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

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[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.

5th August Trinity 2012, Seeing Again

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

Christ the Light of the World, Hunt

August 19, 2012

Luke 18: 35-43

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

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.

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.[1]

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![2]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] 1 Corinthians 13:12, King James version

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:12, The Message (MSG) Bible, by Eugene Peterson

5th August Trinity 2013 Small Miracles

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, Brian Jekel

August 25, 2013

Luke 18: 35 – 43

Imagine only being able to look downward, to only see the ground under your feet. Certainly there are small miracles there—the beauty of sand grains or green grass. But looking up, elevating our gaze, opens up whole worlds. We can take in the majesty of mountains, the ever-transforming sky, the magnificence of the stars. We can perceive the wonders of all our fellow creatures. Whole levels of meaning emerge.

The blind man asks Christ to help him look up and see again. He wants to elevate his gaze, to take in the expanse of the universe, to experience new levels of meaning. And Christ tells him that because he trusts that this is possible, the power to enlarge his vision is already operating in him, is already elevating his gaze. His openness allows him to receive his sight.

In a sense we are all blind. Yet the ability to see, the power of vision, is not merely given to us from without. It is an indwelling capacity given to us by God, a capacity we can further cultivate. It is partly a matter of ignoring those inner and outer voices which would squelch our attempts to elevate our gaze. And it is a matter of trusting that it is possible, and listening for the Voice that says that we have the power to heal our own inner blindness, to raise our gaze upward.

And ultimately, when our eyes open and our gaze rises, we encounter the One speaking to us, the One who helps us heal, the One who gave us our sight.

And in the words of the poet He tells us to look at the true yet commonplace miracles:

…a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.

...

 A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.

 An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable can be thought. [1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Wislawa Szymborska, Miracle Fair