A Way of Seeing

Ephesians 5:8-14

John 9:1-41 

[Note about the text: There are many players in this story of Jesus healing the young man with blindness, and it should be noted that all of them are Jews. This is important because at one point in the story we are told that the young man’s parents are “afraid of the Jews.” 

When John writes this he is speaking to the church that existed decades later, at the time he was writing. Many years after Jesus was crucified, his disciples were expelled from their Jewish community, which was very painful for them. From that perspective, this is a story about the pain of feeling excluded, perhaps the pain of being unseen.]

I don’t know if it is accurate to call this the story of Jesus healing a blind man. Maybe it should be called a story about all the ways people take issue with Jesus healing a blind man. The healing itself is described in two short verses. The other 39 verses describe all the controversy around this healing. Yes, once more, Jesus pushes people’s buttons.

Even though there was nothing dramatic about what Jesus did. A little spit, a little mud, and there you go: the man can see. That’s what happened. Clearly. But then we have all the interpretations of what happened, and that’s where it gets interesting.

The neighbors say: This man who was blind but now sees? He is not the man you might think he is. He is not the young man we all knew as blind. Because that is not possible. This must be a different man.

The young man, however, continues to insist he really is himself. And he is not backing off his story about the guy who came along, put mud on his eyes and healed him. This young man persists in speaking the true as he experienced it. Which seems to be a problem for everyone else. 

Then the Pharisees are asked to weigh in, so they interrogate the young man about how this happened. They are looking for the flaw in the young man’s statement, and they find it. 

Aha! The man who healed you performed this act on the sabbath. So he is clearly a sinner. Therefore, this cannot be an act of God. Case closed.

What that means about his ability to see is not clear, but it’s a distraction.

Meanwhile, the neighbors want to question the young man’s parents because they seem to think now that the young man and his family have been playing them for fools all these years, pretending that he is blind. Because if he can see now, then it is not possible that he was ever actually blind.

How frustrating it is to see all the blindness in this story! What are they seeing when they look at this young man? Jesus’ disciples see someone who is being punished for sin. The neighbors see someone who is lying to them. The Pharisees see a doctrinal problem of whether or not this healing was proper. They are all blind to what is right before their eyes. Except the young man, who says, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” 

This is a story about a whole lot of seeing people refusing to see what is right before their eyes. The only one in this story who can see turns out to be the one who was born blind.

It is a story that asks us to face our expectations, our presumptions about the world, and just see. For all of us, regardless of what kind of vision we have, it involves getting past what we think we already know. 

We usually think we know a lot more than what we really do.

I have been thinking lately about how our experiences in life form our beliefs – and our ability and willingness to believe things that are outside of our personal experience. 

We speak sometimes about living in a bubble. If you spend any time on social media, you should know about the bubble-effect. You get online, you start selecting what you want to see and read, who you want to hang out with. Pretty soon the algorithms create an experience for you that reinforces your existing beliefs and preferences. You find that everyone in your bubble gets excited by the same things and angry by the same things. It begins to look like the way you view things is the only sensible and honest way to view things. Everyone else is an idiot.

Maybe the Pharisees lived in their own bubble of the law, their interpretation of it, and their strict adherence to it. 

Sometimes Christians live in a bubble that only includes other Christians. Sometimes only other Christians who practice the exact same kind of Christianity, who believe in exactly the same way. 

We become insulated by our bubbles. There is nothing wrong with enjoying being in community with like-minded people who share your experiences and values. You just have to make it a point to look outside your bubble as often as you can.

Wealth is a kind of bubble, because wealth insulates a person from many challenges that other people experience on a daily basis. Power works that way too. Extreme wealth and power especially. Of course, it is true that even middle-class people are able to insulate ourselves from a lot of things – but it is so much more in the case of extreme wealth.

I worry these days about the decisions that might be made by those who lead our nation, if they don’t see the effects of their decisions. Rising prices of gas and groceries don’t mean much if you don’t go to the gas pumps or the grocery store. Even casualties of war may not mean much if you don’t have any family members or friends whose lives are at risk. When nobody in your bubble is enlisting. When nobody in your bubble worries about the price of gas. 

The bubble is most certainly a hazard of the job for anyone who is in a place of power. And so it becomes imperative for them to find a way to see what they are not seeing. We need our leaders to make a point of really seeing the impact of their decisions. We have a right to demand that they see and listen. Just as we must demand of ourselves as well.

