I once was blind but now I see

I've been trying something new this Lent. I'm not preaching, but I'm offering some thoughts here that may help those who are preaching and those who will be listening to sermons this Sunday to preview the "thick" texts we've been getting from the fourth gospel. For the fourth Sunday in Lent, that gospel is John 9:1-41. 

Rabbi, who sinned here? This man or his parents? In one form or another, human beings have been asking this question throughout history. We yearn for simple cause-and-effect answers to the very difficult question of human suffering. And so inquiring minds want to know, and particularly, people of faith want to know. 

Notice that the question doesn’t come from the crowds or from the scribes and Pharisees. The question is posed by Jesus’ disciples. It's asked by those who have left all things behind to follow him. Like Job before them, they are committed people of faith yearning to understand the problem of human suffering.

Why was this man born blind? Or why was that woman down the street cured of her cancer, but my father was not? Why was my child diagnosed with cystic fibrosis? Why did that tsunami strike where and when it did? Is this all some kind of punishment?

I adore John's Gospel but I find it the most challenging of the four to preach on because it is so mystical. There is more packed in there than a fifteen-minute homily can tackle. But it seems to me that this is the great theological question and it cannot be ignored on this day, whatever else the preacher may say. We should notice that although Jesus almost always answers questions with a question, he doesn't do that here. He leaves no doubt. He responds clearly and directly: neither this man, nor his parents sinned. Jesus rejects the notion that disease is some kind of punishment for sin. 

Why was this man born blind? We don’t know. All that we can say with any amount of certainty is that in this man’s healing, God’s glory is revealed—if only we have eyes to see.

The healing itself occurs in a fairly straightforward matter: Jesus spits on the ground, makes a little mud pie from the sand and his saliva, spreads that mud on the guy’s eyes, and then tells him to go wash it off. The man does so. God’s grace is so amazing that this man, who once was blind, now sees.

But the healing story quickly is left behind, and instead what we have to unpack is this conflict over the practice of keeping the Sabbath holy. In this case we’re talking about the accepted societal practices around keeping the Sabbath holy. The poor guy who was blind, and now sees, finds himself at the center of a media storm and ultimately a criminal investigation. One can only imagine if CNN and Fox News had been around how this scandal would have unfolded with a twenty-four hour news cycle. As it is, we get to see that even without modern technology, Middle Eastern villages in the first-century do just fine at passing along the big story of the day.

No one wants to believe this guy who now sees is the one they’ve all known to be blind from birth. “I’m the man,” he insists. And they keep asking him, “but how did this happen?” Notice his frustration, and notice how in the midst of all the shouting, his voice gets lost. Notice how his parents get dragged in and interviewed by the media. It’s a real frenzy, and the guy’s whole life is disrupted as Jesus becomes the real story. Jesus is pushing their buttons, and it seems to be apparent that he wants to rock that boat. He is saying that doing the work of the Kingdom takes precedence over everything else. Jesus is reminding people that the Sabbath is given for humans, in order to make life more abundant, not so that humans can become slaves to it.

In today’s gospel reading there are a whole lot of competing agendas. While it’s easy for Christians to caricature and scapegoat the Pharisees, the truth is that they are sincere people trying to keep the faith. Their sin, however, may be in their certitude that they know and see all that there is to see. And in their vigilant desire to keep Sabbath holy, they are blind to the transformation that is unfolding before their very eyes.

This gospel reading is only initially about the healing of a blind man. In fact, it is about exposing certitude—especially religious certitude—for what it is: a form of idolatry and pride. When we are absolutely certain that we have it all down and that we grasp the whole truth and that we have a clear command of all the right information and that our perspective is “pure”—it is precisely then that we may be most blind to what is unfolding right before our very eyes.

 

The Wesley Boys

Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls and endowed them with eloquence of speech and song: kindle such fervor in your Church, we entreat you, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. 

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Every year on this day, my heart feels strangely warmed as my chosen denomination (The Episcopal Church) remembers and gives thanks for the life and witness of John and Charles Wesley, who loomed large in the denomination that formed me. 

John is considered to be the founder of the Methodists. Charles was a prolific poet who composed more than 6,500 hymns, many of which can be found in the Episcopal Church's hymnal. Their parents were Anglican rector, Samuel Wesley, and his wife, Susanna, who had strong Pietist leanings, but remained Anglican.

Neither John nor Charles had any intention of ever leaving the Anglican Church to start a new denomination. At Oxford University, the two were founding members of a small reform group. In 1728, they were ordained as priests of the Church of England, and they faithfully kept their holy orders throughout their lives.

When I left the United Methodist Church, in which I served as an ordained minister from 1988-1993, no one ever asked me to "renounce" my former denomination. In fact, just the opposite: Bishop Geoffrey Rowthorn, who was Suffragan Bishop in Connecticut when I made the move to the Episcopal Church, urged me to bring my Wesleyanism with me. "We still need what they were trying to do in the Episcopal Church," he told me. 

