Lent 4 3.22.20

The Lord be with you and with thy Spirit.

Let us pray.

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life for the world.

Evermore give us this bread that he may live in us and we in him, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever.

Amen.

A reading from the first book of Samuel.

The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you grieve over Saul?

I have rejected him from being king over Israel.

Fill your horn with oil and set out.

I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.

Samuel said, How can I go?

If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.

And the Lord said, Take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do, and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.

Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem.

The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, Do you come peaceably?

He said peaceably, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.

And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed is now before the Lord.

But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.

For the Lord does not see as mortals see.

They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel.

He said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one.

Then Jesse made Shama pass by, and he said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one.

Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord has not chosen any of these.

Samuel said to Jesse, Are all your sons here?

And he said, There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.

And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and bring him, for we will not sit down until he comes here.

He sent and brought him.

Now the youngest son was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.

The Lord said, Rise and anoint him, for this is the one.

And then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.

Samuel then set out and went to Rama.

The word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

The psalm appointed for the day is Psalm 80.

We will read responsively by half verse.

Here, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock, shine forth you that are enthroned upon the cherubim.

In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up your strength and come to help us.

Restore us, O God of hosts, show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

O Lord, God of hosts, how long will you be angered despite the prayers of your people?

You have fed them with the bread of tears, you have given them bowls of tears to drink.

You have made us the derision of our neighbors, and our enemies laugh us to scorn.

Restore us, O God of hosts, show us the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, the Son of Man you have made so strong for yourself, and so will we never turn away from you.

Give us life that we may call upon your name.

Restore us, O Lord, O God of hosts, show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

A reading from Paul's epistle to the Ephesians.

Once you were in darkness, but now in the light in the Lord you are in light.

Live as children of the light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.

Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.

And therefore it says, Sleeper awake, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

The word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

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 the one who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva that spread and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, Go, wash in the pool of silo, which means scent.

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 open?

He answered, The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash.

And 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 been formerly blind.

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

And then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight.

He said to them, He put mud on my eyes, and then I wash, 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.

The blind man said, He is a prophet.

The Jews did not believe that he'd been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of the man who received his sight and asked him, 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 he now 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 Jewish leaders, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone confessed to 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'd 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 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've told you already, and you would not listen.

Why do you want to hear it again?

Do you also want to become his disciples?

And 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 God does listen to one who worships God and obeys God's will.

Never since the world has begun 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 unborn entirely in sins, and you were 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?

The man 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 worshipped him.

Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and that 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 sinned.

But now that you say we see, your sin remains.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to thee, Lord Christ.

Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a lamb of thine own flock, a sheep of thine own redeeming, a sheep of thine own fold, a sinner of thine own redeeming, in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

This is a long gospel reading, and if you're worried that uh in the season of Lent your penitence is to listen to long passages of the book of John, I don't think that's the goal.

Instead, um the lectionary has chosen to give us the entire story for the day.

And remarkably, I think it touches very, very deeply to the situation we're living in right now.

So in the story, before we even hear the story, we have to remember that it was considered if there was something physically wrong with you, like you had a birthmark that covered much of your face, you had a withered limb, like you had been born blind, or you had lost your eyesight, perhaps it was God paying you back, or even paying your parents back for some kind of sin.

That is, this was very much like if you're familiar at all with the co with the concept of karma in Hinduism, that we get what we pay for.

That our obedience to our station in life, to our family, to God, determines whether or not, frankly, we're healthy, wealthy, and wise, or whether or not we're sick.

The people of Jesus' time clearly, clearly believed that this man, this blind man, had done something to deserve being born blind.

Well, that doesn't make sense.

How could you deserve it before you're even born?

So the fallback is he was going to deserve it by something he was going to do in his life, or possibly his parents were so bad that they earned this condition for him.

The reason people held on to this position was not because they were merciless, because they were trying to really make sense of suffering and pain.

Surely, surely, righteousness would be rewarded.

Faith in God would have a physical, tangible reward.

