Dylan's lectionary blog

Proper 25, Year B

Psalm 13 - link to BCP text
Mark 10:46-52 - link to NRSV text

People often ask me how they should pray. I'm happy to answer, but I think the way the question is most often put shows some assumptions about prayer that are worth considering before buying into them. I particularly have in mind the "should" part of the question, which seems to me to imply that there are right and wrong ways to pray, a kind of prayer etiquette that's important to follow.

That's not something I see in scripture, though. This Sunday's gospel is an excellent case in point. Jesus and his followers are traveling when they encounter Bartimaeus, who shouts, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" It's not a demure, "if you're not too busy" request. There's no "if you want to do this," or "if you think it's best."

Bartimaeus shouts out a demand -- "have mercy on me!" -- that presumes a relationship between the two of them: Jesus as "Son of David" and therefore king of Israel is obligated to Bartimaeus, an Israelite and therefore his subject. Jesus heals him. He doesn't heal him because Bartimaeus has used the "right" title for Jesus. In Mark, Jesus' preferred title isn't "Son of David," but "the Son of Man." In calling Jesus "Son of David" and therefore king of Israel, Bartimaeus is treading in effect into territory that brought a stern "shut up" (the "charge" there is not the wording of a warm "you're right and I'm glad you said so, but please be discreet") from Jesus just two chapters before, when Peter called Jesus God's anointed (Mark 8:29-30).

In other words, far from being healed as reward for saying the right thing in the right way, Bartimaeus is healed despite his addressing Jesus loudly, repeatedly, and presumptuously before a great crowd in a way Jesus would rather not be addressed in public, if at all.

And Jesus not only answers him, but also heals him. Jesus is not one to hang back waiting for us to get it "right" before responding with compassion. And in any case, who said that the "right" way to ask for what we need would be demurely? There are other ways to read the parable Jesus tells of a persistent widow who gets justice from an unjust judge who "fears neither God nor humankind," but Luke clearly reads it as a model of how we should pray, with the widow's relentless tenacity as a model rather than a cautionary tale (Luke 18:1-8).

But really, should we be surprised by this, if we've read the ancient books that Jesus and St. Paul called the scriptures? The Hebrew bible is full of godly people arguing with God. When God tells Abraham that God is judging Sodom, Abraham bargains with God like a haggler at a flea market or boot sale. When God calls Moses, Moses whines and explains just why God is mistaken. When God calls Jeremiah, Jeremiah protests that he's WAY too young.

And have you read the Psalms lately? I've been spending some quality time with them of late, in part because I think that too many of us have taken in a rather silly idea that God is a very, very delicate being who can only stand us when we're feeling Holy and Meek in a cheerful if rather passive way, and I'm writing music to express some other things we often feel and are invited to bring to God. Psalm 10 is a good one for grief and anger. I just wrote a musical setting for it, though it doesn't appear in our Eucharistic lectionary. What would it feel like to pray that on a Sunday? How will it feel this Sunday to pray Psalm 13, which clearly (especially clearly for those who've read books like this one on cultures of the ancient Near East) is trying to SHAME God into acting ("everyone's calling you chicken, God!")? Can we really enter into that space of being angry with God as we all stand their in our Sunday best?

However we dress, though, when we do it, I think it's wise to practice coming to God with our anger, our grief, and our frustration. God doesn't care whether we're "justified" in having those feelings when we do -- as if feelings were something that needed "justifying." God gave us those feelings -- not to control, but to experience -- and we don't have to experience them alone. There is no more appropriate place to bring our anger and our grief -- not only our questions, but our frustrations when our questions aren't answered, or are unanswerable -- than to God; and when we gather as Christian community, we gather together not just as people who rejoice in our experience of God's blessings, but to bring before God the wounds of the world, including our wounds.

As I've preached about before, most of us will one day experience a grief that seems to turn the whole world upside-down, and when (not if) that happens amongst our families, our circle of friends, our communities, and our communities of faith, as people of faith we bring those to God. When we are angry, we rail at God. When we are sad, we weep before God. When we can't hear God or feel God's presence, there is nothing, in my experience, more potentially healing to do than to bring who we really are and what we are really experiencing in that moment to God.

That will sometimes mean railing at God for being absent -- and sometimes, that will be the most powerful way we could experience God's presence. The past is memory, an imagining of what was but isn't. The future is not here; it's our imagining what may be. The present is here, and when we need to experience God's presence, we do it in the present, with our present hopes and fears, our present longings and frustrations, our present feelings and thoughts. Whether we judge them to be acceptable or not, we can have confidence that God is not threatened by them as we are, and can accept them even when we can't. However we come, with whatever words and whatever wounds, in blindness and recognition, in peace or in anger, and whatever else God wants of us, God wants us to COME.

