Thursday, October 22, 2015

Mark 10:46-49

 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’

Mercy

Have mercy on us. Open our eyes that we may see ourselves, our society, our nation and neighborhood. But this is a fearful thing. Do we really want to see our privilege and wealth, how entitled we are, a fact of which most are oblivious?

Have we lost sight of holiness and beauty? Can we feel the wonder of true human communion and know it as communion in the Love you are, a communion you happily create among us when we stop letting our lives run us and truly look at each other?

Can we again know and feel that these lives we are given are for something beyond ourselves? Can we still know the joy of being blessed, broken and given away in love for purposes far more holy than our own comfort?

Can we be truly human again, images of the Christ?

Days come when I lose hope for our society, for the neighborhood in which I live, for lives so caught up in the rush of western culture that they fail to see they no longer make choices but are driven, automatons of a society that knows nothing higher than self-seeking.

I know … it’s not so bad. Glimmers of hope and beauty often appear in the acts and eyes of those who are not entirely absorbed in the soup of our societal obsessions with more and more, faster and faster, me and more me.

Some are not blind but see beauty and wonder … and the pain of a world not so privileged as we. Some have suffered greatly, opening their broken hearts to see and bring solace and seek justice.

Some are filled with joy that escapes me when the world is heavy on my heart and anything I do seems fruitless. Their joy bears fruit, bearing the rest of us up on discouraging days. So does this time, this prayer of exploring the darkness of heart that sometimes comes.

Morning clouds clear even as I write. For I hear you whisper, “Take heart. I will open your eyes to see and know … me.”

This is all I need. Truly.

Pr. David L. Miller