The reality for us as Christians is that this is an essential part of discipleship, to really see other people outside our bubbles. People whose lives present difficulties that may be hard for us to understand. People in our communities, yes, but also people in other parts of our nation, and other parts of the world – including Tehran and Beirut. Remember that Jesus didn’t put boundary lines around the definition of neighbor.

In the end of the story, Jesus says to the young man, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” Which is confusing, yes. But it seems to fit. The ones in this story with sight are unable to see what is happening when the evidence is right before their eyes. The ones who see, turn out to be the ones who are blind.

Jesus gives us a way of seeing that leads to compassion and enlightenment. Jesus asks us to believe our eyes, even if they contradict what is too often called wisdom in this world. Jesus invites us to practice a way of seeing that acknowledges what is in the world but outside of our personal experience, our bubbles. To see and to believe what we see.

All of us are capable of doing this. And we might even be surprised by how liberating it is.

A few years ago I read a newspaper story about a woman named Marion who started losing her eyesight at the age of 40. Marion had experienced more than her share of hardship in her life already. And this hit her hard – at first.

She wallowed in self-pity. She shut herself in her apartment. But eventually it occurred to Marion that as long as she was alive, she should live. So she danced.

Marion began teaching dance classes for the visually impaired. They learned the dimensions of the room by touch. They learned line dances by everyone holding on to one another. Sometimes they’d make a circle and take turns getting into the center and showing off their moves. It is an unexpected and joyful thing to see, because their joy is so clear to see.

Jesus offers us a different way of seeing. And Marion, the teacher of the blind, has a lesson for us too.  Joy. Seeing the world as Jesus sees the world does not take away our joy. Joy is part and parcel of the faith, a precious gift we receive from Christ. Joy is a gift that nothing in the world can take away.

Can you see?

Photo: ChurchArt.Com

The Way Around

John 4:5-42

We are in the third week of our Lenten journey now, and I am thinking about the ways in which journeys to new places may change us. In my morning devotions last week I encountered some questions pertaining to this. How does what you encounter today affect your actions today, and tomorrow? How do the experiences you have now change the way you will be later? 

Questions such as these seem to get at the bigger question of whether, and how, you will be open to a new thing when it is presented to you. 

To the extent that we can afford to, many of us attempt to travel in a way that will be as unchallenging as possible. In many ways, we try to take home with us when we go away, to keep it as familiar and comfortable as we can. But then are we able to experience something new, break out of our expectations, our mental constructs?

These are important questions for the season of Lent. Are we available to hear a word from God? Are we able to receive a new thing?

These are questions raised in the story we hear from John’s gospel today. 

John begins by telling us that Jesus left Judea, probably Jerusalem, and went back to Galilee, and that he had to go through Samaria. 

But this statement – that he had to go through Samaria – raises some questions. That was not the normal route for a Jew to travel.

There were actually several routes one could travel to get from Jerusalem to Galilee, and only one of them involved going through Samaria. You could go to the west, and travel alongside the Mediterranean Sea. Or you could go east and travel along the Jordan river to the Sea of Galilee. Neither of these routes involved going through Samaria, which would be regarded as the least desirable choice.

The Jews and the Samaritans were not friendly, you may recall. There was a lot of history between these two peoples, a lot of bad blood. So for a Jew to travel through Samaria was to walk through enemy territory. It would have been a no-brainer, I think, for most to choose one of the other routes.

You could take the eastern route, or the western route, or the Samaria route. Jesus chose the third option, to go straight through Samaria. John tells us he had to, for some reason.

If he had told anyone that this was what he would be doing, I wonder what kind of reactions he would have received. I imagine his disciples tried to discourage him from going this way, it was not necessary. I am sure they would have been concerned about his decision to wait alone at this Samaritan well while they went in search of provisions. But, then again, maybe they thought there was little risk for him. Because going to the well for water was women’s work. How could a woman, even a Samaritan woman, harm him?

In fact, it is unlikely that anyone will be at the well while he is there. It is high noon in the desert. Most women would go in the early morning and the evening, when the heat of the sun is not bearing down on them. Some would say you would be unusually brave or foolish to venture out at midday.

But, against the odds, a woman approaches the well to draw water. 