Thanks be to God!

Proper 25, Year B

Psalm 13 - link to BCP text
Mark 10:46-52 - link to NRSV text

People often ask me how they should pray. I'm happy to answer, but I think the way the question is most often put shows some assumptions about prayer that are worth considering before buying into them. I particularly have in mind the "should" part of the question, which seems to me to imply that there are right and wrong ways to pray, a kind of prayer etiquette that's important to follow.

That's not something I see in scripture, though. This Sunday's gospel is an excellent case in point. Jesus and his followers are traveling when they encounter Bartimaeus, who shouts, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" It's not a demure, "if you're not too busy" request. There's no "if you want to do this," or "if you think it's best."

Bartimaeus shouts out a demand -- "have mercy on me!" -- that presumes a relationship between the two of them: Jesus as "Son of David" and therefore king of Israel is obligated to Bartimaeus, an Israelite and therefore his subject. Jesus heals him. He doesn't heal him because Bartimaeus has used the "right" title for Jesus. In Mark, Jesus' preferred title isn't "Son of David," but "the Son of Man." In calling Jesus "Son of David" and therefore king of Israel, Bartimaeus is treading in effect into territory that brought a stern "shut up" (the "charge" there is not the wording of a warm "you're right and I'm glad you said so, but please be discreet") from Jesus just two chapters before, when Peter called Jesus God's anointed (Mark 8:29-30).

In other words, far from being healed as reward for saying the right thing in the right way, Bartimaeus is healed despite his addressing Jesus loudly, repeatedly, and presumptuously before a great crowd in a way Jesus would rather not be addressed in public, if at all.

And Jesus not only answers him, but also heals him. Jesus is not one to hang back waiting for us to get it "right" before responding with compassion. And in any case, who said that the "right" way to ask for what we need would be demurely? There are other ways to read the parable Jesus tells of a persistent widow who gets justice from an unjust judge who "fears neither God nor humankind," but Luke clearly reads it as a model of how we should pray, with the widow's relentless tenacity as a model rather than a cautionary tale (Luke 18:1-8).

But really, should we be surprised by this, if we've read the ancient books that Jesus and St. Paul called the scriptures? The Hebrew bible is full of godly people arguing with God. When God tells Abraham that God is judging Sodom, Abraham bargains with God like a haggler at a flea market or boot sale. When God calls Moses, Moses whines and explains just why God is mistaken. When God calls Jeremiah, Jeremiah protests that he's WAY too young.

And have you read the Psalms lately? I've been spending some quality time with them of late, in part because I think that too many of us have taken in a rather silly idea that God is a very, very delicate being who can only stand us when we're feeling Holy and Meek in a cheerful if rather passive way, and I'm writing music to express some other things we often feel and are invited to bring to God. Psalm 10 is a good one for grief and anger. I just wrote a musical setting for it, though it doesn't appear in our Eucharistic lectionary. What would it feel like to pray that on a Sunday? How will it feel this Sunday to pray Psalm 13, which clearly (especially clearly for those who've read books like this one on cultures of the ancient Near East) is trying to SHAME God into acting ("everyone's calling you chicken, God!")? Can we really enter into that space of being angry with God as we all stand their in our Sunday best?

However we dress, though, when we do it, I think it's wise to practice coming to God with our anger, our grief, and our frustration. God doesn't care whether we're "justified" in having those feelings when we do -- as if feelings were something that needed "justifying." God gave us those feelings -- not to control, but to experience -- and we don't have to experience them alone. There is no more appropriate place to bring our anger and our grief -- not only our questions, but our frustrations when our questions aren't answered, or are unanswerable -- than to God; and when we gather as Christian community, we gather together not just as people who rejoice in our experience of God's blessings, but to bring before God the wounds of the world, including our wounds.

As I've preached about before, most of us will one day experience a grief that seems to turn the whole world upside-down, and when (not if) that happens amongst our families, our circle of friends, our communities, and our communities of faith, as people of faith we bring those to God. When we are angry, we rail at God. When we are sad, we weep before God. When we can't hear God or feel God's presence, there is nothing, in my experience, more potentially healing to do than to bring who we really are and what we are really experiencing in that moment to God.

That will sometimes mean railing at God for being absent -- and sometimes, that will be the most powerful way we could experience God's presence. The past is memory, an imagining of what was but isn't. The future is not here; it's our imagining what may be. The present is here, and when we need to experience God's presence, we do it in the present, with our present hopes and fears, our present longings and frustrations, our present feelings and thoughts. Whether we judge them to be acceptable or not, we can have confidence that God is not threatened by them as we are, and can accept them even when we can't. However we come, with whatever words and whatever wounds, in blindness and recognition, in peace or in anger, and whatever else God wants of us, God wants us to COME.

Thanks be to God!

