Lent
4A 2014
Father Adam Trambley
March 30, 2014 St.John’s Sharon
Twenty years ago,
I was part of the music ministry at a church in Boston.
One of our altos was a blind woman.
If she hadn’t been born blind,
she had been blind for most of her
life.
She used to have all our hymns
Typed out
in braille
So she
could read the words with her fingers
As she sang.
One Sunday in Lent,
We read
this passage from John’s gospel
About the
man born blind.
As part of the gospel,
She sang a
solo of this hymn:
He healed the darkness of my mind
The day he gave my sight to me
It was not sin that made me blind
It was no sinner made me see.*
At first, I was dumbfounded.
Who could
have been so cruel
To ask a
blind person
To sing
about Jesus healing a blind man.
Then I thought:
Maybe this
is a desperate prayer
For
her own healing.
(I was
young then.
I thought
God should fix everything.)
Somehow her singing
About a
blind man seeing
When she
was a blind woman not seeing
Didn’t seem
right,
Like she
was telling another person’s story
Then I realized:
She wasn’t
telling another person’s story.
She was
telling her own story.
The story of the man born blind in scripture
Isn’t about
seeing the light with his eyes.
The story of the man born blind in scripture
Is about
believing in the light with his heart.
The man was born blind,
Jesus says,
So that
God’s works might be revealed in him
Jesus’ curative miracle,
as uniquely
amazing as it is—
never since
the world began
has one
opened the eyes of a person born blind—
even that
amazing miracle
doesn’t
allow the man born blind to believe.
His belief comes in the rough-and-tumble,
Back-and-forth,
Question-and-answer
sessions
With his
neighbors, with the Pharisees,
And
finally with Jesus.
His life isn’t lit by Jesus’ miracle.
His life is lit by coming to know Jesus,
Which was the point of the miracle.
His professions about Jesus develop.
He starts by saying “The man called Jesus.”
And doesn’t
know where he is.
When the Pharisees ask, he replies,
“He is a
prophet.”
They interrogate him again, and he professes,
He is from
God.
Then he meets Jesus, and says,
Lord, I
believe.
What’s the real miracle here?
A man born blind seeing
Or a man once-blind seeing Jesus?
Can you sing this story not-seeing,
But miraculously seeing Jesus?
Let others call my faith a lie
Or try to stir up doubt in me
Look at me now! None can deny
I once was blind but now I see.*
So much more to see, here.
We may not be blind,
At least
with our eyes.
(Although increasing without our bifocals,
We might sympathize with man in the gospel.)
But we all have our struggles.
We were all born with something
We really
wish wasn’t so,
And we may have acquired other
handicaps
Along the way.
Maybe for some it’s physical issues.
For others it’s emotional issues.
For still others it’s the family we were born into,
Whether
because we are missing a parent
Or because
we weren’t allowed to trade
Our
younger sibling for a pony.
What do the disciples ask Jesus?
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents,
That he was
born blind?”
Jesus presents a third answer:
“so that
God’s works might be revealed in him.”
Why are we in the mess we might find ourselves?
Sometimes we’ve messed up.
Sometimes
we’ve messed up a lot.
Sometimes we dig such a deep hole
That we
find we can’t climb out on our own.
Unforeseen, but probably foreseeable, consequences
Often follow our foolishness
And we find ourselves
despondently begging
In some gutter or other.
Sometimes the sins of the parents are passed down.
Babies born addicted to drugs or infected with AIDS
Are perhaps
entitled to feel that life isn’t fair.
So are the children abused, neglected, sold into slavery,
Or just
unable to feel the needed unconditional love
From
parents who never knew it themselves.
Not the children’s fault.
But it’s
certainly the children’s pain.
Surely somebody sinned, Rabbi.
Who was it?
Here’s the hope:
The answer
doesn’t matter.
However we got here,
Whoever might be at responsible,
No matter where we can find the fault,
Jesus
starts where we are right now,
And he just
wants us to see.
Of course we’ve sinned
Of course others
have sinned
Of course life isn’t fair,
But Jesus is less concerned about how we got lost in the
dark
Than about
bringing us into the light.
And, as
Paul says,
“in the
Lord you are light.”
Wherever we are, we are there
So that God’s
works might be revealed in us.
We may not have been moved to where we are
Because God
wanted us there.
We’re probably not in pain because God caused it –
God wants
healing, not hurting.
We’re probably not stressed because God caused it –
God gives
us gifts to bear fruit,
Not be
worried and anxious about many things.
We’re probably not suffering because God caused it –
People
don’t always do what God wants them to do,
And when
they don’t do what God wants them to do, others suffer.
But once we’ve been moved to wherever we are
By whatever
got us in the predicament we are in,
Jesus will
draw us from darkness to light,
If only we
are willing to go.
In every moment, however horrific,
We stand at
the threshold of the coming
Kingdom
of God,
With Jesus
holding the door wide open for us.
But
we don’t have to enter.
The process of coming to see Jesus isn’t always easy.
Sometimes
there is confusion.
Sometimes
there is opposition.
Almost
always there is fear and letting go
Of
the life of begging
To
which we have become accustomed.
The miracle in the gospel is that the man born blind
Received
what he needed
To push
through the spiritual darkness
And come to
the light of Christ.
He didn’t need to see to see Jesus.
But he needed to see to see his way through
The
confusion, opposition and fear
To finally
come to see Jesus.
The miracle of a man born blind seeing
wasn’t itself enough, though.
His parents didn’t come to see Jesus,
Although
they could see.
The Pharisees didn’t come to see Jesus,
Although
their eyes worked quite well,
And they
had even talked to Jesus.
Only the man born blind,
Being
healed a little bit,
And holding
on for dear eternal life,
Finally
beheld the true light come into the world.
With us, like with the man born blind,
Jesus will
provide the miracle we need
To bring us
through our own darkness
Into his
glorious light.
He may not make our eyes better,
Or provide a miraculous cure for our individual ailments,
Or give us a winning lottery ticket,
Or make all the mean people go away,
But he’ll give us what we need,
Especially
if we ask him.
Then it is up to us
To take the
thin strand of hope
And follow
it as it thickens into
our eternal
lifeline leading to Jesus’ light.
The way may not be what we would expect.
The way may not be always easy.
The way may be filled
With
unfaithful family, friends and Pharisees,
But the Way, the Truth and the Life
Will make a
way for us
To find
him.
Part of our purpose in Lent,
Is to beg
him to make that way,
Using
prayers, fasting, and almsgiving
to
strengthen our supplication
and
prepare us for the path.
Ask me not how! But I know who
Has opened up new worlds to me
This Jesus does what none can do
I once was blind but now I see.*
*Words by Fred Pratt
Green ©1982, Hope Publishing Co. Music Available from GIA Publications.
(To hear it, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnswQetj9xU from time 4:40-6:15)
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