Surely, people who disobeyed God, who did not keep themselves ritually clean, who did not love one another, who did not practice all aspects of the Jewish law, surely God would get even with them, would get revenge, and would do it physically.

These were people who do not, as you and I have grown up in a culture that teaches, they did not believe in eternal hell or eternal heaven.

Not yet.

This was a new and emerging idea at the time of this story.

So God's justice has to be worked out in our own lifetime, not later.

Jesus comes to this man, he's been born blind, and the disciples ask him, just like we tend to be asking one another, maybe asking in our hearts, how did this guy deserve what he got?

Phrase differently.

What do we do to deserve the coronavirus?

Whose fault is it?

Who sinned?

Because surely something wrong happened and God is punishing us for sin.

God is punishing this man for sin.

And Jesus says this really interesting answer that applies then is now, I would suggest to you.

Neither this man nor his parents sinned.

But in every opportunity, every crisis, we do have the opportunity to work things to the glory of God.

I don't think that's dismissive or casual.

I think what that reminds us is from the very first that people who don't look like us, people who we tend to diminish because they don't have all of their digits, or because they have birthmarks, or because they have sickness, are not less than us.

They did not earn their condition.

Jesus says this in a blanket way.

Elsewhere in the scriptures we read that God calls the rain to fall on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

God's gifts of grace are distributed equally among humanity.

And so we have to figure out then, okay, if this man wasn't born blind, well, that's really too bad.

And how can we say that a blind person has the same opportunities as a sighted person?

And I want to suggest to you that even though our apparent abilities are different, what Jesus is essentially saying is our inherent value to God remains in spite of whether we've got tendonitis or again, we've contracted some kind of disease.

This is the same thing we did in the 80s with AIDS.

We said God is punishing people who are have loose morals, and AIDS is them getting what they deserve, and of course, then we figured out that people were getting it through blood transfusions.

And then we had to recall that category.

And I think this Sunday is an opportunity to dial back a little bit from judgment.

At the end, Jesus says, look, if you think you're sighted and you're declaring other people as less than yourselves, of less value to God, you are in fact blind.

And there's this bit here where the Pharisees say, Jesus, are you saying, are you saying that we're blind?

Because we think we see pretty well, and Jesus says, Well, that's the thing.

Because you think you see very well, because you're not open to God opening your heart, because you're not open to light.

Because you think you've got all the light God has to offer you, or all the light you need, you've closed your eyes.

And you're walking about like you're blind.

And I think Jesus invites us away from that place of condemnation this week.

And he invites us, frankly, to a rosy place.

This is Rose Sunday.

And here you're seeing in front of you rose, which is to remind us that repentance, that this season of Lent is really designed to bring about joy for ourselves and for the rest of the world.

And what greater joy is there, really, in our common humanity than when we see one another as God sees us?

We get this story from a different angle in the book of Samuel.

Samuel's looking for a king who will be a military leader, who is tall and strong and powerful, who can lead troops onto a battle and command respect, who can dominate opposition and crush them, and instead God directs Samuel toward a child, toward someone who could be that way one day.

But the story has not been written that far.

God writes, directs Samuel to anoint David to be the new king.

Because David is still open.

He is the least of eight brothers, the bottom of the totem pole, he will inherit nothing.

And God has chosen the weak.

Chosen the weak, lifted them up to the stronghold of leadership.

That's the story.

David's not really weak.

He was viewed as weak.

But this man didn't earn his blindness, but people thought he did.

The story is offering us to open our hearts again and anew and to open our eyes, which could be blind, but could just be tightly held shut because when you haven't seen light in a long time, it's threatening.

It's disorienting.

You ever come out of a movie theater after a long movie, like a three-hour movie, and when you walk into the sun, it's immediately uh disorients your sense of time because you've been in the dark.

It's almost staggering and dizzy.

That conversion experience of coming back into the light after having been in the dark with our own eyes.

That's what we have the season of Lent to do, to be reoriented, to opening our eyes to God's light in one another.

This is an interesting story in a couple of ways.

