Keeping the Season

"Still Life Xmas Card" by Derek Finch, on Flickr

Reading for the day: John 12:20-36

from We Would See Jesus
by Ann Weems

That it had to come to this!
That Jesus had to die
in order for us to live!
Just as wheat dies to the earth
and later bears much fruit,
Jesus had to die to the world
that he could live again
for all of us
that we through him could live.

I had a plant that died one winter.
Because of the ice-covered earth,
I put the plant in the garage,
thinking I would throw it away
when the ice thawed,
wash out the pot, and replant.

When spring came, I went to
the darkness of the garage
and there in the pot
the plant boomed green.
Resurrection in my face.

Pilgrims' Hymn
music by Stephen Paulus
text by Michael Dennis Browne

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the father,
and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

"Holy Saturday" by elizabethgrayking, on Flickr

"Aesculapius / Äskulap" by Harald Schmid, on Flickr

Numbers 21:4–9
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Ephesians 2:1–10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

John 3:14–21
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
---

Every hero has a weakness. For Indiana Jones, archeologist and adventurer, his downfall is snakes. He can deal with bugs and with death threats, motorcycle chases and skeletons, gunfights and treachery. But not with snakes.

Unfortunately for him, we start with snakes today, out there in the wilderness with Moses and the Israelites. We are at year thirty-seven of their forty-year wanderings. Most of the old generation has died off. With the taste of milk and honey already starting to entice these wanderers, their dissatisfaction with the current situation grows and grows. "There is no food," they say, " and the food that God has provided is terrible." It's the joke that opens Woody Allen's Annie Hall: “Two women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ‘em says: ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such…small portions.’” There is no food…and the food is miserable.

Grumbling becomes anger, and anger becomes rejection of the very God who had drawn them out of their slavery in the first place, and they beg to go back to Egypt because they think slavery is no big deal compared to hunger and weariness. And God, frustrated to high heaven with this ridiculousness, sends the same sort of plague on his own people as he had sent upon the Egyptians. Snakes. Snakes everywhere. Snakes that bite. Snakes that bite with venom. Snakes that kill. Terrifying. I think I'm with Indy on this one...

Hearing the cries of the people, Moses intercedes, and God relents, and tells Moses that he is to fashion a serpent out of bronze, and put it up on a cross-pole, and everyone is to look up at it, and in the lifting of their eyes will come their salvation.

For author and theologian Phyllis Tickle, this story of Moses and the bronze serpent is a formative story in her own faith development. She spends a number of pages in her memoir, The Shaping of a Life, retelling the story and reflecting on it. She points out that God's promise to Moses is that the people will be saved from death when they are bitten…but not that they won’t get bitten in the first place.

She reflects, "Those men and women and children who believed [Moses] and believed in Yahweh's message through him looked up at the pole with its burnished snake and not down at the desert vipers who were besieging them. They elected by a combined act of will and faith to look, not down where the agony was and where the snakes might still be pulled from their bodies and their children's bodies, but up where they might live. And, the story says, some eighteen months later those who had made that choice were those who entered by way of Jericho and its tumbling walls into the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey...."

If you're keeping track of the oddly circular logic in the story, the Israelites are being saved from death by the very image of the thing that is killing them. And at the same time, the Israelites are still navigating a world of snakes, but have in the cross before them a way to make it through the snakes alive.

In our sister story today in John 3, the image of the bronze snake on the cross pole is reimagined as the image of Christ being lifted up on the cross.

In John 3, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, a pharisee, a teacher of the law, who comes to him by night, wondering what he needs to do to be saved. Jesus has been teaching many people, many crowds, healing people, doing signs and wonders, that people might see him and believe.

We’ve been spending a lot of time in Mark’s gospel recently, where Jesus keeps shushing people and telling them not to make a big fuss about the miraculous stuff he’s doing, because he wants people to see him first and foremost through the lens of the cross.

