1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41
I feel like we are driving blind. We don’t know what’s ahead of us a week from now, or even a day from now. I remember driving blind. We were driving on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania, in the mountains, Melody and me and the kids. A snowstorm hit us and it was bad. So I got behind a semi and we followed it for miles. I remember him going faster than I liked, and I remember the tension in my body as I held the wheel, and being scared, but it seemed less dangerous than pulling off somewhere. That same tension I felt again this week, and a lower version of that same being-scared.
I feel like we are walking blind through “the valley of the shadow of death,” the shadow from the pandemic, and though the Psalm says “for thou art with me,” begging your pardon, I can’t see you, O God. I can see my enemies, and right now there is no table God is spreading in the presence of our enemies. We can’t do our healing station to anoint our heads with oil. The Psalm says that “he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake,” but those paths right now I cannot see. I feel like we are walking blind.
At the end of our Gospel story, the Pharisees ask if they are blind. Their moral blindness is the judgment of the Lord Jesus on them. But when I feel blind this week, I do not want to be judged for it. I don’t think it’s a moral failure, it’s just my creaturely limitation. I’m supposed to lead this congregation, but for the first time I can’t see where to lead us. That’s the tension I can feel in my body, and the being-scared. When I was driving on the highway I assumed we would get through it, as I think we mostly all do now, but who can see what’s coming and what unthinkable choices we might be facing?
I have to say that the Consistory has been amazing. Their extremely hard-working and creative response is an inspiration to me, and convicts me that I have no right to sulk with God. I have to confess and guard against my tendency to self-indulgent anxiety, which would disrespect them. But maybe you yourself have felt this way these last days, and as you anticipate the next few weeks. Are you anxious? Are you scared? Do you feel like you are walking blind? Does your faith give you any help or any assurance? If you have any testimony here, I would love you to share it with me.
At the beginning of our Gospel story the Lord Jesus says something which I have always noticed but never preached on. “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Well, if the night is coming, it is not yet, and we can still work. (Thanks to electricity we can even work at night, not to mention online!) We do have the light, we have the light of the world. How does the light of Our Lord help us to see, when we feel like we are blind? If I feel like I am walking blind into these next few months, how does his light help me to see? What does he want me to see? What should be visible to us, as a congregation?
So let’s go to the second lesson, from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. It uses the same metaphors as the Gospel, but differently. And I had never noticed before that St. Paul says that “we are light,” we ourselves. “Once we were darkness but now, we are light.” That is very positive about us. How can we be blind if we ourselves are light?
Then St. Paul adjusts the metaphor to “we are children of light,” which adds an emotional appeal. Our kids love to sing this as “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light!” And then St. Paul extends the metaphor when he says that the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. For “fruit of the light” think of fruit trees in the sunlight. The fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true, which is very also very positive, this time about the world, and encouraging.
It’s encouraging because although our creaturely limitations may blind us to the future, we are not blind to all the things around us that are good and right and true. So in these next few months, we do have signs to direct us, the signs are all the good and right and true things in the world, no matter who does them or under what name!
Okay, there are signs that are not good and right and true, and we’re supposed to “expose the unfruitful works of darkness, and take no part in them,” but we expose them just by being the light and the children of light, not by digging in the darkness to attack them. Notice that Jesus did not judge the Pharisees who asked if they were blind, he simply let them judge themselves as they were exposed within his light.
As St. Paul says, “Everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.” Which is a curious thing to say, that “everything that becomes visible is light!” How can that be? Or is it possible that in the ancient world they already understood how optics work. When your eye sees a visible object, what your eye actually sees is light reflected from that object. Your mind tells you that you are seeing the visible object itself, but actually it’s only light itself that is visible, so it’s true that everything that becomes visible is light. Did St. Paul understand this? I don’t know, and I haven’t checked my Aristotle, but the point is that the Epistle is very positive and hopeful about our seeing what we need to see within the world.
And yet we have to see the world not as the world sees the world. That’s what our first lesson tells us, the well-known story of Samuel anointing David. “The Lord does not see as humans see, for they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” And yet, despite this, the writer of the story winks at us by telling us how good-looking David was! We see the world both as the world sees the world and not as the world sees the world! We’re not exempted from how the world sees the world. We have to do both, and see the world both ways.
For example, our church is a public institution, and though the Consistory is responsible to God, it’s also responsible to the public in many ways. So we have to operate with a double vision—as the world sees, and as the Lord Jesus sees.
Back to the Gospel story: the blind man came to see as the Lord Jesus saw. That was Our Lord’s gift to him, when he recreated the man from the wet clay that God had used to create Adam in Genesis. The man was born again, and he saw when he believed. His belief was his sight. We are told that seeing is believing, but the Gospel story tells us that believing is seeing.
Your believing is your sight to see ahead. And so for this church, as we chart our way forward in the challenging uncertainty before us, we can move forward because of our belief. Your only necessary sight forward is your belief. You don’t have to see into the future, your belief is how you aim yourself into the future. You drive through the snowstorm by faith, not sight.
And yet, you are not blind, Do you know how the eyes of cats seem to shine in the dark? Well, they actually do shine. You know how it looks like light is coming out of their eyes? Well, it actually is, even though it’s reflected light. I want you to imagine that your own eyes give out light. Even in the daytime. Reflected light, generated light, whatever. As St. Paul says, You are light! You have the power in you to light up what you see. You light up all that is good and right and true in the world just by your looking at it.
This is how we will make our way. As we have to make new decisions and adjustments, having to make choices that we’ve never had to make before. We will look into the future by our belief, and we will look all around us in the present to light up all that is good and right and true, and we will see all we need to see. You know, that’s pretty much what you’ve been doing already, I’ve been watching you.
Copyright © 2020, by Daniel James Meeter, all rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment