5th Trinity III 2020, Found Word

5th Trinity 

Luke 18:35-43 

Julia Stankova

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?” 

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.” 

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” (your faith has healed you.) 

At that moment, his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

 5^th Trinity

August 23, 2020

Luke 18:35-43

Light itself is invisible. Light only reveals itself in its working with darkness. In permeating the darkness, light creates color. Color is a manifestation of the creative work, the deeds of light.

The blind man in today’s reading wants to look up and see again. He asks the one who calls himself the Light of the World to be merciful to him, to interact with his darkness, so that together they may create. We can imagine that already the man’s courage to ask, his refusal to be silenced, has an inner color we could picture as a strong red. He has the clear green hope of healing. Christ verifies that a deep level of trust lives in him, which we might see as a deep blue. Indeed, the Light of the World is already working in him. Christ’s proximity already works to create the inner colors that light up in the soul’s darkness.

Though we may be blind to him, Christ is always near. 

We hear his words whenever we hear the gospels, whenever we listen to the inspirations of conscience. The light of his presence works with us to create the inner colors of the soul – the blue of trust, the red of courage, the green of hope. For the light shines in the darkness, and although we may not grasp it, we can receive it, bear it, gestate it, so that the soul gives birth to the Light’s colors. We can invite God to enter us, to work in us.

In the words of John O’Donohue:

… when we come to search for God,

Let us first be robed in night,

Put on the mind of morning

To feel the rush of light

Spread slowly inside

The color and stillness

Of a found word.*

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

*John O’Donohue, “For Light”, in To Bless the Space Between Us.

5th August Trinity 2019, One Word

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, He went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty and asked him to lay his hands on him. And He led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And He commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more He forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

5^th August Trinity 

August 25, 2019

Mark 7:31-37

Deep inside the ear is a fluid-filled chamber. In it, little hairs stand up like reeds, swaying to the motion of the water as sound waves enter. This movement underwater is translated to us as sound.

Sea of Galilee

In today’s reading, water is the hidden background element in this healing— the paradisal Sea of Galilee, the sea where the healing takes place; the fluid-filled chambers of the deaf man’s ears, the moisture from Christ’s own mouth. The watery element in the man’s ears, in his soul, had grown stagnant, flat. Christ recharges it with the fiery sound of His word—Be opened! Christ’s fire-word brings the waters into movement, opens hearing, frees speech.

We too have become deaf, deaf to the speaking of the spirit. Everywhere, noise drowns out spirit-word. In defense, we close our ears.

In the Act of Consecration of Man, the communion service, we hear Christ ask that we take, along with the bread and watered wine, His body and His blood, His peace. Yet hidden in communion resounds His eternal healing, strengthening Word—Be opened!

For, in the words of David Whyte,

It is not enough to know.

Ottheinrich

It is not enough to follow

the inward road conversing in secret.

...You must go to the place

where everything waits;

there, when you finally rest,

even one word will do,

one word...

And now we are truly afraid

to find the great silence

asking so little.

One word, one word only.*

---

*"It is Not Enough" from Where Many Rivers Meet by David Whyte. 

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5th August Trinity 2018, See Clearly

5th Trinity August

Luke 18, 35-43

Brian Jekel

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” ( your faith has healed you)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5^th August Trinity

August 19, 2018

Luke 18: 35-43

If at night the lights suddenly go out, we stop. For we can no longer see our surroundings. We cannot even take in what light there is, for we are temporarily blind.

Josephine Wall

Once upon a time in Paradise, humankind could see the creative divinity, working in the flowing ether light that forms and shapes the world. But since Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge, humankind has inherited a kind of blindness. We no longer look up and see God; no longer see the angels; no longer see the Light behind our daylight. We are blind without even knowing it. The common light of day obscures our vision. But we can still hear.

Holman Hunt

The blind beggar hears that Jesus is passing by. He engages Him and asks to look up and see again—not just to see common objects; not even to see the faces of his loved ones. He wants to look up and see God, see the angels, see the Light behind the light. His firm knowledge that there is such a realm, and his trust that his eyes can be opened to it, opens his vision. And he sees before and above him—Christ—the Light of the world, the creator of Life, the very essence of Love.

We too will one day look up and see again. For we can hear the promise in Paul’s words as he says, ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.*

Or as a modern version puts it:

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!**

Visit our new website!

---

*1 Corinthians 13:12, King James version

** 1 Corinthians 13:12, The Message (MSG) Bible, by Eugene Peterson

5th August Trinity 2016, Looking Upward (Redux)

5th Trinity August

Christ Heals the Blind Man, Gioacchino Assareto, WikiCommons

Luke 18, 35-43

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” (Your faith has healed you.)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5th Trinity August

Brian Jekel

August 21, 2016

Luke 18, 35-43

In today’s reading, a human being, blind and begging, hears Christ Jesus passing by. He recognizes an opportunity for healing. What he asks for is to be able to ‘look upward and see once again.’ This implies that he wants to ‘raise his sights’. It implies the restoration of something lost.

We can perhaps remember a time in our own lives, perhaps in childhood, when everything we looked at was kissed by the ineffable. Everything sparkled with a kind of gentle magic. Part of the underlying sorrow of adolescence is due to the loss of the numinous. A kind of blindness sets in that makes everything now seem common and ordinary, colorless.

What created the magic was a child’s lingering relationship to the living world of the divine spirit.  We still partially saw through heavenly eyes.

It was part of the course of human evolution that we should lose this kind of connection in order to gain our freedom and self-awareness. The sense of being cut off and blind is a necessary step on the way to seeing again in a new kind of way.

Now we have the freedom to ask for a healing of our vision. Christ gives us the capacity to look up and to see everything through the eyes of love. Our eyes can be saturated with wonder and awe; they can radiate gratitude and compassion. This is the renewed working of the divine within. This is the holy, healing spirit that drenches our beholding with spiritual light. We can see the healing spirit, shining in all that we behold. 

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5th August Trinity 2015, Corn Maiden

5th Trinity August

Brian Jekel

Luke 18, 35-43

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” (your faith has healed you)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5th Trinity August

August 23, 2015

Luke 18, 35-43

We can think of our senses as doorways between our souls and the world. They bring the outside world into us. Even if one or the other of the senses is weak, the others can to some degree compensate.

In today’s gospel, the blind man is lacking the vision’s input into his soul. All the more acutely does he depend upon his hearing.  He is aware of the crowd passing, all abuzz with something happening ‘out there’. And he rouses himself to find out what is happening. When they tell him that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, he becomes even more active. He shouts for an interaction with Him. He knows that this is not only someone called Jesus of Nazareth, but also that this is a Son of David, of the kingly line, and so he asks for His mercy and grace. He lets no one stop him from an interaction with Jesus.

Jesus asks what He can do for him. Again the blind man must become active – this time inwardly. He searches his soul and recognizes that he wants not only to see again in the ordinary way, but that he wants to ‘look up and see again’. He wants not only to see earthly things, but also things of heaven. And when the blockage is removed and his vision restored, he looks up and sees – Christ, the one who has brought heaven to earth. And so he resolves to follow him and become a disciple.

This reading encourages us too to ask for mercy; to override hindrances, to ask again. It asks us to recognize that what we truly and deeply want is a relationship with Christ, actively pursued. We want our senses to be healed so that we can see and recognize Him, the Lord of Life, here and now on the earth.

The poet Mary Oliver writes about our longing to see and our faith that it is possible:

Every summer

I listen and look

under the sun's brass and even

Corn Maiden, T. Lambert

into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --

….

And still,

every day,

the leafy fields

grow taller and thicker --

[the corn’s] green gowns lofting up in the night,

showered with silk.

And so, every summer,

I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --

all of it

happening

beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.

….

One morning

in the leafy green ocean

the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body

is sure to be there.*

*Mary Oliver, “Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith” in West Wind 

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5th August Trinity 2014, Rush of Light

5th Trinity August

Brian Jekel

Luke 18, 35-43

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” ( your faith has healed you.)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5^th August Trinity

August 24, 2014

Luke 18: 35-43

Light itself is invisible. Light only reveals itself in its working with darkness. Permeating darkness, light creates color. Color is a manifestation of the creative work, the deeds of light.

The blind man in today’s reading wants to look up and see again. He as the one who calls himself the Light of the World to be merciful to him, to interact with his darkness, so that together they may create. We can imagine that already the man’s courage to ask, to refuse to be shushed, has an inner color we could picture as a strong red. He has the clear green hope of healing. Christ verifies that a deep level of trust lives in him, which we can see as a deep blue. Indeed, the Light of the World is already working in him. Christ’s proximity already works to create the inner colors that light up in the soul’s darkness.

Though we may be blind to him, Christ is always near. We hear his words whenever we hear the gospels, whenever we listen to the inspirations of conscience. The light of his presence works with us to create the inner colors of the soul – the blue of trust, the red of courage, the green of hope. For the light shines in the darkness, and although we may not grasp it, we can receive it, bear it, gestate it, so that the soul gives birth to the Light’s colors. We can invite God to enter us, to work in us.

In the words of John O’Donohue:

… when we come to search for God,

Let us first be robed in night,

Put on the mind of morning

To feel the rush of light

Spread slowly inside

The color and stillness

Of a found word.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] John O’Donohue, “For Light”, in To Bless the Space Between Us.

5th August Trinity 2007, Christ Light

5th Trinity August

Luke 18, 35-43

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” ( your faith has healed you)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5^th August Trinity

August 19, 2007

Luke 18: 35 – 43

  

In deep darkness, the world seems to shrink down to a few feet. At dawn the world bursts open and is recreated for us. Pictures begin fill the air and spring to life. The light re-creates the world and heals our separation from the world and from the light itself.

 

Christ, the Sun God, came to shed His light, to create His light in the darkness of earth existence. He came to bring His creative light to human beings, for we had all become blinded by earthly darkness. But fortunately we could still hear.

The blind man near Jericho hears the crowd of those around Christ. He inquires and then cries out. Despite all resistance, he connects himself with the Light, puts himself at the mercy of the Light that heals, the light that elevates, the light that reveals. His directed will, his trust and his faith, working in the Light, bring about the healing of his separation from the world. For him Dawn breaks; he can look up and see – Christ, the Sun God, walking, enlightening, and healing here on earth.     

The seasonal prayer speaks of the Healing God who illuminates the world. This Spirit created the world in all its order, form and beauty. We pray that we may see the evidence of this spirit in the world. We pray that we may grasp the Healing Spirit and let it work within ourselves, illuminating what and how we see. We pray that the Spirit Light enlighten what we know. Aware that we are subject to earthly darkness, we pray that the Light of Spirit approach us, shining in the world, to shine on us, in us, out of us, in all our soul’s ways.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

5th August Trinity 2008,The Working of the Divine

5th Trinity August

Luke 18, 35-43

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” ( your faith has healed you)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5^th August Trinity

August 24, 2008

Luke 18, 35 – 43

Incidents often have several layers to them. On the surface they may seem simple enough. But opening the layers reveals a richness of complexity.

Today’s short reading seems simple. A blind man asks for and receives his sight. But there are further rich layers to be mined.

First of all, this takes place near Jericho. Jericho is the place where the Hebrews, faithful to divine instruction, conquered the city. They circled around it for seven days, blowing their ram’s horns and shouting so that the city wall collapsed (Joshua 6). Out of this incident there also emerges one of Jesus’ possible female ancestors[1]. Today’s reading plays out against this historic backdrop of faith and sound.

The man, though blind, is not cut off from his surroundings; he perceives much – he hears; he is attentive, even curious. When a crowd goes by, he takes the initiative to ask what is happening. When he discovers that the well-known Jesus is in the crowd, he amplifies his initiative. He cries out in a loud voice, addressing Jesus as the son of David, hinting at the hope that because Jesus belongs to the house of David, He could indeed be the expected Messiah. He asks for mercy, that is, for compassionate consideration of the imprisonment of his blindness.

Immediately he meets with an adversarial reaction from the leadership. He is threatened and told to be quiet. But he does not let pressure or fear overcome his desire to connect with Christ. He cries out all the louder.

Jesus, meanwhile, doesn’t just storm over and cure him. He stops. He stills Himself. He invites, by having the blind man led over to Him. The blind man must be courageous and walk toward the one he cannot see. And then Christ asks the blind man what it is that he wants. In effect Christ lets the blind man determine his own outcome by having him define what it is that he wants.