She behaves as a woman in possession of herself, a woman who is at home in her skin. A woman who is ready to encounter something new.

She is not afraid of Jesus. She recognizes him immediately as a Jew. And she knows all the prohibitions that would warn her against interacting with this man. Even so, she asks him a pointed question: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

How is it that you, a man, are speaking to me, a strange woman?

How is it that you, a Jew, are speaking to me, a Samaritan?

How is it that you, a religiously observant son of Israel, are speaking to me, someone who is considered by your people to be unclean?

What are you doing here in Samaria? What are you doing at my well?

This woman has some questions.

Jesus is not at all put off, however, by her blunt question. He doesn’t miss a step. It is almost like he was waiting for it. It is almost as if he were waiting for her – this 5-time married and divorced Samaritan woman.

Jesus has taken this unconventional route through Samaria apparently because there was a conversation in Samaria he needed to have.

So he says to this woman: Let’s talk about the water that I could give to you. The living water. 

And they’re off. And you know what? She is a marvel.

She is a worthy conversation partner for Jesus. She doesn’t back down. She responds to every strange thing he says – at first not understanding him but staying with him nonetheless. Perhaps one of the best things that can be said about her is this: She is not afraid of what she doesn’t understand but is willing and able to continue the conversation through the ambiguity, the uncertainty.

One can’t help but compare this conversation with the last one he had – with the Pharisee Nicodemus back in chapter 3. Nicodemus sought Jesus out because he sensed that there was something Jesus had that he, Nicodemus needed. But he struggled to comprehend, he simply couldn’t make the leap with Jesus toward a new understanding of things. Yes, it is possible he did that later. But on this night, he walked away more perplexed than when he began.

The Samaritan woman, however, did not come looking for Jesus. She had no idea he would be at the well. But finding him there she was fully present with him. In the bright light of day, they speak and listen to each other in truth. She has questions: Why do you ask me for water? How would you possibly get this water you are referring to? How can I get this living water that will forever satisfy my thirst? 

Eventually, the point they arrive at is remarkable. The woman mentions the Messiah, and Jesus responds, “I am he.”

And the immense power of this is lost in the translation, because what he actually says is “I am.” Jesus is the great I Am.

The name by which God identified Godself to Moses at the burning bush. I Am. When Moses asks God what name he should give when he speaks to the Israelites, and the Lord says, “Tell them I Am has sent you.” 

And in this moment at the well, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, I Am.

Somehow this is all she needs. She drops her water jar and heads directly back to her village to tell everyone, “Come and see!”

All because Jesus took the way around the normal route. And this Samaritan woman, in her conversation with Jesus, was willing to go all the way around with him, journeying into territory she had never before been. She becomes the first person in the gospel to proclaim Jesus as God.

So – what about you and I? Where might we be in this story?

You and I come to this place on a Sunday morning, very likely because it is our practice to do so. I travel the same route always; my car knows the way to go. My smartwatch tells me, “you’ll arrive in four minutes,” because my watch knows where I am going, too, the moment I back out of the driveway.

We come here with an expectation of what we will encounter, of how things will be. But do we expect to encounter the living God? 

Do we truly expect to meet Jesus?

And even if we don’t have a particular expectation, are we in any way open to such an encounter? Can we come to this place we have been to many times before and experience something we have never experienced before?

We know that Nicodemus was not quite ready for it when he came looking for Jesus. But the Samaritan woman, even though she was not expecting it, welcomed this encounter.

And she was forever changed by it. As we might be too.

Robert Frost wrote a poem that speaks to this notion: The Road Not Taken, a poem about a journey that takes a person to a place where the roads diverge, a point where the traveler must choose which way to go. The last lines of the poem are:

I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

May you take the road less traveled – eyes open, heart open, ready to be changed. May you be ready to meet Jesus.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

The High Way

Genesis 12:1-4

John 3:1-17

All of us have moments when we do impulsive things. Like, when your friend says, “Let’s go out for ice cream!” and you weren’t planning to do that, you were actually planning to go home and do laundry, but then you thought, “Ice cream? Why not? You only live once, right?” We have all done something impulsive once in a while. But probably not leaving your home and walking off toward an unknown destination. I’ll bet you haven’t done that.

I wonder what Abram thought when God called him to walk away from his home and his people and go to a place God would show him.  There must have been something – or a few things – on his mind.  

