do we best do, not just as Jesus says to do, but to do as he has done? Each of us must answer this as best we can, for no one knows another’s strengths or weaknesses so well as we each do our own. I get a sense of this in James’ epistle — is this in part a confession not only of his failings in speaking, not just in slips of the tongue, but in the wagging of it? Does he speak from experience as one who found it hard to keep his tongue from speaking ill, from spreading tales, and tittle-tattle? Is he preaching to himself as much as to those to whom he wrote? Perhaps, much like Saint Paul, the cross James bore in life was his knowledge of his own weaknesses — and this is in part his way of speaking from experience to his church of the faults he knows only too well.

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In the same way, each of us is called to the knowledge both of our own weaknesses, our own failings, but also to the knowledge of the one in whom we put our trust, the one who will save us precisely because we cannot save ourselves. Those intent on saving themselves are the ones who lose — for none, imperfect as the best of us is, can save themselves. It is those who fix their eyes on the great Teacher — the Teacher who does not just give a speech, but acts; who not only says, but does — perfectly. He it is who saves us because we cannot save ourselves. If we are to follow him, let us do so not in word only, but in deed, framing our lives as best we can to his example: he has given us the cross as a template, as a shape to form ourselves into, to follow him; as generous, loving people who give of themselves to help others. Let us be like him, and countless others, those saints who have followed him in faith, who are not ashamed to sit with the lowly, or to welcome the stranger, to visit the sick and those in prison — in short, to take up our cross each day of our lives, that at the end of those lives, we may be blessed to hear, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your master’s joy.+

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The Secret Jesus

The ironical evangelist Mark once again says one thing while seeming to say the opposite 2014 a sermon for Proper 18b.

Proper 18b • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

The longest running musical in theater history is a little play called The Fantasticks. It ran for forty-two years in its original Off-Broadway run in New York, and it has been revived and performed in other venues thousands of times since. In it, two fathers hatch a plot to get their children to do what they want them to do. That in itself is not so unusual; parents have been trying to get their children to act as they want — often without success — from the days of Cain and Abel. What is unusual lies in how these two fathers plot to accomplish their scheme. For they realize they stand the best chance of success by telling their children to do the opposite of what they want them to do.

The wisdom of their plan is based on their observation that children often do the opposite of what is asked of them. In one of the show’s songs, “Never Say No,” they document, among other things, that children put beans in their ears precisely because they are told not to beans in their ears. So the crafty fathers realize they can put this contrariness to work, as they also sing, “Your daughter brings a young man in, / says, ‘Do you like him, Pa?’ / Just say that he’s a fool / and then you’ve got a son-in-law!” And so they plot to get their children to fall in love by telling them that they must never, never, see or speak with each other.

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In today’s Gospel, there are three references to Jesus trying to keep a secret — or so it seems. Remember, once again, that this is the Gospel of Mark, the shortest of the four Gospels, so if something is repeated three times in one short section you can be sure that the economical Mark wants us to take note of it! At the beginning of the passage Mark tells us that Jesus entered a house but did not want anyone to know that he was there. Then, after healing the child of the Gentile woman — again seeming to be reluctant to do so, but being persuaded by her insistence — he then travels out of the way into Gentile territory, and then is greeted by people who bring him a deaf man. In keeping with this theme of secrecy, rather than healing the man in their sight, Jesus once more takes him aside and works this healing miracle in private. And finally, after healing the man, Jesus orders the people to tell no one about the miracle.

The irony in all of this — and we can be sure that this is Mark’s point, because, after all, he brings it up three times — is stated clearly: “the more Jesus ordered them to keep silent, the more zealously they spread the word.” So, the question before us is, Did Jesus really want his presence to be kept secret, or was he, like the savvy fathers in The Fantasticks, relying on human nature to spread the word of his presence even as he kept telling them to keep his presence mum?

As I said a few weeks ago about Jesus’ claim to be the bread from heaven, we do not have many options here. But just consider this: Jesus did understand human nature better than any other human being who has ever walked this earth. So he must have known the simple truth that the fathers in that musical knew — that people will act contrary to instructions given them. And after all, as the Son of God he had witnessed the long history of his chosen people disobeying his Father in heaven!

Jesus surely also knew that the things he did would be perceived as fulfillment of those ancient prophecies about the coming of Messiah, the Son of God and Son of Man — and once perceived as such, the word would spread like wildfire. And here he is, fulfilling a prophecy such as we heard this morning in Isaiah, a prophecy fulfilled in this Gospel passage, as a man who cannot hear or speak clearly is freed from these impediments, his ears unstopped and his tongue untied. And in this act, though Jesus tells the people to keep quiet about it, we can be sure he meant the story to be told.

And why is that? Because this is not a healing of someone lame, or disabled, or blind. It is the healing of a man who could not speak. Why would Jesus untie someone’s tongue only to tell him and the crowd to keep silent? Why open his ears if not to fill them with the good news that he can then tell forth with his newly liberated tongue? Why come to this earth at all, incarnate as the Lord, as the Messiah long awaited, the Son of God and Son of Man, robed in flesh, our Great High Priest, if not to call all people to himself, and save them as they put their trust in him? Why keep secret the best news ever heard?

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And it seems to me that the answer to this is in fact the wisdom of Jesus to know that the word would be best spread by telling people not to spread it. He knew our failings — that we cannot keep good news from spreading; and, lets face it, nothing travels like gossip, either! People really just can’t manage to mind their tongues, so at least Jesus gives them something good to wag their tongues about — the Good News that salvation has come, that the day long promised by Isaiah and all of the prophets is upon us: “Be strong; do not fear. Here is your God, who has come to save you!” If even the dogs are going to be fed, how much more the children God that has called and adopted to be his own, through the coming of that very Son of God who is our brother, who through his brotherhood with us makes us children of his Father in heaven.

This is good news, my friends, and woe betide me if I were to tell you to keep it to yourselves, even if I thought that meant you would spread it more effectively. Rather let me say to those encouraging words: to spread the word — to tell it forth in the streets and the offices, in the shops and on the sidewalks of this great but terrible city, by the hospital bed of the dying and in the nursery where new life comes to birth. Publish, my friends, publish glad tidings of redemption and release, as our untied tongues proclaim the praise of the One who has freed us from our bondage to death, and brought us into his marvelous light, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

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