Why did I make this move if I love these brothers so much? The United Methodist Church was founded when I was five years old, in 1968, the result of a merger between the Methodist-Episcopal Church and the Evangelical United Brethren. At the risk of over-simplifying, the Methodist-Episcopal Church was more liturgical and probably more progressive, generally, than the EUB. When I went to Drew Theological School I learned liturgy that was Eucharistic-centered and actually very close to the Episcopal Church. But there remained a lot of freedom for pastors to draw on their own creativity in congregations, at least into the 1980s. I not only felt drawn to the more Eucharistic-centered liturgy of The Episcopal Church as the place for me to grow into the full stature of Christ, but I came to believe that I'd be a more faithful "Wesleyan" in the tradition that had formed them. It was the right move for me, but I've always tried to heed Bishop Rowthorn's wise counsel and because of my seminary education and my commitment to ecumenism (not to mention most of my family of origin!) I still love the United Methodist Church. 

The Wesleys were committed to prayer and to social justice. It's hard in these days to verify quotes attributed to famous people but John is reported to have said: "the church changes the world not by making converts, but by making disciples."  That's what those groups at Oxford were all about and it's at the heart of what I learned in the Hawley United Methodist Church. However one comes to understand Wesley's doctrine of "sanctifying grace," it was important to him that people recognize that there is always room for growth. God is not finished with any of us yet.

As for Charles, it's hard for me to pick a favorite of his many wonderful hymns but one that makes the list for me and that I love to sing in Advent begins like this: 

Come, thou long expected Jesus,

born to set thy people free;

from our fears and sins release us,

let us find our rest in thee.

Israel's strength and consolation,

hope of all the earth thou art;

dear desire of every nation,

joy of every longing heart.

Blessed John and Charles Wesley, whom we remember today. 

The Woman at the Well

Below, some notes and reflections for those who will be preaching sermons or hearing sermons preached on the Third Sunday in Lent. 

Last weekend's gospel reading focused on an encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus from the third chapter of John’s Gospel. I shared some thoughts about that one-on-one encounter here.

Today, in the fourth chapter of that same gospel, we see Jesus with an unnamed Samaritan woman. John has juxtaposed these two encounters in a way that is meant to get our attention, in a way that makes it clear that God really does so love the world. We are meant to notice the polarities: male and female, Jew and Samaritan, community leader and socially marginalized. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night; this Samaritan woman comes to the well in the middle of the day

And yet even as we notice these differences, I think that John means for us to see that Jesus meets each of them where they are, and takes their questions seriously and engages each of them in serious theological conversation. This is obviously not surprising with Nicodemus, a man of some social status and privilege. But it's just plain wild that Jesus treats this unnamed woman with the same dignity and respect. The disciples’ astonishment is a clue to us of just how shocking it was for Jesus to be talking to a divorced, Samaritan woman in the middle of the day. “Jews do not (even) share cups with Samaritans," we are told...

If one follows Barth's advice of holding the Bible in one hand and the news in the other it's hard not to think about the recent news about the U.S. Hockey Teams' gold medals: one earned by the women's team and one earned by the men's team and how each team has been treated by the sitting president of the United States. 

I know - church and politics and all of that. But the key, as I see it, to the Baptismal Covenant is about respecting the dignity of every person and striving for justice among all people. And although sometimes the Church has contributed to sexism (and racism and homophobia) we need to be clear that's on the Church, not Jesus. Jesus is willing to challenge the social conventions of his day to model authentic encounters with all kinds of people - which will ultimately lead the pastoral theologian, Paul, to insist that "in "Christ there is neither male nor female." I don't know how to thread that needle but we should notice that Jesus sits and talks to everyone, and treats them with dignity and respect and kindness. If we mean to be his followers and his friends we must do the same. 

It’s interesting to me that this encounter at Jacob’s well begins with Jesus asking the woman for a drink of water.  I can’t help but to hear those words from Matthew’s Gospel about the sheep and the goats echoing in my head whenever I hear this gospel reading: when did we see you Lord? When did we not see you? Jesus responds by saying that whenever you visited those in prison, or clothed the naked, or fed the hungry, or gave a drink of water to one of these little ones in my name, you did it to me. And whenever you didn’t do those things, you didn’t do it to me.

So before the conversation gets deep and turns to theological discussion about “living water” that quenches a thirsty soul, Jesus is just a stranger in a foreign land asking for a drink of water. And while it’s true that Jews and Samaritans don’t share cups in common, and while it’s true that men aren’t supposed to be talking to women they aren’t related to in public, it is also true that this stranger is thirsty and far from home and this local woman has access to the well. Whatever deep theological insights emerge beyond this we should not miss the way it all begins: with an act of human kindness. 

I think of that verse from Brian Wren’s great Eucharistic hymn, “I Come With Joy,” that says, “as Christ breaks bread and bids us share, each proud division ends/ That love that made us, makes us one, and strangers now are friends.” Someone needs to take a risk for a stranger to become a friend. Before we get to profound metaphysical interpretations, I think we are invited to simply watch Jesus and this woman sitting at Jacob’s well, having a normal conversation in a world where that isn't supposed to happen. The energy that is released when strangers become friends invites transformation and healing and encourages us to imagine the world as otherwise.  

This encounter between Jesus and this Samaritan woman has everything to do with us, because I think Jesus keeps seeking us out too: all of us—male and female, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight. Jesus cares about our stories, about our lives, about the stuff everyone in town or our church or our families "know" about us, even if it is never said out loud.

Jesus keeps finding people like us in the middle of Lent, in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night. Sometimes at our favorite watering hole. He cuts through all the shame and fear and guilt to tell us everything about ourselves, especially the truth that we are loved. When he offers us living water to quench our souls, we do well to drink as deeply as we can.