St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church
Fourth Sunday In Lent
Genesis 12:1-4a
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
Psalm 121
John 3:1-17
THE EYES OF INNOCENCE
At each moment of the day, a new life opens its eyes for the first time to see the world. They are the eyes of innocence. An innocence to which perhaps many of us long to return... the beginning point of living, of knowing, of seeing for the first time. Yet when given that kind of purity, we are unsure of what to do with it, other than to somehow bring it up to a level of wisdom that must prevail in order to be acceptable to the world. With our eyes open, we immediately begin to assess the smooth, un-trod world presented to us and therein begin to leave our footsteps over time, each imprint leaving its own shadow on the bright light of our innocent newness. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, we know only in part...the part we have seen of the world and its wisdom....but do we see only that, or in the fullness of time....will we still be blind to all that God wants us to see? .
We heard a story today about a man who has been blind from birth and he has his own wisdom. Wisdom gathered from knowing the world in a radically different way than all the sighted crowds who walked right by him every day, most ignoring him as a castoff.
Yet Jesus noticed him and smears his eyes with mud and saliva and he is given eyes to see the world in a radically different way. It’s a bit shocking to visualize really. Usually, after performing a miraculous healing miracle, Jesus simply looks..... or touches...... and says simply.....”Go on your way...your faith has made you well.” Not this time. One minute a blind man is sitting in his customary place, with the usual hum of activity in the air, then, out of the blue, the normal sounds of the street stops, he hears a snippet of conversation about himself .... someone spits and the next thing he knows is that mud is being spread on his eyes and he is being told how to wash his blindness away.
What must he have felt? Wouldn’t we expect him to wipe the mud off his eyes, and curse this as a terrible tease and renewed humiliation in front of everyone in the street around him yet again? Still, in the midst of the conversation he thought he heard the word “Rabbi.” He is blind, but not deaf and he must have heard about the healing miracles of this amazing Rabbi and he wants badly to believe. Perhaps his deepest desire is to see again and he innocently trusts that this could be so. He trusts not with the guard that is based tremulously on fragile rebuilding of word and deed, but on blind faith that what this Rabbi says is true. He does as Jesus directs, and finds he is blind no more.
What an incredible thing to happen in his life. It must have felt like a new beginning.........seeing the world for the first time and...... like a new born baby instinctively trusting the gaze meeting its innocent eyes, he trusts the one who has presented this miracle of sight into his life.
His community is less than receptive. One would think that such a life-changing miracle ........ would send the entire town into an ecstasy of delight. Instead he finds himself placed at the center of a political maelstrom surrounding Jesus and his new and strange connection to him. He is put on a hot seat of inquisition and is completely let down by all those in whom one would think he could rely.
This man who has been known to be blind all his life.... now sees for the first time the group of people who call themselves disciples of Jesus yet who seem to be unable to help facilitate his emergence into this new state of being. He sees his neighbors, some of whom do not recognize him at all....so blind to him they have been to him in the past...... as they question his identity. He sees the Pharisees, who attempt to use him and use his testimony as a means to catch Jesus in the act of breaking the Sabbath, and he sees his parents....his parents who should be dancing in the street with joy and kissing the feet of Jesus, leave him fend for himself with his inquisitors rather than put themselves in jeopardy with the authorities. When he speaks only the truth he knows, in complete and utter innocence of all the complexities of the world whirling around him, he is driven back out in the streets because his truthful answers are simply not acceptable.
It seems his whole new world is questioning his new status. The people seem blind to his reality and he cannot make them see. They can’t believe he’s the same person who used to sit and beg...and his new sight doesn’t make sense to them. They don’t want to hear his truth...and seem in complete denial about his ability to now see and be in a way he never was before.
Yet he sees them as they are for the first time. And one can only imagine how it must have felt for the poor man to have received a healing miracle, only to be discarded again by society in the light of his truth. Despite the world’s questioning of his newfound sight, the man continues to testify to God’s grace... to that humanly messy yet divine moment......when a miracle happened in his life....that he could never imagine could happen. He might have cried in despair at the cruelty of these betrayals as he flees the taunts and questions, still holding to his simple truth.
