Help us to See

John 9:1-41

March 30, 2014

Lent 4

We have a lot of characters here:
We have Jesus, the disciples, the neighbors, the Pharisees,

the man’s parents and of course, the man born blind.
The identified patient in this story.

The people in this story refer to him as “the blind man” and

“the man who sat around and begged.”

He’s the one in this story with the problem obviously,

he is blind.

Now this blind man has probably been

around this town his whole life

It’s the same town his parents live in.

People didn’t move around like they do today.

And his parents say he is of age,

so probably 15 – 20 years or so.

But after he’s able to see, oddly enough,

the neighbors who have passed him every day

for the last couple of decades, hardly seem to recognize him.

Remember, towns were small, neighborhoods were small

It’s not like there were bunches of people to keep track of.

And yet, these neighbors can’t really say for sure

if this is the man they’ve seen every day.

Not for certain.

They don’t even seem to know his name, just

“the man who sat around and begged.”

Probably because they never actually met him before.

they probably walked over him, ignored him, cursed

at him for being in the way and asking to take their

money that they earned, they probably yelled

at him when they were having a bad day

and told him he was a sinner.

But they never actually saw him. They were blind to him.

And there’s the Pharisees,

Jesus has just healed a man – an amazing miracle –

no one should argue that.

But they can’t see the amazing miracle.

Healing of the Blind Man  by Brian Jekel

They can’t see it because they’re offended

that he healed on the Sabbath

and they just don’t want to believe this man,

Jesus, who they’ve labeled a sinner, could

be responsible for doing something so wonderful.

And then when the man who can now see,

challenges their assumptions,

they only see him as a man
born entirely in sin and they send him out of the synagogue again.

They are so preoccupied
with their own beliefs, that they can’t see a miracle of God when it happens in front of them.

Then there are the man’s parents

they don’t seem very parental at all.

They don’t seem like people who’s son has just been

given his sight back - they don’t seem happy.

And they keep distancing themselves from him

it says because they were afraid.

They can’t see their own flesh and blood, and his joy

because all they can see are the problems he is causing them.

And when the disciples see the man born blind,

They don’t say, “Can we do anything to help this man.”

they don’t even ask Jesus, “What caused his blindness?”

Because they think they know the answer to that, it’s obvious.

His blindness was due to someone’s sin.

They just want to know had God cursed him for his sins

or for his parents’ sins. Which one was it?

So convinced of their theological diagnosis,

they can’t see a person with an unfortunate circumstance,

they don’t see the opportunity for God’s glory to shine.

They just see a theological question.

The man is the one who was called blind,

but the other people in this story are the ones who

were really blind.

They are each so convinced, so set in their ways,

that they could not see what was there in front of them.

They were blinded by their apathy, their religious convictions,

their preconceived notions, their fear, their prejudice.

The only person who can really see in this story

is the man who was born blind.

He see’s the Pharisees for the self righteous fools they are.

He can see that Jesus healed him,

And he sees that anyone who could restore his sight

must be sent from God.

Jesus doesn’t just heal the man here,

through this healing Jesus shows us that

The people who think they can see,

might very well be blind,

and the ones called blind might actually see.

And so it is often with us.
Just when we are convinced we have all the answers,

is when Jesus opens our eyes to things we didn’t even know were there.

In my previous church,

we did some mission work in Honduras.
They had spent many years with other churches building houses,

and a school, putting in plumbing and sewage in a neighborhood.

And when I went, we went to teach some bible stories,

teaching skills, how to use the sewer system the right way.

I was there twice and each time, when we first got there,

all we could see was the poverty, how messy it is, dirty,

they burnt their garbage, the kids had no shoes,
the school was closed for weeks at a time with no reason.

And compassionate people like us just want to change everything.

Our discussions were like, “ugh, if we could just  give them our systems,

get them better schooling, better jobs, better clothes”  

We almost want to take all these kids home with us to the US

so they can live a “better” life.

So they can learn our better ways, and be like us.

But after we were there for a few days,

we were all like, “well maybe it’s not all that bad here.”

The children of Colonia Solidaridad,
Juticulpa, Honduras

These kids were always outside.

They always had unlimited friends around them. They were never alone.

They had no video games or computers or TV’s or even toys,

so they were always playing something creative and inventive

The people didn’t just know their neighbors,

they depended on each other for everything,

they shared food, clothing, free time.

Why exactly would we want to change them?

So they could join the rat race and climb that corporate ladder?

So they could be trapped in the American version of poverty?

So they could live lonely, isolated lives in their homes?

So they could be like us?

 

At first, we saw them as the ones with the problem.

They were the ones with the crazy country and

the widespread poverty, they needed to be fixed.

But then we realized,

maybe our own way of life was not that perfect.

Maybe they saw something that we couldn’t see.

They had something that we could never have again.

By the time we left we were praying that our lives

could be more like theirs in some ways.

Jesus doesn’t just fix people’s eyes.

Jesus helps us to see.

We die to our own sight and we rise to Jesus sight.

Just when we think we’ve seen everything

and just when we think we know all the answers,

Jesus opens our eyes to see things we didn’t’ even know were there.

Jesus said,

“I came into this world

so that those who do not see may see,

and those who think they can see,

will realize that they might be blind.”

What is blinding us?

What does God want us to see that we can’t see?
What are we missing?

Help us, God, cure us of our blindness.

Help us to see what you need us to see.