But we don’t know.  The text doesn’t say.  It just says that Abram went, as the Lord told him. I try to imagine why. 

Maybe Abram was a thrill seeker, always up for an adventure. But I doubt it.

Or maybe Abram was the most obedient, submissive man to ever live – the ultimate Do-Bee. I doubt that, too.

Is it possible that Abram had the sense that there was something more to his life than what he was currently living? Maybe there was a yearning, then there was a call, and Abram just knew this was what he had been waiting for. And so he went.

For all his life, Abram had been doing what was expected, keeping his head down, following the well-trod path. Then one day he heard a higher calling. And he went.

Sometimes discipleship happens like that. But not always.

Other times it’s more like Nicodemus, who approached Jesus hesitantly and stealthily.  He came in the dark of night.  And it’s no wonder he came at night.  After all, he was a Pharisee – a teacher of Israel.

He was breaking ranks with his fellows, who were, of course, emphatically opposed to Jesus.  Something pulled at Nicodemus, though, leading him to make this night visit.  But he came with all his hesitation and doubts and uncertainties, and a certain amount of resistance to being made new – some fear of what was unknown. 

And this baggage Nicodemus brought with him seemed to make it impossible for him to take that leap in understanding. It weighed him down. Nicodemus asks Jesus, how can these things be?  and you can almost hear the quiver in his voice when he asks. His shoulders slumped, his head down, Nicodemus couldn’t even see that high way Jesus was showing him.

Nicodemus arrives in the dark and he leaves in the dark, seeming to have gained nothing.  He is not able to step onto that road with Jesus. He can’t even see the possibility of it. Maybe we know, ourselves, what it’s like to be in the dark, unable to take that step into something new.

Nicodemus was asked to let go of some things.  He needed to let go of certain ways of looking at the world – this idea of what it means to be born, for example – born from above, born of water and Spirit. He needed to let go of his concepts of truth, of certainty.  He needed to let go of the way he understood God’s actions in the world, and even who he was in relation to God and all of humankind.  Nicodemus was being asked to let go of some really big things.  

And Nicodemus, as we see, was not very successful at it. This conversation we hear between Jesus and Nicodemus is funny, in a way. Jesus is speaking on a level that Nicodemus doesn’t grasp, his words seem to fly right over Nicodemus’s head, and Nicodemus responds with questions that completely miss the mark. 

The problem seems to be that Nicodemus wants answers, but answers that fit into his boxes. And Jesus is handing him a whole new set of boxes. Nicodemus can’t deal with it, he’s drowning in his confusion.

Then Jesus tries to throw him a lifeline: he tells him about God’s unfathomable love. But, maybe it is just plain unfathomable to Nicodemus. He doesn’t say anything more, and we might assume he walked away into the night.

If only he could have recognized the help he needed. If only he could have accepted the love Jesus offered. If only he could have known that such love is strong enough to make him strong – strong enough to stand up against whatever is holding him down.

We feel sad for Nicodemus, because we certainly know what it is like to be utterly confused by something, like he was confused by Jesus. We understand how it feels to be losing control of things, the way Nicodemus was losing his grasp on everything he believed to be true; to feel the dissonance between the life you are living and the sense that God is offering you a different way. We might even worry about him. Maybe you find yourself wondering: whatever became of Old Nic?  

Let me tell you. 

Nicodemus made another appearance in the story in chapter 7. Jesus is teaching among crowds of people at a religious festival. The Pharisees are about ready to have him arrested, but Nicodemus is there, and he says something to the others to slow things, calm them down. Now, Nicodemus is no longer skulking around in the dark of night. He is openly challenging the conventional wisdom of his fellows. That’s a step up for Old Nic. But there is more.

Nicodemus makes one final appearance. After Jesus is crucified. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take his body from the cross to the tomb. Nicodemus brings the myrrh for his burial.

What could possibly have moved Nicodemus to take such a public action for a dead criminal? Only one thing. 

I don’t know where Nicodemus goes from here, but I think at this point his story is a lot like Abram’s story. Stepping out into the unknown, risking everything you have known, everything you have held close, all for the sake of following this higher calling. Living into the new story God is writing for you.

Where is God calling you to go this season? What is standing in the way of you accepting the help Jesus wants to give you, of receiving the powerful love of God? How is God inviting you, urging you, to participate in the work of saving the world?

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