LECTIO III: LET’S TRY
This intends to open an experience of lectio—one possible experience, because there is not end to the variety possible in this prayer form.
Remember, it is not necessary to go through it all, to dwell on every question. You might find questions of your own that are more pertinent. You might do a little and come back, or enter here or there.
We have done this kind of thing with a group, someone leading. Or it can be done individually, or both.
Let’s look at Mark: 46-52, the story of Bartimaeus, the blind man begging by the road from Jericho.
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Let’s treat it as a play. Mark, although not the most skillful of the Evangelists in literary construction, is still a profound theologian and a graphic story-teller, and this story lends itself easily to the form of a play.
Characters:
Jesus
Bartimaeus
The crowd following Jesus
Jesus’ disciples
By-standers
Setting:
A street at the end of Jericho, leading up toward Jerusalem.
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and a large crowd were leaving the city…
Before the action begins, would you like to pause right here, letting yourself enter the setting--hearing, seeing, feeling the sense of excitement, the movement, the din?
Put yourself into the crowd. Why have you come? Curiosity? Need? In what experience of life have you found yourself here? Will he understand you, or are you just one face in the crowd, one voice in the noise?
How do you feel about Jesus? Right now, right in the midst of whatever is going on in your life, in the tangle of your worries and interests? Take the time to feel your own attitudes in this moment, to be who you are. You aren’t going anywhere. You don’t need to get to the end of anything.
What happens:
A blind man, Bartimaeus, Son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside, begging.
What is the function of Bartimaeus? Jesus undoubtedly cured the blind, but a reference to curing the blind is more than an historical remembrance.
1. Bartimaeus evokes the New Paradise of Second Isaiah:
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
And the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer.
And the tongue of the dumb shout for joy… Isaiah 35
If you want to stop here, you could look up the passage in Isaiah and slowly read it to yourself. This is a promise to the Exiles that they will come home, home to the Paradise of a new creation. How does it make you feel?
2. He is himself, but also each of us, experiencing the bonds of the human condition.
We could pause here and enter the character of Bartimaeus, imagining, if we choose, his life’s story. What is it like to be deprived of so much of human life? To sit day after day helpless to feed and clothe oneself? In what way does my life reflect the helplessness of his? The unfulfilled needs? His dependence on others?
Are there any advantages to his life’s deprivation?
How do you think he coped with his situation?
Keep looking in the story for clues to the kind of person he is.
Action:
When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout,
“Jesus. Son of David, have mercy on me!”
This is the Jesus Prayer. It has several forms.
My Jesus, mercy
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.
Jesus
How is it said?
As this man cries it out: desperately needing what he is asking for.
Quietly, in a kind of noonday fatigue, when it seems we haven’t the strength to go on.
Confidently when, by what seems a miracle, we are given trust.
Helplessly, when brought to the end of our resources.
Matter-of-factly, when one day follows another in ordinary progression.
Wonderingly, when for a moment, our blindness drops away, and we are in the presence of what we have not had the courage to believe in.
In what am I blind right now?
If I knew, I wouldn’t be blind, would I?
I can ask to be shown. What if I stop here and ask to know?
Maybe I need too much not being blind, being right, knowing. Do I need to be agreed with? Ever and always?
What if I am right? Being right is not enough. What is enough?
What is it to be right? How important? What might be more important?
What does the word “mercy” mean to me?
Condescension? That which emphasizes my inferiority and want of worth?
The overpowering Other? Impossibility of communication?
Being judged?
Or healing? Being desired, touched with the fingers of joy?
Song, the dance? The simplicity of eloquence?
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.
Son of history, of blood and terror, of what weighs and troubles.
Jesus, Son of Wisdom, open my eyes, heal what is blind in me. Anoint my eyes with your wisdom.
Many rebuked him and told him to be silent.
Let’s go back into being one of the crowd.
Whom have I put down? Denied the right to speak? Treated with contempt? Trampled over because I had to know better?