And the man’s reply bears looking at closely: “Lord, that I may look up and see again.” Luke 18:41[2] He is asking, in effect, asking not only for everyday eyesight. He is also saying, ‘May I raise my eyes to the heavens, to the divine, and once again perceive that to which I am now blind. May the evolution of my being move forward again. ’

Jesus’ answer is “Receive your sight again.” Luke 18:42. He doesn’t say, ‘I have cured you’ or even, ‘You are cured.’ It is as though He holds out to him his sight, which inwardly the blind man must receive and accept. And then Jesus makes it clear that what lives in the man’s soul, his trust, his faith, the power for healing that already lives in him is what the man himself has awakened through his interaction with Christ. “And in that moment his eyes were opened.” Luke 18:43 He looked up and saw again.

After this climax of healing it is easy to overlook the important line that follows, for it says that the blind man then got up and followed Christ, and that it is this that reveals the working of the divine within the human being. The working of the divine in the human being – initiative despite resistance; the desire and movement toward evolving again, trust in the power of healing, following Christ – this is the revelation of the working of the divine in the human being. This is Christ in all of us.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] She is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. There are two Rahabs: Joshua 5, Rahab, an inhabitant who cooperated with the Hebrew spies and subsequently joined the Hebrew people. Another Rahab is the only other Rahab in the OT - the mother of Boaz - definitely in the family tree. 

[2] Literal translation of the Greek anablepso

5th August Trinity 2010, Elevating Vision

5th Trinity August

Luke 18, 35-43

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” ( your faith has healed you)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5^th August Trinity

August 22, 2010

Luke 18: 35-43

Christ came to heal the world; for humankind is suffering the ill effects of its separation from God. At the same time, God has a deep respect for our freedom.

The blind man in today’s reading asks persistently for Christ’s compassion. Yet even though the man’s need is obvious, Jesus asks him what he wants Jesus to do for him. The man’s answer—that I may look up and see again—is mysteriously formulated. He doesn’t say, ‘Give me back my sight’; nor “that I look around and see again”, but ‘that I look up and see’. There is some hint that the man wants not only to have his vision returned, but that he intends to elevate his vision.

And Jesus’ answer is equally mysterious: ‘through your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.’ The power has awakened in him for his own healing, and perhaps for the healing of others as well. It doesn’t just come from outside. It comes from his having invited the Christ-power to enter body and soul. At that moment he looks up, he sees—Christ, the activator of healing for all mankind. And he rises up and follows Him.

We too suffer from blindness, the blindness of the everyday. We too can ask that our vision be elevated.

In the Act of Consecration of Man, the communion service, we hear Christ’s voice in the Gospel. We ask for the healing of the sickness of sin; we look up and see Christ as He appears, clothed in bread and wine. He brings us Himself as the healing medicine for the sickness that has come from our separation from the divine realms. Seeing Him, we can take Him in, walk with Him, follow Him.

May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] John O'Donohue, in Anam Cara

5th August Trinity 2011, Healing Blindness

5th Trinity August

Luke 18, 35-43

It happened as he approached Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I should do for you?”

He said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”

And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you.” ( your faith has healed you)

In that moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.

5^th August Trinity

Healing the Blind Man, Duccio

August 21, 2011

Luke 18:35-43

Our souls are formed by our early experiences on earth. The things we saw, the things we heard, and the feelings of pleasure or pain they aroused, became our deepest formative memories. In a certain sense, they set the direction for the course of our lives. For when we encounter situations that arouse the same feelings, we remember and react the way we did then.

Surely the blind man had been taught to obey his elders. As a child he would have been punished for not obeying. His natural reaction to those in authority who try to quiet him would have been fear of punishment.

But the presence of Christ allows him to overcome his instinctive, habitual fear, and to beg Christ for healing. He calls out not once but twice. When Christ asks him what he wants, he says, ‘that I may look up and see again’.

At one level what he is asking for is that he may continue, as he does in that moment, to rise above his engrained level of fear, to assess the world in a different way. He is asking to see the world with open loving trust, like a child, the way he did before fear entered his way of seeing. ‘May I look up and see again’ –may I see a world of goodness, a world full of harmony and meaning. May I look up and see God’s working in the world.

And Christ answers: Through your faith and trust, the power for healing has been awakened in you. The trust that already lives in your soul is the seed of a new way of seeing, a new revelation. Your trust is the basis for healing, for changing your old blind way of seeing the world.’

The blind man’s eyes are opened. And what does he see? He sees Christ Jesus, God’s Son, in the world. And those looking on see it too—the revelation of the working of the divine within the human being.