On This Week’s Meditation Prompts

I’ve been reading Gordon W. Lathrop’s Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology.  In the first chapter he discusses the story of Bartimaeus, Son of Timaeus. While thinking about Bartimaeus this week I could not help following a line of thought in which clothing plays a part: Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and follows Jesus “on the way” to the passion in Jerusalem.  A young man slips out of his garment and runs away naked as a soldier grabs at him in the Garden of Gethsemane.  A young man dressed in white (baptismal clothes?) witnesses to the resurrection of Christ at the sepulcher.  Lathrop writes, “These latter two figures have been linked in recent exegesis of Mark, and the single ‘young man’ has been seen as a type of the newly baptized, of those who are immersed in the death of Jesus in order to be clothed in his life and made witnesses of the resurrection.”  

Here’s a suggestion for your meditation this week. Imagine the three scenes.  In one, throwing off your cloak and whatever your cloak represents (purgation?).  In the next, fearful nakedness (nights of the soul?). And in the third, take in the implications of the white robe (the unitive way?).  To bring the exercise to completion follow through to the inevitable next scene:  Christian life truly begins after folding the white robe, (perhaps saving your baptismal gown for graveclothes as many Christians do, symbolic of birth into heaven) and putting on work clothes.

The meditation prompts which follow do not necessarily correspond with the above suggestion. - Suzanne

Collect for Proper 25

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Meditation Two

following in the way of death

But unlike the figure in the Timaeus, this blind beggar does not lament in vain.  Throwing off his cloak (the "philosopher’s cloak?  is it philosophy itself that is blind?) he comes to Jesus (10:50).  Calling Jesus "my teacher," he asks to see.  And upon receiving his sight, he follows Jesus "in the way" (10:52). What follows immediately in the book is the beginning of the Markan passion account, the enacting of Jesus' cup and the baptism of his death.  The "way" that Bartimaeus follows is the way into this death, not the unperturbed and reasonable courses of the heavenly bodies.  Participation in this way seems to invite us to a different sort of cosmology, a different view of the constitution of the universe and a correspondingly different estimate of the good life.

-Gordon W. Lathrop     Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology  p.32

Meditation Three

the "type" of the newly baptized

One might assume that the figure of Bartimaeus then disappears from the Gospel.  His name does not occur again.  But given the crucial location of this figure in the structure of the Gospel, the open-ended report of his following on the way, and the narrative interest in both his clothing and his sight, it is not impossible to suggest that the evangelist sees this same figure recurring, first as the young man who is following Jesus (14:51; compare 10:52) and who runs off naked, then as the young man in the empty tomb, now dressed in a white robe, announcing where Jesus is to be seen (16:5,7).  These latter two figures have been linked in recent exegesis of Mark, and the single "young man" has been seen as a type of the newly baptized, of those who are immersed in the death of Jesus in order to be clothed in his life and made witnesses of the resurrection….

Throwing off the cloak of philosophy or of begging, he has come to the teacher (10:50-51) and entered into the way of the catechumen.  That way involves more than ideas and reason.  It leads to naked need and immersion in Jesus’ death (14:51-52) Finally, this very same figure, now clothed in resurrection life, bears witness to a new use of sight: beholding Jesus "in Galilee" as he promised (16:5-7).

-Gordon W. Lathrop     Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology  p.32

The Last Word

The Spirit of the Lord comes touching you himself,

So there is born in you eternity’s own child.

-Angelus Silesius  1624-1677

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. 

-Matthew 5:14-16