Luke 18:35-43
And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging: And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, “Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.” And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.
Today’s Gospel begins with what might truly be called a “Gospel” message. The English word Gospel, a contraction of the phrase “Good Spell” which in Old English meant a “Good Tale,” would be more literally translated today as “Good News.” And that is precisely what today’s story begins with, a bustling crowd entering into Jericho as they discuss the good news of their day. The crowd passes by a blind man begging beside the side of the road, and this man asks the crowd what all the excitement is about. They reply that Jesus of Nazareth is on his way. This would be exciting news to anybody, but to the blind man, it is very good news.
As the crowd continues to flow past him, the blind man cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those at the front of the crowd try to turn the blind man away, but he perseveres, repeating again, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” This time Jesus hears him and asks for the man to be brought before him. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus inquires. The blind man does not hesitate, but immediately asks that he might receive his sight. Jesus grants this man his sight, saying that it was “his faith” that had made him well. It wasn’t just the blind man’s belief that Jesus was a great healer, or even the action of crying out to Jesus, but it was his faithful perseverance that had saved him.
Why does Luke include this story in his Gospel? Why does the Church read it to us today? Is it simply a miracle story, meant as one more proof that Jesus was indeed God and therefore worthy of our worship? Or is there a more practical message to be found in this story? With this story, more than many others, I think the latter is true. As we prepare right now for the coming of the Light into the world at Christmas, the Church is reminding us that we all live in darkness, that each one of us is blind. Not metaphorically blind, but really blind. We are surrounded by a spiritual reality that we in fact cannot see. We cannot see this spiritual reality because our spirit has become darkened, our heart has become blind. For the Eastern Orthodox Church, the promise that “the pure in heart shall see God” is very real, and thus spiritual blindness is a very real malady. In fact, it is one of the more serious maladies faced by humanity.
So what is this “Spiritual Blindness” the Church is reminding us of today? In Orthodox teaching, “spiritual blindness” is a malfunctioning of what in Greek is called the nous and is generally translated into English as “the mind” or “the intellect.” It is the nous St. Paul is talking about in Romans when he teaches, “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In modern culture we tend to think of the mind as the source of our person. We say things like, “I think therefore I am.” We think of the mind’s role is to tell our body what to do. But this is not the Orthodox teaching at all. And increasingly, it is not the scientific understanding either.
Indeed medical science has become much better in recent decades about understanding the effect of the mind on the body, and the effect of body on the mind. And while science has been a little slower to recognize how spirituality might play into creating a truly healthy person, even here we have had a bit of a renaissance with doctors recommending spiritual practices like meditation or yoga.
It is interesting that Christian spirituality almost never enters into the conversation. And this is not science’s fault nearly as much as it is Christianity’s. To a great extent Christianity has offered little to the conversation. Practices such as confession, fasting, prayer, and meditation, once regular practices for Christians, have slowly disappeared from among the faithful. I think this is because the Western Church, along with Western culture, bought into the notion of the human person is a being made up of a body, a mind, and a spirit, three separate parts. And with this in mind, they’ve relegated themselves to saving the spirit and left the body and the mind to the doctors.
But for Orthodox Christians, the human person is a unity. The body, mind, and spirit are aspects of the single human person, not parts that can be separated. When God came to save humanity, he came to save us body, mind, and spirit alike. This is why we believe is a bodily resurrection. And just as much as Jesus came to save both the physical and the spiritual, this is also the mission of the Church. We are here to help people both physically and spiritually, and in fact these acts are often deeply connected.
So, from the Orthodox perspective, the proper role of the mind is not to direct human action, but rather to function as the gateway or “eye” of the heart. The heart or the soul is where the Orthodox Church seats the person. The Church teaches that a healthy mind both guards what enters into the heart and guides what comes out of the heart. A darkened nous - what the Church describes as “spiritual blindness” – is a nous that accepts evil thoughts and directs us toward evil words and actions.
Now most of us think of these evil words and actions as “sins.” But the meaning of the word translated as “sin” would be more properly be translated as something like “missing the mark” or “falling short.” Thus, when these evil words and actions happen, they are not themselves “sin” but rather evidence that sin has corrupted our heart. As Jesus taught, “Every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.” When the Church teaches that humanity has inherited their sin from generation to generation, it is this corruption of the heart she is talking about.
Evagrius Ponticus, and St. John Cassian after him, codified a list of eight categories of evil thoughts or logismoi in the fourth and early fifth centuries. These are thoughts which the nous must try to keep from taking root in the heart, thoughts which would work to conform us “to the pattern of this world.” The list includes gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, dejection, listlessness, vanity, and pride. You will most likely recognize some of these from the Western list of the “Seven Deadly Sins.” This is because Pope Gregory I adapted his list from that of Sts. Evagrius and John in the sixth century. Now when we hear about the “Seven Deadly Sins,” again, we think of a list of seven “very bad things we must not do.” But this is again to confuse the symptoms with the disease. Listen to how St. John Cassian describes a condition like dejection: “When [dejection] seizes our soul and darkens it completely, it prevents us from praying gladly, from reading Holy Scripture with profit and perseverance, and from being gentle and compassionate with our brethren.” He is clearly describing here a spiritual state of being, not a specific wrongdoing.
Sins like anger, greed, gluttony, and vanity are every bit as much symptoms of a spiritual illness, symptoms of a heart corrupted by sin. When we begin to understand this, we can see why Jesus taught that to harbor anger in our heart is the same as to murder; to lust in our heart is the same as to practice infidelity; to hoard our wealth is the same as to steal. Realizing this truth can also help us to have compassion for our neighbors. In a legal system that conceives of behaviors as the problem, it is easy to punish or shun of the offender. But when we realize that many of the most offensive behaviors flow from sick hearts, hearts sick with a disease shared by all of us, this realization can help us find compassion as we strive to show love.