But in John’s gospel, it’s all about the signs. Signs and wonders are the way that people come to know who Jesus is and who he came from. In fact, the book is organized around seven signs of Jesus, beginning with his turning water to wine at Cana. John's gospel is all about “seeing-is-believing.”

When Jesus talks about people of light and people of darkness, and how they will be judged for their deeds, he is really lamenting that there are people in his midst who have seen him, have witnessed the signs and wonders, and who still choose not to believe him.

Jesus says to Nicodemus that those who refuse the light, those who see but do not believe, have brought judgement upon themselves, and their judgment is simply this: that they continue to do evil deeds in the dark, which is, as it turns out, exactly what they are too afraid to stop doing.

But to those who believed, to those who followed Jesus around in person, and saw, and saw some more, and chose to step into the light, these words in John's gospel are the assurance that their belief in Jesus isn't worthless, that there is something more that is promised them beyond the joy of following a pretty nifty savior around the world. For God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to bring eternal life. Yes, that's the heart of the matter. For all the signs and wonders and teachings, the bonus is that Jesus has all power to give life.

This is how John's gospel begins. "In the beginning was the Word," that is, Jesus. And "in him was life, and the life was the light of all people…The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it."

And how does Jesus bring this light to us? By being lifted up, just like a bronze serpent. Lifted up onto the cross. Lifted up from death to life on Easter morning. Lifted up from earth to heaven at his ascension.

Yes, at the end of a book of signs and wonders, John’s gospel will be about seeing Christ lifted up on the cross and believing, and it will also be about seeing Christ resurrected and believing, and then, for us, not seeing Christ in the flesh and yet coming to believe.

We live in a world that is full of light and shadows. There are blazing sunrises, but there are also starless midnights. There are good deeds done in the light and there are evil deeds done in the darkness. In ourselves, we know that we have bright sides and shadow sides. The conflict between good and evil, darkness and light, things of God and things not of God is a very real conflict.

We know that there are snakes that bite us as we wander the wilderness of this world, things that nip away at us and destroy our spirits, things that cause us fear and pain, things that sting us and poison us and take all life from us if we let them.

Phyllis Tickle says, “I…know for a hard, enduring fact that life is full of snakes; that they bite fiercely; that they will kill you if you look down and wrestle with them; and that, peculiarly enough, the very act of being wrestled with often is what gives them their potency. I had also learned that, just as the story teaches, looking up doesn't stop the pain immediately, but it does prevent death from it...."

Just as the Israelites were saved from snakes by lifting up a snake, the same is true for us: the remedy for our human brokenness, for the brokenness and sin that bite and devour us and our world, is the lifting up of human brokenness in Jesus on the cross.

The God who delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians, who parted the Red Sea, who gave manna and quail in the wilderness and water from the rock, who worked through Moses and a bronze serpent to offer healing is the same God who delivers and saves us by the cross of Christ. God in Christ gives us the gift of being able to lift up our heads to see God's promises instead of being stuck watching the snakes swirl at our ankles. We affirm a God of salvation who is not apart from the pains of this world, but who offers us salvation even in the midst of it.

And so our faith always puts a choice before us: The choice to step into the light of salvation, or the choice to stay in the dark and do evil deeds that are their own condemnation. In the words of 1 Peter, "To you then who believe, [Christ] is precious; but for those who do not believe...they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Paul, in Ephesians, reminds us that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. These works are a sign of our salvation; faith restores in us the ability to choose deeds of light over deeds of darkness.

Brothers and sisters, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to give us life when the world gives us snakebites. God did not send Jesus to the world to condemn us, but so that we might believe - that we might have proof! - that there is abundant, eternal life given to us as a gift of faith.

Lift up your eyes and see: there is light, even in shadows. There is salvation to be found. For Christ has been lifted up as a sign of life in the wilderness. And Christ says to each of us, “Walk on with me in this light, for we are about to cross over to the land of milk and honey. Do not be afraid. Lift up your eyes from the ground and live!”