Comments

Proper 25, Year B

Psalm 13 - link to BCP text
Mark 10:46-52 - link to NRSV text

People often ask me how they should pray. I'm happy to answer, but I think the way the question is most often put shows some assumptions about prayer that are worth considering before buying into them. I particularly have in mind the "should" part of the question, which seems to me to imply that there are right and wrong ways to pray, a kind of prayer etiquette that's important to follow.

That's not something I see in scripture, though. This Sunday's gospel is an excellent case in point. Jesus and his followers are traveling when they encounter Bartimaeus, who shouts, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" It's not a demure, "if you're not too busy" request. There's no "if you want to do this," or "if you think it's best."

Bartimaeus shouts out a demand -- "have mercy on me!" -- that presumes a relationship between the two of them: Jesus as "Son of David" and therefore king of Israel is obligated to Bartimaeus, an Israelite and therefore his subject. Jesus heals him. He doesn't heal him because Bartimaeus has used the "right" title for Jesus. In Mark, Jesus' preferred title isn't "Son of David," but "the Son of Man." In calling Jesus "Son of David" and therefore king of Israel, Bartimaeus is treading in effect into territory that brought a stern "shut up" (the "charge" there is not the wording of a warm "you're right and I'm glad you said so, but please be discreet") from Jesus just two chapters before, when Peter called Jesus God's anointed (Mark 8:29-30).

In other words, far from being healed as reward for saying the right thing in the right way, Bartimaeus is healed despite his addressing Jesus loudly, repeatedly, and presumptuously before a great crowd in a way Jesus would rather not be addressed in public, if at all.

And Jesus not only answers him, but also heals him. Jesus is not one to hang back waiting for us to get it "right" before responding with compassion. And in any case, who said that the "right" way to ask for what we need would be demurely? There are other ways to read the parable Jesus tells of a persistent widow who gets justice from an unjust judge who "fears neither God nor humankind," but Luke clearly reads it as a model of how we should pray, with the widow's relentless tenacity as a model rather than a cautionary tale (Luke 18:1-8).

But really, should we be surprised by this, if we've read the ancient books that Jesus and St. Paul called the scriptures? The Hebrew bible is full of godly people arguing with God. When God tells Abraham that God is judging Sodom, Abraham bargains with God like a haggler at a flea market or boot sale. When God calls Moses, Moses whines and explains just why God is mistaken. When God calls Jeremiah, Jeremiah protests that he's WAY too young.

And have you read the Psalms lately? I've been spending some quality time with them of late, in part because I think that too many of us have taken in a rather silly idea that God is a very, very delicate being who can only stand us when we're feeling Holy and Meek in a cheerful if rather passive way, and I'm writing music to express some other things we often feel and are invited to bring to God. Psalm 10 is a good one for grief and anger. I just wrote a musical setting for it, though it doesn't appear in our Eucharistic lectionary. What would it feel like to pray that on a Sunday? How will it feel this Sunday to pray Psalm 13, which clearly (especially clearly for those who've read books like this one on cultures of the ancient Near East) is trying to SHAME God into acting ("everyone's calling you chicken, God!")? Can we really enter into that space of being angry with God as we all stand their in our Sunday best?

However we dress, though, when we do it, I think it's wise to practice coming to God with our anger, our grief, and our frustration. God doesn't care whether we're "justified" in having those feelings when we do -- as if feelings were something that needed "justifying." God gave us those feelings -- not to control, but to experience -- and we don't have to experience them alone. There is no more appropriate place to bring our anger and our grief -- not only our questions, but our frustrations when our questions aren't answered, or are unanswerable -- than to God; and when we gather as Christian community, we gather together not just as people who rejoice in our experience of God's blessings, but to bring before God the wounds of the world, including our wounds.

As I've preached about before, most of us will one day experience a grief that seems to turn the whole world upside-down, and when (not if) that happens amongst our families, our circle of friends, our communities, and our communities of faith, as people of faith we bring those to God. When we are angry, we rail at God. When we are sad, we weep before God. When we can't hear God or feel God's presence, there is nothing, in my experience, more potentially healing to do than to bring who we really are and what we are really experiencing in that moment to God.

That will sometimes mean railing at God for being absent -- and sometimes, that will be the most powerful way we could experience God's presence. The past is memory, an imagining of what was but isn't. The future is not here; it's our imagining what may be. The present is here, and when we need to experience God's presence, we do it in the present, with our present hopes and fears, our present longings and frustrations, our present feelings and thoughts. Whether we judge them to be acceptable or not, we can have confidence that God is not threatened by them as we are, and can accept them even when we can't. However we come, with whatever words and whatever wounds, in blindness and recognition, in peace or in anger, and whatever else God wants of us, God wants us to COME.

Thanks be to God!