Homily

Jesus and his disciples and the crowds of people are entering into the city of Jericho, where a blind man was sitting along the side of the road. He was begging. Because he was blind he could not work, and it seems that either he had no family or his family abandoned him. So he had to beg just to survive. Don’t forget there were no food stamps, Medicare, no soup kitchens or shelters for the needy. If you didn’t have money, or could not work, or had no family to support you, you were totally on your own and begging was the only way you could stay alive. And begging in the ancient world was considered shameful.

So when the blind beggar hears it is Jesus coming, he calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those at the head of the crowd try to get him to shut up but he yells out again even louder! Why do you think they wanted him to keep quiet? They probably thought he wanted money—and it was either that Jesus didn’t have any money, or not much, or it may have been considered rude to call out to the “great rabbi” to get cash. Maybe that’s why they were mad at him.

But the blind beggar didn’t want cash. He wanted mercy—and he wanted a specific mercy: to be able to see. It was a tremendous act of faith. He could have been ridiculed and shoved aside, rejected. But it didn’t stop him. And he was cured.

I was thinking about Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?” It’s worth thinking about that question, “What do you want Jesus to do for me?” How we answer that question tells us something about our faith, and our relationship with Jesus. What do I really want from Him? Money? Health? A free pass into heaven? Forgiveness of sins? Grace and life for my soul? To leave me alone until I need Him? What do I want Jesus to do for me?

The blind man’s cry “have mercy on me” is a part of the Jesus Prayer, which is such a rich devotional practice in the Eastern Churches. And of course, the three words we sing the most during any service are “Lord, have mercy.” But what would you ask mercy for? I often say “Lord, have mercy” when there’s a problem or some kind of trouble, and of course there is nothing wrong with that. Even in the smaller things we can always use God’s mercy. But on a different level what is it, what are those things in your life where you truly, deeply, profoundly, importantly and most especially need the Lord’s mercy? What is it, what are those things where we deeply require the mercy of the Lord? It could be in the area of sin, or of faith, or of fear and anxiety, or hopelessness. It could be about spiritual laziness, or a lack of love for God and neighbor, or the memories of past sins or doubts about the future. It could be we need God’s mercy in our marriage or for our children or the whole family, or for those who are ill, or for our own health. Of course we may seriously need mercy in more than one of these areas and that’s likely to be true. Yet where we ask for mercy, if we even ask at all, can show us something important about ourselves and about our lives and about our faith.

I have a priest friend who is about five years older than me. When I was in the seminary I really looked up to him. He was smart, talented, funny and as a young priest he was doing great in the parish. Then one day I heard he was gone. He had run off with a woman he had been seeing and they got married. He was accepted into an Orthodox church and re-ordained, and sent off to be pastor in a Midwest parish. After several years I heard the marriage fell apart, he left the parish he was at and asked to be accepted back into the Catholic Church, and he asked to be taken back into the priestly ministry. Getting back into the Church was very easy, but getting permission to serve as a priest once again was not so easy. It took over a year for the permission to be granted, and it came with a penance. Before he could serve as a priest again he had to spend a year in a Trappist monastery. We were talking about it just recently and he said, “You know, it seemed to me and to others that the year in the monastery was a punishment—and it was, and I accepted that. But for me it turned out to be what a punishment should be: it turned me around. I began to see the mistakes and bad behaviors that got me into trouble, and I became more aware of my personal weaknesses. I developed a much deeper relationship with the Lord and I ended up finding peace instead turmoil in my life. What started out as a punishment ended up for me as a time of discovering God’s great mercy and it changed my life.” I think when we truly seek the Lord’s mercy it does have a great impact on our lives. Maybe not in such an instantly dramatic way as the blind beggar, but when we put ourselves seriously under the divine mercy we open ourselves up to serious change and growth in virtue.

Now I ask you to reconsider today’s Gospel in a different way. Imagine the man came up crying out “Son of David have mercy on me!” And Jesus asked the boys “How much do we have?” They answer, “Twenty-two dollars.” And Jesus replies, “Give it all to the blind man.” Everyone is impressed! Now that is maybe how we kind of see God’s mercy. As something obvious, simple, immediate. But Jesus gives the man back his sight. Why? Not so he could give up begging and earn his own way but so that the man could follow Him. Because more than money, more than being able to see the world around him, more than earning his own keep, what the man needed more than all of that was Jesus. The great mercy of Jesus was not in a miracle of sight-restored but a miracle that allowed the man to become one of the Lord’s disciples. That was the greatest mercy. The rich man in last week’s Gospel was the exact opposite. He was so attached to all his goods he couldn’t give them up to follow Jesus. He would not accept the mercy offered to him. He went away sad. He went away unchanged.

The proud cannot, will not, accept the mercy of the Lord, nor will the self-satisfied, the insincere doubter, those caught up in materialism, nor those who look for peace and happiness where it cannot be found. Where do you seriously need the mercy of Christ in your life? Then let’s call out to Him with the same urgency, the same persistence, the same determination as the blind beggar did in his day. Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me! His mercy will always pull us closer to Him. So Jesus asks us the same question today: “What do you want me to do for you?”