Brave Prayers

Mark 10:46-52

Most Wednesdays, at noon, I attend the midweek Eucharist at St John’s in Lynchburg. This is a practice I have brought with me from my time in seminary, where a very wise priest reminded me that I was baptized well before I was ordained and I should order my life with this truth in mind. That midweek service is one of few times during the year that I am a worshipper instead of a presider, another among many Christians facing the altar, hearing the word preached by someone else, and receiving the sacrament from the hands of another. This is an important spiritual practice for me, and often provides moments of clarity that serve my work throughout the week. For a few weeks now, I’ve noticed something there that has had me thinking about you, about us, about what it is to be the people at prayer. It’s a thought that has been looking for a place to land, and this week our brother Bartimaeus has revealed the lesson at the heart of it.

Every week in those Wednesday services, just like every Sunday at Grace and St Mark’s, a moment is taken for intercessions and thanksgivings. Some days the moment of silence stretches long before a name is called out, other days the air is filled with the hum of mumbling voices- a steady stream of quiet prayers offered up among us. We pray for those we know and care for who face unfathomable challenges, those who are sick or injured, those who are recovering from surgery and those who are away from home. We pray for people at home and overseas who face injustice, oppression, violence, and fear. We pray for those who are alone and those who grieve. Even on the days when we hesitate, when our prayers are held in the silence like breathe underwater, we seem to find it easiest to name others before God. Every parish has its prayer list, and we too each have our list of names and countries and leaders and lost ones that we recite before God when prayers are bid. This simple act, this litany of names, is a sign of a deep trust in a God who knows us, who knows the people for whom we worry, who loves those for whom we weep. To name one another before God is an apostolic act, an affirmation of the connections forged in our baptisms, one to another in Christ forever.

And yet, when it comes to our own needs, our thanksgivings and our private wounds and wishes- we tend to fall silent. On Wednesdays at St John’s, we are a small crowd. A handful most days, two handfuls when the kids are on holiday from school. Among us there are those who are grieving, who have lost someone or are preparing to lose them. Among us there are those who recovering from surgery or a broken limb. There are those among us each week who are sick, who are being treated for cancer. And yet, in the litany of names and petitions for healing and recovery and peace and joy, I have never heard anyone in that chapel say their own name, or lift up aloud their own desire for healing. I notice the same thing here on most Sunday mornings. Now, I’m not claiming that none of us pray for ourselves, or that there aren’t infinite depths to what can be known by God without us ever raising our voices. The silence of the heart is a place well known to God. But when it comes to prayer in community, I do think we get shy. When given the opportunity to ask God for something for ourselves, we come up short. We go back to our list of names, our prayer life outlined by the needs and gifts of others. We are a loving people, a family-oriented community, a web of neighbors and friends who remember one another in our prayers as often as we pray. We don’t often ask God for what we want for ourselves, or even what we need. And so, Bartimaeus has something to show us, an object lesson in the type of prayer we practice most quietly and least often. Bartimaeus shows us what it is to bravely petition our Lord.

Bartimaeus, a man who is blind and who relies on the generosity and mercy of the community for the most basic of needs, cries out to Jesus as many others have before him. He calls him by his name, and also by the title Son of David, a title that contains both messianic and familial claims. Bartimaeus is calling to Jesus at the top of his lungs and in no uncertain terms- he believes that Jesus has something world-changing about him, and Bartimaeus is not going to miss the opportunity to meet this very special person. Bartimaeus is blind, of course, so he cannot see where Jesus is in order to go to him directly as others do. He must shout, and ask for mercy, and hope that someone points him in the right direction. Some of the folks around don’t appreciate the racket, and tell him to pipe down. Bartimaeus, a man who has survived in a harsh world with his hope intact, does not waver until Jesus has heard him. Take heart, someone says to Bartimaeus. “Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” And when our dear brother Bartimaeus meets Jesus, still out of breath in his hurry, Jesus asks him a question that should be familiar to us. “What do you want me to do for you?” It is the same question Jesus asked James and John last week, when they came to him with the audacity of faithful friendship and asked an impossible thing. It seems obvious to us, those of us born with sight, what Bartimaeus must want. He is a blind man and a beggar, after all. Of course he will want his sight restored, Jesus, do you really need to ask? But Jesus does ask him. Jesus who is God himself, who knows our hearts and our minds and every hair on our heads, asks “What do you want me to do for you?” Because there is healing in the asking. Because Bartimaeus may want something different, something more. Because placing our wants and our needs in the hands of Jesus is the most vulnerable and terrifying and difficult and powerful thing we can do with them. What do you want me to do for you? What do you want him to do for you?

Some days, the answer to that question might come easily. Other days, it may elicit only deep silence. Many days, the answer to that question from Jesus will be intercession on behalf of someone else, someone we love, someone we need. The same way we pray for one another, the same way others name us before God when we cannot find the words or even the strength to pray, Jesus lifts us up and intercedes for us. That same tenderness which we feel toward our personal prayer lists, that same care with which we collect the prayer requests of others, and more are felt in the heart of Jesus as he is constantly praying for us. Jesus knows our answers before he asks, but still he opens his arms to us in the asking. “What do you want me to do for you?” We know that prayer is powerful, and we are faithful in interceding for one another every week. What might we learn, if we allowed ourselves to answer aloud on our own behalf, like Bartimaeus? What might Jesus heal in us, if we were brave enough to ask?