"The Dark Side of Matter and Energy..." by Tremain Calm, on Flickr

Matthew 10:24-39
Jesus said, "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
---

In college, taped to the hallway wall outside my husband’s dorm room, was a large piece of brown butcher paper, with a thumbtack in the corner from which hung a pen on a string.

This was the quote board.

Throughout the year, as Matt, his roommate, and their friends said memorable things - whether funny or absurd or eyebrow-raising - they would document those statements on the quote board.

The things written on that piece of paper made the most sense to you if you were there when they happened. It became a fun and funny way to reminisce with one another. But if you read through the quotes on the board without knowing their history or their context, the quote board became something of a puzzle, and an unsatisfying one, at that. It’s hard to read isolated statements, without context, and feel like you can really know what they mean.

I mention this because today's gospel reading reads very much like that piece of butcher paper. When we read this strange list of difficult sayings of Jesus, we have to remember that this section of Matthew’s gospel was likely pieced together from a variety of things that Jesus said in a variety of contexts. Jesus probably didn’t say all of these things right in a row at one moment in time on one particular day to one particular group of people. As Matthew’s gospel was handed down and eventually written down, these independent teachings of Jesus were grouped together, even if they don’t quite fit together, because they all have one thing in common:

All of the statements in today’s gospel point to the truth that being a follower of Jesus is difficult. It will separate you from the world, from those you love, and even from a former version of yourself.

Even though we are joined to Christ in baptism, even though we been gifted the whole of God's grace and mercy, the faith that saves us is also the faith that puts us at odds with the wider world. This is the dark side of our faith.

Even though we walk with Christ to eternal and abundant life, the reality is that there is a cost to putting the demands of discipleship ahead of all the other things that we hold dear. This is the shadow-side of being a Christ-follower.

Jesus says, "What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light."

Most of Jesus' statements in today's gospel are statements about how following him will put us into dark places.

Jesus warns us of the dark of being shunned or even persecuted because we seek justice for the poor instead of rewards for the rich.

Jesus warns us of the dark of isolation when we choose to put the needs of outsiders ahead of the needs of the insiders.

Jesus warns us of the lonely dark of relationships broken over putting God's values ahead of our own.

Jesus warns us of the darkness of conflict that will come when we seek true, lasting peace instead of mere platitudes and preservation of the status quo.

Jesus warns us of the dark night of the soul that comes as we wrestle with the meaning of life and death, of dying to our old selves and rising to Christ; for the breaking open of our hearts, even for Christ's sake, can be a painful process.

What Jesus says to us is that being a disciple is dangerous. That God is dangerous. That discipleship will lead us into the dark, where everything we thought was certain becomes fuzzy around the edges. Where the well-worn paths of our lives become obscured by shadows. Where our worldviews, our perceptions, everything we can take for granted in the light suddenly become veiled as we step into the thick cloud of God's presence. That there is a curious and disorienting fog that comes with leaving ourselves behind to become disciples of the divine.

The writer Barbara Brown Taylor recently released a new book focused entirely on meeting God in the darkness, entitled Learning to Walk in the Dark.

She writes,

[The darkness in which we meet God] is an entirely unnatural darkness - both dangerous and divine - that contains the presence of God before whom there are no others....This thick darkness reveals the divine presence even while obscuring it, the same way the brightness of God’s glory does....While this darkness is dangerous, it is as sure a sign of God’s presence as brightness is, which makes the fear of it different from the fear of snakes and robbers. When biblical writers speak of “the fear of the Lord,” this is what they mean: fear of God’s pure being, so far beyond human imagining that trying to look into it would be like trying to look into the sun....[The church father] Gregory [of Nyssa says that], those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision goes cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God. If we decide to keep going beyond the point where our eyes or minds are any help to us, we may finally arrive at the pinnacle of the spiritual journey toward God, which exists in complete and dazzling darkness. (47-48).

I wonder if Jesus, in all of his difficult statements about the cost of discipleship, is really trying to tell us that there exists a spiritual practice in losing yourself to dark places with the trust that in this dark, you will meet the God who promises you light.