Give Me a Drink

John 4:5-42

3rd Lent

March 23, 2014

We know from other cultures who still

go to wells to gather water,

that getting water was is a communal activity.

It’s mostly women who come to get the water and they

use that time to and share stories and information

around the task.

And we also know that most people who do this,

do it in the morning so they wouldn't have

to carry a heavy load in the heat.

And they would want fresh water for the days work.

But this woman came out alone to the well,

Woman at the Well, Wayne Forte, 2008

And she came at noon in the heat of the sun,

when no one else would be there.

Maybe she was avoiding the other women.

Maybe they had made it clear that she was not welcome

into their circle of friends.

Since, as it says, she’s been married five times.

And yet, in this story, we find Jesus talking to her

The story says how amazing it was that Jesus talked to her

she was a Samaritan and she was a woman.

And a Jewish man would have no business

talking to either of those types of people.

Add in the five marriages –

and it must have been shocking to people then.

 

But even today, many assumptions

have been made about this woman at the well.

People still continue to talk about her

in negative ways for her unconventional past.

Maybe she was a hopeless romantic,

maybe she’s loose, or a seductress.

Maybe she can’t hold a relationship together long term.

One modern Christian preacher even called her a

“a worldly, sensually-minded, un-spiritual harlot from Samaria”

That’s some projecting there.

Let’s not judge her like that when we hear this story.

Actually, the most likely reason at that time that a woman

would have been married five times, was not for love,

or sensual desires or even bad decision,

it probably wasn’t her choice at all.

It probably would have been because her previous husbands had died

and she was unable to bear children.

Not something that she would choose herself,

but something that was imposed on her.

Her only means of survival.

 

In each of the three gospels, in Matthew, Mark & Luke

the Saducees ask a question of Jesus to trick him  They say:

"Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.'

25  Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother.

26  The second did the same, so also the third,

down to the seventh.

27  Last of all, the woman herself died.

28  In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be?

For all of them had married her." 

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus tells the Saducees

basically, that their question is ridiculous

that God is the God of the living, not the dead.

But in this Gospel, John shows us what Jesus interaction

with just such a woman would be like.

When faced with a woman who is married five times,

passed around passed around from man to man,

The Saducees would have asked

- Who’s possession is she?

- is she an abomination,

- is she going to heaven or hell,

- Is she cursed by God.

But Jesus shows us that the right question is posed to her:

Are you thirsty?

Aren’t you thirsty for real love, love that won’t die or leave you

or give up on you or go away after a little while?

Don’t you need God’s love, acceptance and grace?

 

We live in a world that can be cold and unforgiving.
That can be sterile and hurtful we live our lives 

in systems in this world that don't care who you are.

Where people are a checked box, a string of numbers, a statistic,

a vote, a dollar amount, a credit rating.

And if you don’t fit neatly into one of those categories,

you can be left behind to suffer alone.

And Christians have sometimes been the worst offenders

We have tried to cram people into our cold theological

judgments and rules,

We’ve done it with gays and lesbians, people of color,

with women, with divorced people, people with mental illness,

the poor and homeless, the list goes on.

If someone doesn’t fit into a neat and tidy box

with a neat and tidy past,

Christians have tended to brush those people aside

shutter them away, call them unflattering names

We make them stand at the well alone, fending for themselves,

and try and forget about them.

But Christians should not forget the power that

we claim to witness to: God’s love is stronger than anything.

God’s love has the power to overcome any obstacle that is

put in front of it, even if the church puts it there.

We can’t forget that God’s love

is the spring of water that gushes up to eternal life,

The water that we can drink and never be thirsty again.

 

In the waters of our baptism,

we are given the power over and over again,

to die to our old selves and rise again with Christ.

To die to our past, whoever we were that does not work for us,

and rise to a new life a new reality.

But its not like those life experiences are just washed away.

They are transformed.

What the world counts as an insurmountable obstacle,

God counts as a benefit, God uses it to reach others.

At the 2009 Lutheran Youth Gathering,

we heard many stories from people with unconventional pasts.

And one of the most moving stories was from 

one of the Lost Boys of refugees from the Sudan.

He was kidnapped by the rebel army at five years old

and to get him to be brainwashed,

they gave him a drug and forced him to kill his best friend.

Then they would use that against him, telling him,

“you killed your best friend, you’re an animal.”

And he killed many other people of his own people

during  his time with them.

But later, he and some of his friends were able to escape

and now he speaks, telling people about his life

and how God with the help of other people were able to help him

overcome this horrible past and move into a new life.

His story helps us to see the things that God can overcome.

Jesus offered the Samaritan woman

the living water of God’s love.

And afterwards, this woman leaves her water jug

goes to the center of the village that has brushed her aside

and tells them that she has met the Messiah.

And she is believed.

 

She dies to her old identity:

the woman with five husbands.

And now she has a new identity:

The Woman With Five Husbands!

Who has a story of God to share.

And she is a child of God,

the first evangelist. The first preacher.

And just as Jesus came into this woman’s life

and transformed her, so it is with us.

The body of Christ -- the love of God incarnate

comes up to us at our well. Where we stand alone.

Across all of our obstacles and burdens.

Through whatever we’ve done or had done to us

and reminds us, that that is not what defines us.

What defines us is God’s love.

We are a children of God.

The living water of God has the power to transform us

in it, we can let go of our past and

to those things that once held us back

And now our lives are a testament, an asset, a strength.

We die to ourselves and rise with Christ.