ROME IMPROVEMENT 9/5/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 8:22-30

This week’s Gospel reading addresses:

§              What does life in the newly “engaged” reign of God look like?

§              Who does the world believe Jesus to be?

§              Who do the disciples claim Jesus to be?

§              Who do we say Jesus is?

 Mark describes how the disciples and Jesus, after taking the detoured-, side-trip-, or maybe, in my family’s vernacular, “the scenic route”-cruise begun in chapter six, finally arrive in Bethsaida which means the house of fish, maybe even the house of The Fish (IXTHUS). Here the disciples are challenged to claim Jesus as more than a leader of old after a vision of the reign of God is revealed.

 

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And they come to Bethsaida, and they carry/bring to [Jesus] a blind [person] and call upon [Jesus] in order that him [Jesus] might touch. And having taken on the hand of the blind [person] [Jesus] brought/led him out, out of the village, and having spit into the eyes of him, having set on the hands to him, [Jesus] was asking on him, “Whether anything you see?”

And having looked up, he was saying, “I see the [people]e, but I see them as trees walking around.” And again, [Jesus] set upon the hands upon the eyes of him and looked into them, and he was returned to wholeness, and he discerned from the far away to the dawn of everything.

And [Jesus] delegated/sent him into the house of him saying, “Not into the village you might go in.”

And Jesus and his disciples went on into the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way, he was asking on his disciples, saying “[Who] do the people me speak to be?”

The ones but said to him saying, “John the Baptizer, and others Elijah, others one of the prophets.”

And [Jesus] was asking on them, “But you, who do you speak me to be?”

Answering, Peter says to him, “You are the Christ!”

And he scolded them [so] that to no one they might say about him.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

This is the fourth time that we have seen people carry/bear/bring people to Jesus. Earlier, some carry the paralytic; in Gennesaret, the diseased and the broken; in Sidon, the deaf man; and now they carry a blind man. I have heard sermons which claimed that someone carries, bears, or brings the lame, the diseased, the deaf, and the blind to Jesus because they are unable to come on their own accord.

Someone, we, the able-bodied, are burdened with caring for the unclean of the world. It is “our Christian responsibility” to bring “them” to Jesus. Within the “disabled” communities, this attitude continues to rankle. It is not simply pejorative; it is incorrect.

In these accounts, Mark demonstrates how the disabled reveal God’s activity in all lives and how their inclusion can repair and bring wholeness to the world. Instead of needing to bring the lame, the diseased, the deaf, and the blind to Jesus for them to know wholeness, Mark has them brought to Jesus to indicate that these people may have already known wholeness in their lives and that the wholeness that Jesus gives is beyond the simple benefit of the “disabled”. It is for the wholeness of the world.

More radically, in carrying/bearing/bringing the disabled, the crowds put Jesus to the test or on trial. He continually fails this worldly test as he takes their uncleanness unto himself when he touches the unclean and is touched by them and when he eats with tax collectors and feeds the crowds without discrimination.

The crowd also carried/took Jesus from the Garden of Gethsemane to be tried, where they carried/brought charges against him, and carrying the cross to him, they crucified him (Mark 14-15). As a pre-crucifixion narrative, the trial is yet to come, but, as a post-resurrection narrative, we are cautioned against the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod. (See Rome Improvement, 8/22/2021.) Every success of the risen Christ is a source of condemning conflict for the pre-crucified Jesus.

Wholeness and healing/salvation as described here goes far beyond the healings that many commentaries and preachers dwell on. Instead of Jesus’ gift of salvation wholeness being for the “defective” “dis-eased”, his gift of salvation wholeness comes to all. Jesus’ healing/salvation needs the “disabled” to fully know and proclaim the “engaged” reign of God, then and now, and who Jesus is.

In today’s lesson, the vision of the blind challenges those who would be disciples of Jesus to claim him in new ways—to see people as living crosses walking around, little Christs to one another. Jesus lays his hands on the blind man who then sees into the “telaugos of everything.” Often translated “as seeing all things clearly”, there is more to it.

“Telaugos” is a compound word that comes from “tel” which means “far off, afar, at or to a distance” (cf. telephone, telegraph, television) and “augos” which means “dawn - break of day, brightness, radiance”. After seeing people who look like trees walking around, the blind man sees everything from the very far away to the dawn of everything, the time of creation.

Three weeks ago, when we met the deaf man with a speech impediment, I talked about the amount of water needed for a baptism and noted that when water is not available, spit is sufficient. This week, we again witness Jesus using spit (baptism) to give new vision for the world. The vision of the blind man and the journey into the center of Roman power challenge the disciples and us to proclaim whom we speak Jesus to be and what the “engaged” reign of God looks like.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

If this text is a pre-crucifixion narrative, this image of the people walking around like crosses leads to the crucifixion itself and death. But if this is a post-resurrection account of Jesus, then those walking around crosses become the sign of not only life, but eternal life.

Further, if this is a post-resurrection account, then the activity of the living crosses leads to the vision of God’s eternal plan. “And he saw into the far away to the dawn of everything.” In a dream vision at the end of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, Adam sees the salvation of the world despite his sin and punishment. Similarly, this blind man sees, not just clearly, but the entire scope of God’s merciful salvation.

This vision is not physical seeing. It is the gift of the blind seer, a well-established trope (character) in classical literature. Some scholars describe this as “the miracle that didn’t work”. In fact, not only did it work, but the miracle worked better than any could have imagined.

This vision of the “fully ‘engaged’ reign of God” precipitates Jesus’ questioning of the disciples, “Who do people speak me to be?” Embedded in this question is the very essence of creation itself. In the beginning, God speaks creation and us into existence. So, “who do the people speak Jesus into being?” Is he a reincarnate leader of the past? Or is he being spoken into a new reality?

Peter’s response is both precious and prescient. “You are the Christ,” the promised one, the risen one whom we have come to see in Galilee. Still, as Peter has answered for himself, the question of “Who do you speak me to be?”, continues on because the “you” is plural. This question hangs in the ethereal realm for all of Jesus’ disciples to answer.

Do we speak Jesus into being as the risen Christ who leads us into the future? Or is Jesus one of those of the past, reincarnated in order to lead us into some glorified “dead” garden time?

Do we see people walking around like crosses of death and persecution? Or are these, resurrection crosses of new life?

When we look into the far away places to the dawn of everything, do we see apocalyptic death and destruction? Or do we see hope, promise, and life?

HANGING THE TRIM

“If you are going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.” So said Daniel Berrigan, SJ, Christian pacifist.  Raised up in the body of the risen Christ, marked by the cross, and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever, let us go out looking good on wood.