When Jesus hears that the man has been driven away, he goes to find his new faithful disciple. .........and as a lamb recognizes his shepherd and in trust follows him home.........the blind man becomes a follower of the one who will not let him be discarded again. The words to the lovely hymn Amazing Grace echo... “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.” That’s all I can say said the blind man.....that’s all I can say..
Indeed, in the face of the world’s disbelief......that’s all he could say. How do you explain such a thing...such a miracle. How do we explain or account for the miracles that happen in our own day....the ones that we notice and the ones we ignore, don’t believe or choose to be blind to.
One Christmas Eve my daughter, Amber, lay dying and all her doctors expected the worst. I had been warned of her near death. And then, early in the morning of Christmas Day she began what they called..... a radical recovery. The team of doctors were amazed and could hardly believe it. That’s the way of miracles......they carry no logical explanation or reason and we have a hard time understanding them. This we do know, at one time we are one way, and at another time we are changed.
In the words of T. S. Eliot,
“ You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
and where you are is where you are not.”
The real story of my daughter is like the real story of the blind man....it is a story about radical change....and about where we find ourselves in time........from then to now....from who we were to who it is possible for us to be with faith in Christ......whether we understand it or not.
In a world filled with perceptions and experiences that are radically different than our own, God presents us with a world that holds a multitude of possibilities for change. How do we begin to understand that world from another’s perspective...what blinders do we need to remove in order to see the world in the way that is true for another? How do we see and accept the miracles that happen in other people’s lives even though we may not understand them?
The story of the blind man is a story of leaving one way of being in the world and entering into the world in a new way and in his innocence born of seeing the world for the first time, the blind man had no words to explain his new sight. All he could do was gratefully testify to his trust in God’s grace in the face of the world which was still blind to it. When the world wants no part of him because of his infirmity, Jesus heals him. When the community fails him, Jesus does not and does not leave him to wander alone through the world. And it is the same for us. All God asks of us is to open our eyes.....to believe.....and in innocent and trusting faith.....see the light of Christ change the way we see our world forever.
Who are the people in our lifetime who refuse to see even though they have sight? Who or what is it that they do not see? What about us? Who or what is it that we cannot see, refuse to see or will not allow ourselves to see? Who is it that we think we see, but are blind to who they really are and their realities? What worldly needs have blinded us....robbed us of the ability to see truths that stand before us? Are we even able to see the truths that lie deep inside our own hearts?
Jesus says to his new follower, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”
Jesus wants us to look carefully inside ourselves with the eyes of our hearts to the seeing and the blindness that defines us. God wants us to be blind to that which separates us from God...... . “For the Lord does not see as mortals see. They look upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart.” God wants us to see freely and openly embrace, with complete trust all that allows us to see God’s actions in the world
This fourth Sunday of Lent is called by some Lay–tar-ray.....Laetare Sunday , a day to take time out from the seriousness of Lent to laetare....to rejoice....it’s a day, originally meant to encourage...keep us going through the remaining days of Lent. And today’s story of the blind man is a story of encouragement and is filled with direction for us to find a new way of viewing our world.
It is a day to give thanks that Jesus wants to give us the gift of sight of again, the opportunity to look at the world with new eyes, with the eyes of innocence...trusting in a new light of understanding.....a new way of seeing and being in the world. God wants us to see the world with the eyes of the innocent....and, like the blind man and the new born child, wants to lead us toward new possibilities....a new existence as followers of Christ. “For once you were in darkness, but now in the Lord you are light”
The light of Easter is growing brighter on the horizon and Jesus is calling us now to emerge from the darkness of Lent. Where we were blind, now we can see. What is it that Jesus is asking each of us to see as we edge closer and closer to the cross?
End
Amen
Written to the Glory of God
E. J. R. Culver+
March 22, 2020