Today I notice that Bishop Jake has posted his sermon from last Sunday on his sermon blog, and it strikes me as a relevant follow-up to our discussion. Here is an excerpt:
Hearing Bartimaeus
sermon by Bishop Jake at Grace Church, Monroe, Sunday, 10/28/12
I love movies. All sorts of
movies. I love babies. All sorts of babies. But my heart sinks when I
see parents bringing a baby into a movie theater that I’ve settled
into. A crying infant will break the spell of the movie experience and
focus all my attention on a baby in distress.
Even with booming special effects
or a swelling musical score, the baby’s cry will force everything else
into the background of my awareness. It’s not that I get angry at the
parents or resent the little one for being hungry or scared or messy. I
just can’t help responding to a sobbing papoose.
It’s difficult for anyone to ignore
crying babies. Our brains respond to wailing infants before we have a
chance to think about it. A recent study from Oxford University
demonstrated just that.
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| Mary Cassatt's "Mother Jean Nursing Her Baby" |
The study involved thirty childless
adults who had no special experience in caring for children. The
researchers played recordings of babies and adults crying, as well as
sounds of animals in distress.
Brain scans revealed that each of
the participants responded to the sounds, but only the baby’s sobs
produced activity in the brain’s emotional centers. The response time,
by the way, was 100 milliseconds.
Our emotions motivate us to act.
When babies cry, we feel an urge to do something about it. They need
help and they are powerless to help themselves. We are hardwired to
come to their rescue with milk or formula or a pacifier or a fresh
diaper.
Of course I don’t do this in a
movie theater because the parents are right there. Usually one of them
grabs a diaper bag or scurries out of the theater for a few minutes.
But my blood pressure goes up precisely because some primitive part of
me is straining to make it all better for a helpless baby.
We are hardwired for compassion
toward babies. By contrast, we have learned to tune out cries for help
from others. Television, radio, the internet, and newspapers inundate
us with stories of human suffering. People are devastated by war and
natural disaster, and famine pushes millions to starvation. In our
daily rounds we encounter the poor, the homeless, the illiterate, the
mentally ill, and the addicted.
To borrow a phrase from William James,
if we didn’t filter out these cries for help we would be lost in a
buzzing, booming confusion of misery. There are too many cries for help
competing for our attention, and we have too little time and too few
resources to deal with even a small percentage of these cries. And so,
to focus on what we need to do for ourselves and for the small circle of
friends and family who depend upon us, we learn to filter out the
cries.
And yet Jesus teaches us to be
merciful: to hear with our hearts the cries for help around us and to
respond with the same help that Jesus has already given us. We have
received mercy so that we can show mercy. A vital congregation is known
for its works of mercy.
Jesus’ healing of blind Bartimaeus
teaches us some helpful things about being a merciful congregation.
That story invites us to explore three questions:
What is mercy?
What are the works of mercy?
What effect do works of mercy have on the believing community?
for the remainder of the sermon, click here
