The call to see deeply and truly
When Jesus gave sight to a man who was born blind, the community couldn’t accept it. It was inconceivable. It conflicted with their world view. Jesus shows us that we see the world not as it is, but as we are. What miracles and opportunities do our rigid world views and expectations blind us to? How can our vision break open so that we see through God’s eyes?
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
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Transcript
Give us eyes to see.
Give us ears to hear
and give us hearts that have the strength to live into your will for our lives,
O God
Amen
Each time we go back to visit the family, for whatever reason, in Arkansas, we always have a chance to just soak up, and I always pay close attention to what stories bubble up, especially when I know I have a sermon to preach and I have a certain text in my head and driving, and I always try to notice if some story from my childhood bubbles up when I’m thinking about a text.
And here’s a story that bubbled up this time. When I was around 10 or 11, I know this will shock you, but I was an awkward child. I know. Looks can be deceiving. I was an awkward child and my father took me hunting – one time. One time. We woke up early in the morning, we each had our guns. He had taken me out to do target shooting, which did not go well, which is another story for another day. But he was determined to do this. So we got up, got in the truck, went out, parked, hiked through the woods, over to the deer stand, to the tree stand, took our guns, climbed up and there were two old ratty chairs sitting there back to back. He said, “you get this side, I’ll get this side.” And so there we sat, back-to-back, each with our guns, and this went on for about three hours. And occasionally it was, of course, very quiet, and I would hear my dad say, “do you see any deer?” And I would say, “no”, and we would go back quiet.
That happened about 3 or 4 times. “Do you see any deer?” And each time I would say “no.” Until finally my dad stood up to stretch his legs and caught me, and I had snuck a book in my jacket. And I had spent all of that peaceful time reading a book and just watching, soaking up the silence and being able to sit there and watch and listen to the birds and wake up in the morning. My dad was so angry. He said, “we’re finished, we’re going home.” And I said, “yes!”
So we got down, went back to the truck, and that’s the last time that he ever even offered to take me hunting. Here’s what I thought about that. My dad and I, which is a common story of our life, went into that situation with very different agendas. He went into it with a single-minded focus to find a deer to hunt. I went to it with a very different focus. I wanted silence and to be able to listen to birds, to be able to watch the sunrise, and our two agendas clashed. Story of our life. There’s a deep spiritual truth that says we don’t see the world the way that it is. We see the world the way that we are. Put another way, the lens through which we see the world shapes the world that we see. The lens through which we see the world shapes the world that we actually see. It’s one of the reasons that we struggle so much as humans is that we fail to come to grips with that. As the sun comes out, we struggle and we keep bumping into each other’s agendas.
And I thought about that with the text from this morning with that first story from Samuel going out to find a new king. He went into it with a certain agenda. He thought that a king had to look the way that a king is always looked, only from the outward appearance of things. And when Jesse brought his first son, Eliab seemed to fit the bill. He was strong, sturdy. This must be the king we’ve all waited for. And God says no. Jesse runs through his entire list of sons, parading them in front of him, and each time he failed to see, as the text says, the way that God sees. And I love that line. The Lord does not see in the same way that mortals see. And it was only the youngest son, who nobody paid any attention to, because who would think that he would be good to be king, “let’s let him tend the sheep and the chores while we go take care of the business,” and that son ended up being the one that God chose, David. And notice you don’t hear David’s name until the very end of the text. He suddenly appears.
So I thought about that. Samuel went into that situation with his own agendas. He went into it with a certain lens through which he saw the world, and he struggled to break out of that mindset.
Then we have today’s gospel, this wonderful text. It’s a little long, it’s fascinating, though. The the length of it builds the tension in the story. And that’s why it’s important to read all of it, because it starts off seeming like a fairly simple healing story. There’s a man blind from birth and Jesus heals him. And you would think that everyone who had known the man who had been blind since he was a child would celebrate. But that’s not what happens. The text says the Jews. It’s not the Jews as a whole. It’s specifically, and this is always a vital piece, the religious authorities, those were the ones who were challenged. Those are the ones who wrestled because suddenly something happened outside of their control, and their sense of power; the framework that they had operated out of. Something happened that challenged their worldview, and they struggled because to accept it, to acknowledge it and celebrate this man’s healing, meant that they had to question the lens through which they had seen the world. And they weren’t able to do that. And so the length of this text is there because there’s this series of times where they have to ask the same question over and over, “what happened to you?” and this poor man that they keep dragging out, saying, “tell us again, tell us again what happened?” And finally he says, “I told you, I don’t know how many times. Why do you want me to keep telling you? I was blind. This man made mud. He put it on my eyes and now I can see.”
But they continue to wrestle with the fact that their worldview had been challenged. And so what did they do? They rely on age old patterns. They try to rewrite history. Notice how they do that. They go find his parents because they’re hoping that his parents will tell some part of the story that will take the pressure off of them to say, “well, maybe he wasn’t fully blind at birth. Maybe he just had limited sight.” But I love his parents being fully human. His parents say “we don’t know what happened. He’s old enough to… just ask him on his own.” And then they slowly start to walk out of the picture because they’ve been challenged as well. “We’ve only known our son to be blind, and now he’s not blind.” What does this mean? How do we engage with him, who we’ve always known one way, who now lives a different way? So they struggle too.
It’s a fascinating story. So their impulse is to rewrite history and their impulse is to play one of the oldest cards the tyrants have ever played, which is to say this: Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes. Believe what I tell you. One of the oldest trick in the book. No surprise when you encounter such severe resistance to changing a world view.
So all of that came swirling back. All of that to me, was wrapped up in that encounter between me and my dad. We climbed in that deer stand with very different agendas, and they clashed. And to this day, that continues to be a dominant theme in our relationship.
I’m glad I’m the only one in the room.
So that’s where we find ourselves once more with a story that hits really close to home. Really close to home as we continue to wrestle with what it means to be human. Wrestle with what it means to see. Wrestle with what it means to resist a vision, a perspective that challenges our worldview. And at the heart, dear friends, this all goes back to the practice of discernment. Which is to say, how do we name what truly needs to be named? How do we name what is true? And how do we realign ourselves with God’s vision rather than grasping onto our own sense of power and control? What practices can we nurture in our lives so that our hearts are transformed and that we see more in terms of what God sees, how God sees the world, knowing that we struggle and we grasp onto our own lenses to preserve our own sense of power.
The choir is going to substitute out a piece this morning, and I’m so glad. Instead of what’s in the bulletin, they’re going to sing a piece about wisdom, which I think is absolutely at the heart of this. How do we align ourselves with that deeper, indwelling presence of wisdom that constantly reminds us as the choir will sing God’s voice in our heart, saying, I am here, I am here. Do you see? Do you hear?
So as we go forward during this season, we’ll continue to be challenged, continue to wrestle with what it means to be human, and we’ll need to draw upon the Spirit’s power to give us the strength to live more and more into God’s vision for our lives.
Amen.