Because at the end of the day, doesn't discipleship ask us to follow Jesus all the way to the darkness of his cross and his death, that in that most final darkness of death, God might surprise us with the light of the resurrection dawn? Isn't discipleship, at its very heart, the practice of walking into and meeting God in the dark places in our world, that we might bring to the world the promise of light?

“What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light,” Jesus says.

What dark places has God called you to in your life? Where are the dark corners to which Jesus has led you? What are the shadowy places in your heart where you feel pain or fear or disquiet? Where are the thick clouds that press in on your soul?

And what might God be saying to you in those dark places? What whispers of hope do you hear? What are you learning about God, about redemption, about yourself and your faith from these dark spaces?

In the last few weeks, God has pushed me into a few dark corners. The clouded work of holding vigil during someone’s last fleeting hours of life. The nightfall of cancer diagnoses. The shadowlands of working with neighbors who need money and food and support systems that they do not have.

And let me tell you. The darkness is not a place that I enjoy being. Jesus certainly isn’t asking us to like the darkness, and isn’t asking us to pursue darkness just so that we can say we are disciples. But Jesus is always helping to redeem our darkness. He gives us the assurance that for as long as find ourselves in dark spaces, God remains with us, and that we will emerge on the other side of the veil changed by the encounter.

So my friends - my fellow disciples - blessings be with you on this journey of faith. Blessings to you in the darkness and in the light. Blessings to you as God gives you the grace to take risks for your faith. May your discipleship be bold. May your faith be strong. May you hear God’s voice even in the darkest night, and may you be bold to proclaim his grace in the morning!

All praise to thee, my God, this night for all the blessings of the light.
Keep me, oh keep me, King of kings, beneath thine own almighty wings.

Now and forever.
Thanks be to God.

Amen.

"Memories of light" by Giulio Magnifico, on Flickr

Matthew 10:24-39
Jesus said, "A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

"Pebble balancing..." by Giulia Torra, on Flickr

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Mary Magdalene, Remembering:
by Madeleine L'Engle

All time is holy.
We move through the dark
following his footprints by touch.
He walked the lonesome valley.
His time is holy.

We will break bread together.
We will move through the dark.
He has gone away from us.
The wine is poured out.
We will eat broken bread.

That Friday was good.
We will move through the dark.
Death died on Friday.
The blood-stained cross bore hope.
His Friday is good.

We will hold hands
as we move through the dark.
Saturday he walked through hell,
making all things new.
We will hold hands.

This is the meaning
of our walk through the dark.
Love’s light will lead us
through the stone at the tomb.
He is the meaning.

He called me by name
as I stood in the dark.
Suddenly I knew him.
He came. Then he left us,
he will come again.

"#crucifix" by p7taylor, on Flickr

---

Crucifixion
by Anna Akhmatova

"Weep not for Me, Mother,
in the grave I have life."

I.

The choir of angels glorified the great hour,
the heavens melted in flames.
He said to His Father: "Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
and to His Mother: "Oh, weep not for Me..."

II.

Mary Magdalene smote her breast and wept,
the disciple whom He loved turned to stone,
but where the Mother stood in silence
nobody even dared look.

"Jesus heals a man born blind" by Peter, on Flickr

John 9:1-41
As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. 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." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him. Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.
---

Today’s gospel is one of my favorites. I have a soft spot for Bible stories that make me chuckle. Here we have a man, healed of blindness, and nobody believes him. They pass him back and forth amongst themselves, and they even go visit his parents to double check if he was really blind, and the Pharisees and crowds make him tell his story over and over again, and in a moment of exasperation, the man asks, “Why do you want to hear this again? Do you want to be disciples too?”

It is a story of sight, but it is really a story of people seeing past each other, and people whose sights are set on the wrong questions.

For as many times as I’ve read this passage in my lifetime, I noticed something new in the text as I prepared to preach it. For the first time, I noticed just how preoccupied everybody seems to be with seeing sin.