So if the problem facing the mind is the onslaught of evil thoughts, is it safe to say that the mind is in some serious danger these days? Modern culture has created so many new and stunning ways to spread thoughts across the globe at a faster and faster rate. Life has become a constant barrage of headlines, tweets, and status updates. Some of the ideas we hear are good, some of them are bad, but when we get so many all at once, the task of discernment becomes difficult. And if our mind becomes overwhelmed, even the good ideas can become bad for us.
I ran across a great passage, again by St. John Cassian, describing vanity, and illustrating how even seemingly good ideas can become damaging to the soul. “The vice of vanity is difficult to fight against, because it has many forms and appears in all of our activities – in our way of speaking, in what we say as well as in our silence, at work, in vigils and fasting, in prayer and reading, in stillness and in long-suffering. Through all of these it seeks to strike down the soldier of Christ. When it cannot seduce one with extravagant clothes, it tries to tempt them by means of shabby ones.” Here we see that even a seemingly good act like avoiding fancy clothes can become itself a temptation from the Evil One.
And not all of these poisonous ideas, these evil logismoi, originate in our culture. The Church teaches that some logismoi, logismoi that seem to originate within us, are like arrows shot at us by the devil and his demons. These logismoi are often temptations to judge others, elevate ourselves, or to act out in anger. These tests often occur suddenly, and the Church suggests we to swat them away just as swiftly. For it is not when these temptations arise, but when they are allowed to settle into our hearts, that they become our responsibility. As John Climacus writes, “When [the demons] take control of the soul and darken the light of the mind, then there is no longer within our miserable souls either temperance, or discernment, or self-understanding, or humility, but instead there is an apathy, a lack of discernment, and spiritual blindness.”
So with so many attacks coming from within and without, how are we expected to keep guard over our hearts? What advice does the Church give us? One thing suggested by the Church, is avoiding undue concern for this world. In the version of Unseen Warfare compiled and edited by Theophan the Recluse we are warned to guard our mind from “too much knowledge and curiosity. For if we fill it up with a quantity of information, ideas, and thoughts, without excluding those that are vain, unsuitable, and harmful…it is no longer able to understand clearly what is useful for our true self-correction and perfection. Let tales of the past and news of the present pass you by, and let all the changes in the world and its kingdoms pass before you as though they did not exist at all.” Living in today’s 24/7 news cycle, it is hard to imagine the strength of will that would be necessary to let “the news of the present pass you by.” But this is the recommendation of the Church.
And to be clear, this is not about being uninformed, but rather about avoiding indiscriminate consumption of the news, spending hours consuming what often amounts to little more than gossip. The Church is suggesting that you take control of your news consumption, just as you would your food consumption, including even occasional fasts.
Also just like food, it is not simply about consuming less, but we should also look at what we consume and work to consume more of the healthy stuff. We are encouraged to seek out and surround ourselves with the good thoughts, or good news. Our written prayers are bathed in beautiful and poetic thoughts, in true thoughts. We should be consuming these daily. And if words are occasionally hard for us to focus on, our Church is well aware of the power of images. Our Church is filled with them. Fill your house, your car, your desk with them as well.
Beyond all of this, beyond guarding against the bad thoughts and seeking out the good thoughts, we are ultimately called to free ourselves from thoughts or logismoi altogether. The Church describes a state of the heart where we may attain a true inner peace. This state is called hesychia, often translated as stillness. This does not mean that we stop thinking, but rather that our heart is no longer besieged by invading thoughts and is therefore free to see and to think clearly. St. Maximus teaches that a purified heart will be “wise, good, powerful, compassionate, merciful, and long-suffering; in short, it includes within itself almost all the divine qualities.” Again we hear an echo of that beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
The work of acquiring hesychia is where prayer and vigils and fasting can be helpful. St. Thalassios teaches, “Tire your body with fasting and vigils, and you will be able to repulse the lethal thoughts of pleasure.” And this is where our little Church, this little sanctuary in middle of Davenport, can be of great service to the community. This little mission has the power to become an oasis of peace and a place of healing. If people are able to come in and for an hour or two “lay aside all earthly cares” and focus on their Lord and God and Savior, can you imagine a better gift than that. John Climacus taught that, “it is the understanding which is obtained through divine illumination that can brighten the darkness present in others.” We must work to bring that peace and light into our own souls, so that we will be able to share that light with the souls of others.
It is not just vigils that assist in the pursuit of hesychia, but this is also where the Jesus Prayer is held in such high esteem by the Eastern Church. She knows it is so difficult for the mind to be silent, so the Church gives us good words to use when we struggle to silence the mind. These words are good for every occasion – “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me.” If repeated in earnest and in faith, Jesus is sure to calm that stormy sea within our heart, just as he once calmed the stormy sea at the cries of his disciples.
These words, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” also bring us back to where we began today, for these are the words of the faithful blind man – “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” So I hope you can now see how the story of the blind man is not the story of a single miracle in the past, but rather a story selected to encourage each of us to faithfully seek out that same miracle. Each one of us is the blind man sitting on the side of the road. We must be like the blind man and cry out continually, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” Even when we are distracted by the assaults of the Evil One, we must continue to faithfully cry, “Lord have mercy!” And if we do this, we can be assured that our Lord who is always faithful, will call us to himself and say, “Receive your sight. Your faith has made you well.” Amen.