Whom have I treated as an obstacle in the path of what I want? Either because of what I want the other to be and become, or because of how they obstruct my plans and desires?
Whom have I kept from God because they did not fit into my needs, into the pattern I have constructed to get those needs filled? People can be people, or they can be obstacles.
Do I see others’ problems only from my own point of view?
Am I too busy to see someone else’s point of view? Their problem with something that seems open and shut to me?
Am I so enclosed in my own idea of a resolution to some problem that I can’t admit the possibility of another?
Have I no toleration for a person I feel is blind?
Am I refusing openness to the possibility of healing for someone because I feel superior being critical?
Am I blind to new and different solutions?
Do my agenda and annoyances dominate a discussion?
Do I shut up the timid for lack of concern, for determination to shine, for the need to win?
Do I keep others from Jesus by letting my own ego bulk in their way?
…But he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Why didn’t he give up?
Why would he have given up? What was the temptation?
What is bringing him to Jesus?
Do I let other people pull my strings, get inside me and determine my choices?
Is there another way of saying, “Have mercy on me?” Can I make my own litany of equivalent possibilities?
What does the word “mercy” do to me emotionally? If the response is fear or a sense of inferiority, or something else negative, what can I do to change it?
What is bringing me to Jesus?
Jesus stopped.
Here it comes. Hold yourself here. Jesus hears, in the middle of the tumult. He is going somewhere, but he stops.
Encounter. This little man matters.
What happens inside Bartimaeus?
We’ve been inside Bartimaeus and been a member of the crowd.
What happens inside Jesus? Could we put ourselves inside Jesus, feel what he is feeling, choose as he is choosing?
..and said, “Call him.”
Jesus didn’t go over to the man. He involved the crowd. Why?
Maybe because the encounter with Jesus, the healing, is not an isolated event. We are never alone. Every healing is a community event. Jesus asks the community to participate in order to effect their own healing from isolation and indifference to the other.
We are being called in the voices of our brothers and sisters, daily, moment by moment in the humblest tasks and responsibilities.
So they called to the blind man.
What has happened to them? What has caused this change of mind?
We have another chance. No matter how selfish and indifferent we have been, we get another chance. Jesus has confidence in our ability to change. Hang on to this confidence.
“Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you!”
Rise up! Up, up! What does this remind you of? Easter? Yes, Resurrection. Come out of the dark tomb. The early Church called Baptism the Illumination, and the symbolism of light out of darkness is prominent in the ceremony, and in the Great Vigil of Easter.
Remember the Raising of Lazarus in John? “Lazarus, come forth!”
And Genesis: “Let there be light!”
“And we, who with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 2 Co 3:18
Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped to his feet.
Throwing off his cloak—of course. Throwing off the old self with its practices and putting on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. Col 3: 10
Look what’s happening. Look how the early Church interpreted the historical miracle of sight restored. It saw more in it than just this one man. It saw the calling and healing of the whole human race--including you and me. It saw the miracle of Baptism and the whole sacramental order.
Jumping up in response to the call.
How often are we conscious of being in a state of Baptism, of living in this very moment of encounter, healing and illumination?
I have not traveled along and dusty way from that Baptismal moment. It is eternal. I have not failed it. I have lived the meaning of Baptism in all the dust and failures and gettings-up again. Everything is just as fresh and pulsing as the first instant of my encounter with the Paschal Christ.
…and came to Jesus.
Yes, here I am.
“What do you want me to do to you?”
“What do you ask of the Church of God?”
Do you mean that? Do you want to know what I want? Are you that kind of person? That kind of God?
Rabbi, I want to see.
I want to see what is really there. I want to spend the rest of my life looking into your face, the face of someone whose gaze is the meaning of my existence. I want never to be blind again.
If I were to be facing Jesus, and he asked me this, what would I say? What would I want of him?
Go, your faith has healed you.