From the very beginning of the passage, the disciples set the tone when they ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” See, in Jesus’ time, there was the belief that sin came with real, physical consequences. Physical ailments and deformities were believed to be God’s punishment for something that you or someone before you did. So to be born blind must have meant that God was pretty unhappy with you.

And then the Pharisees are in rare form in today’s gospel. They reject the healed man’s testimony, writing him off as a sinner. They also call Jesus a sinner for healing on the sabbath. The question of whether Jesus is a sinner is really a question of whether he is doing God’s will or not. The Pharisees believe that they are doing God’s will, upholding the law and being piously religious in all areas of their lives. The Pharisees know that Jesus is not like them, and in fact routinely criticizes them. So in their eyes, only one of two things can be true. Either a)They are doing God’s will, which means Jesus is not, which means that he is a sinner for healing on the Sabbath, or b)Jesus is doing God’s will, which means that they are not. So they are quick to write off Jesus as a sinner, because they are afraid.

And then, finally, the crowds. They, too, are used to seeing this man for his limitations and shortcomings. When his eyes are opened, the crowds don’t recognize him anymore. People in the village ask each other, “Doesn’t he remind you of the blind man who used to sit here and beg?” When they can no longer see him for his limits, they don’t see him at all.

I mean, my goodness! Instead of rejoicing with a man who had been handed back his life, everyone around him reacts with fear, suspicion, and judgement. They are so preoccupied with seeing sin and limitation that they are blind to the beautiful, amazing, limitless work of God in Christ.

And then I turn on my radio and listen to news stories about political scandals, and I think about our media obsession with negative celebrity gossip. I think about how society’s knee-jerk reaction is to blame people for their troubles. I think about our own tendency to jump to the worst conclusions about each other, especially in the midst of situations that challenge us, scare us, or disagree with things that we hold dear. I think about the ease with which each of us can pick out our own faults, failings and shortcomings, how we don’t know how to receive compliments well because we are by nature self-conscious of the ways that we don’t live up to our own expectations.

We aren’t that different than the crowds and disciples and Pharisees, are we? We, too, are in the sin-seeing business. It is far easier for us to see limits than it is to see and rejoice over the good work that God in Christ is accomplishing in our world.

There are two people in today’s gospel, however, who see clearly, who see possibility rather than limit.

The first is Jesus. Jesus looks at the blind man standing before him and doesn’t focus on his limitations, his sinfulness, or his worthiness. Jesus looks at the man born blind and sees in him a man who can be healed. Jesus looks at the man born blind and sees a medium through which the glory of God can be revealed.

Jesus looks at us the same way. He says at the end of today’s reading that his judgment is not for those who know their own sins and limitations, but for those who don’t see their brokenness. Friends, how many of us know too well the places in our lives where we don’t measure up, where we are broken and in need of forgiveness!

And so Jesus looks at us with eyes of compassion. He doesn’t define us by who we are not, by what we can’t do, by what we’re ashamed of, by what limits us. Jesus sees in us, just like in the man he healed, the immense possibility that the glory of God might be revealed in and through us.

And the second person who sees rightly in today’s gospel is the man who once was blind, who now can see. Healed by the man who saw in him the image of God, the once-blind man sees Jesus for who he really is: the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior. And having seen Jesus, he wants others to see Jesus, too. He shares his testimony, and he sees the Pharisees and villages with eyes of patience and compassion. Even as they continue to pester him and challenge him, he yet responds with words of praise for the God who has been revealed in the regaining of his sight.

Knowing that Jesus sees us and loves us for who we are and for who we may yet become, Jesus empowers us to look out at our world with his eyes of forgiveness and love.

You might now the adage, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

This isn’t what Jesus calls us to do. We are not called to see others for their sin and then love them anyway. Jesus simply calls us to see his possibility where the world seems limitation. We are not called to judge, but to show mercy. We are called to rejoice with the triumphs of our brothers and sisters instead of worrying about whether they are deserving. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are empowered by our own encounter with Christ to look for ways that God’s glory shines in one another and in our world.

