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Lent 4a 2014
30 March
I Sam. 16:1-13; Ps. 23
Eph. 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
Jack Hardaway
NOW I SEE
You must know someone like him
He was tall and strong and lean
With a body like a greyhound
And a mind so sharp and keen
But his heart, just like a laurel,
Grew twisted round itself
Till almost everything he did
Caused pain to someone else
It's not just what you're born with
It's what you choose to bear
It's not how big your share is
But how much you can share
And it's not the fights you dreamed of
But those you really fought
It's not what you've been given
It's what you do with what you've got
Now what's the good of two strong legs
If you only run away?
And what use is the finest voice
If you've nothing good to say?
And what good is strength and muscle
If you only push and shove?
And what's the use of two good ears
If you can't hear those you love?
Between those who use their neighbor
And those who use a cane
Between those in constant power
And those in constant pain
Between those who run to evil
And those who cannot run
Tell me which ones are the cripples
And which ones touch the sun?
That is a song from folk singer Si Kahn.
We all have official and unofficial creeds.
I confess the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds.
This song is one of my unofficial creeds.
There is a strong since of irony. Who are the strong? Who are the virtuous?
Who are the cripples? Who are those who touch the sun?
That same irony is in the Gospel lesson today.
Which ones are the blind?
Whichones have sight?
Which ones are the sinners?
Which ones are the faithful?
It is a sharp cutting irony.
The blind man is the one who sees.
Those who have sight are the ones who are blind.
The virtuous ones in the story are the sinners.
And the sinner is the only one who is faithful.
What is sight?
What is faith?
What is sin?
This Gospel lesson calls all of our assumptions into question.
The strangeness of faith, both in scripture and in the tradition of the church is that usually faith only becomes possible when we are in need, when we are weak, when we are vulnerable. It is then that we are able to receive and respond to the person of Jesus.
In the 12 step community the recovery from addiction usually begins when we hit “rock bottom.”
Faith is like that, when we come to the end of ourselves, then we are most available to grace.
There are many mistaken teachers that think that the Christian life is about comfort, success, pleasure and affluence.
It is rather about finding grace in affliction. It is about finding resurrection in the cross.
It is about being open to and responsive to the person of Jesus.
John’s Gospel is especially striking when it comes to this.
For John, sin is not about moral or ethical actions. It is simply about responding to Jesus. To be a sinner in John’s gospel is simply one thing, to reject Jesus, beginning, middle and end.
To truly see is to believe, and to believe John’s Gospel is to practice serving love, especially for the community that professes Jesus.
Are we believing? Are we rejecting?
How do we come to faith?
What’s the story? What’s the testimony?
Are we vulnerable and open to the Gospel?
The ancient church had a collection of favorite stories that were told over and over again and depicted in art work over and over again as part of the preparation for baptism.
One was the healing of the paralytic where Jesus tells him to stand up take his bed and walk. Another was the woman at the well that we heard last week. And another is today’s lesson the healing of the blind man.
They are stories of healing both physical and cultural brokenness that are at the same timeabout profession of belief in Jesus.
Baptism and belief are understood to be about deep healing of deep brokenness.
There is a toast that became popular in the muddy trenches of WW I, that has its origin in today’s Gospel lesson, in Jesus making mud out of spit on the ground and anointing the eyes of the blind man.
“Here is to mud in your eye.”
“May your sight be healed, may you see truly, may you see Jesus and believe, in the mud and death that awaits you in the trenches.”
Here is to mud in your eye.
Out of affliction, out of need, out of weakness grace abounds.
Which ones are the cripple? Which ones touch the son?