It has been nearly two weeks since the death of Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, a small congregation infamous for holding anti-gay protests at military funerals, celebrity funerals, and other public, media-heavy events. While some, even (or especially) in Christian circles saw his passing as a relief, a “good riddance” to a man full of spite and hatred, others chose to see him with different eyes.

Many Christians, of all stripes, prayed for his peace and comfort in his last days of life, and prayed for his family and his congregation.

Even more striking was an episode that took place two days after his death.

Westboro Baptist set up a protest outside of a concert in Kansas City, Missouri. They stood on one side of the road with signs telling people that God hates them, that they are sinners, that they are doomed to God’s wrath.

Across the street, a surprising counter-protest emerged. Concert-goers had organized themselves to counter negative messages with positive ones. They held up signs and banners expressing messages of love and compassion, including a big banner that said, "Sorry for your loss.”

Where it would have been so easy to see sin in those who carried on a legacy of seeing and judging the perceived sins of others, this small group across the street chose to see their Westboro brothers and sisters with the eyes of compassion, grace, and love.

My prayer for you and for me today is that we might see our world through the eyes of Christ. That we might look at ourselves with grace and that we might look upon our neighbors with mercy. That we might look for God’s possibility instead of human limitation. That we might seek out loveliness in our world and in one another.

Madeleine L’Engle wrote a poem about the man who received sight, the song that she imagined was on his hear and lips. It praises God for all of the beauty and possibility that he sees around him:

Song of Blind Bartimaeus After His Healing
All praise to thee, my God, this night
for all I see, both night and day.
All praise for loveliness of things!

During the shadows of un-sight
you kept the raging fears at by.
All praise to thee, my God, this night

for all the blessings of the light,
for sand and sun and eagles’ wings,
all praise for loveliness of things!

Praise for sandals, garments white,
for children’s faces, eyes alight,
all praise to thee, my God, this night.

All praise for butterflies in flight,
for work-worn hands, for golden hay,
the purple shadows evening brings,

for brass and copper polished bright,
for lifting light that shows the way,
all praise to thee, my God, this night,
all praise for loveliness of things!
(from The Ordering of Love)

May God empower you, this day and always, to see the loveliness of things, of all that he has made, and may your eyes be blessed by the sight. Amen.

Ash Wednesday
by Louis Untermeyer

(Vienna)

I

Shut out the light or let it filter through
These frowning aisles as penitentially
As though it walked in sackcloth. Let it be
Laid at the feet of all that ever grew
Twisted and false, like this rococo shrine
Where cupids smirk from candy clouds and where
The Lord, with polished nails and perfumed hair,
Performs a parody of the divine.

The candles hiss; the organ-pedals storm;
Writhing and dark, the columns leave the earth
To find a lonelier and darker height.
The church grows dingy while the human swarm
Struggles against the impenitent body’s mirth.
Ashes to ashes. . . . Go. . . . Shut out the light.


(Hinterbrühl)

II

And so the light runs laughing from the town,
Pulling the sun with him along the roads
That shed their muddy rivers as he goads
Each blade of grass the ice had flattened down.
At every empty bush he stops to fling
Handfuls of birds with green and yellow throats;
While even the hens, uncertain of their notes,
Stir rusty vowels in attempts to sing.

He daubs the chestnut-tips with sudden reds
And throws an olive blush on naked hills
That hoped, somehow, to keep themselves in white.
Who calls for sackcloth now? He leaps and spreads
A carnival of color, gladly spills
His blood: the resurrection—and the light.

from Burning Bush (New York: Harcourt, 1928).

"star light, star bright" by jeanine.stewart, on Fliickr

Sure On This Shining Night
by James Agee

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand'ring faralone
Of shadows on the stars.

from Permit Me Voyage published 1934 by Yale University Press