He hasn't earned it through sin or his parents' sin.

And oddly enough, he heals this man using uh the same mechanism that people have used against him much of his life.

People have spat on this man, called him names, and now Jesus himself spits and does this other thing in the moment of a spit.

He touches the untouchable man.

And that touch by somebody who has value.

That touch by somebody who's already respected and has leadership and doesn't have visible disabilities, that touch creates a crisis for the community.

It either pulls the blind man up or it pulls Jesus down or it does both at some at the same time.

And of course, Jesus is not afraid to be pulled down.

He's not afraid to be mocked because he's already decided who he is.

Instead of allowing people he doesn't even know decide that for him.

He's already decided who the blind man really is.

Instead of letting other people define blindness.

Jesus invites us in this season of Lent to dig deep, to look to our values so that we can be guided by them, so we can reach out to one another by them.

Now, look, during the current situation, I would not advise you spitting on your hands and touching people in the eyes.

That seems to be the worst way that we can spread this.

But I do advise that we stay connected, that we make new connections.

There's a strange phenomenon that seems to be true of every long-term study I've read about the time with social media.

It goes like this the longer we spend on social media, that has a strong reciprocal relationship with our joy.

That is the more we spend on social media, the less happy we are.

That was true before this epidemic invited things like self-quarantine.

I think it could be true, depending on how we use that time.

But I want to suggest this is part about spit and mud and touch.

These engines that are designed to connect us, in some ways, I think have proven to divide us because they allow us to really practice tribalism.

There is someone on the planet who thinks exactly like you do.

There may only be one.

And you can find them on Facebook, and you can agree.

And I wonder if this time isn't an opportunity for us to use our technology, to use our resources and intentions to connect with people we ordinarily wouldn't.

I wonder if this is an opportunity to refriend the unfriended or to deepen the friendships that we already have.

I want you to know that we were talking as a leadership team about reaching out in a call team, and somebody wisely said, what happens if somebody asks us, hey, is God using this coronavirus to punish us because we're evil?

Or are we reaping what we've sown with the planet?

The answer could maybe be, but that doesn't affect the need that we have right now, which is to stay in touch with one another.

I don't know if it's good advice.

My advice was if people want to talk about that, listen to them.

But the goal is not to correct their theology.

The goal is to stay connected, even with somebody you've never met but seen from the other side of the sanctuary.

The goal in sharing our faith is not to run over somebody else's and declare it invalid because it doesn't look like ours.

The goal in sharing our faith and sharing our touch and sharing our connection, I put to you, is to start a conversation, not end it.

So this week, to be a rosy week, to see the world in rose-colored glasses amidst a time in which we don't know what we don't know.

We don't know where we're going.

We don't know if our best efforts are ultimately going to do what we hope they're going to do.

We trust these practices, but we don't know.

I want to suggest to you that maybe God is calling us this week, and really this week, to reach out, to re-friend the unfriended, to listen, to not start with where we know we disagree, but to find where we can agree that we are commonly human, commonly loved by God.

And this I suggest to you is the real litness test that I'm having to repent of.

If I cannot see the light of God coming out of somebody, it doesn't mean there's no light.

It means I've shut my eyes.

I don't know what spiritual practices might guide you to opening your eyes, even just a little bit more this week.

Again, it could be calling someone you haven't called or met through this parish or through work, not to see if you can help them.

Do that last.

Don't make that the reason for your call.

Because if you call and you say, is there anything you need, and the answer is no, the call's over.

Start with this.

You know, I'm not gonna have the opportunity to see you in church this week.

I'm not gonna have the opportunity to see you at the office this week.

I want to make that up.

I don't want to lose that chance just because we can't be physically proximal.

So I'm calling on you.

Ask the new question last.

It'll be a natural close to your conversation.

Reflect on.

Not do I have the right academic theology.

That'll take care of itself in just a bit.

Reflect on the light of God, the rose opportunity in the middle of a time of anxiety and fear.

My prayer for you is that Lent will continue to be a holy time.

That God, as we prayed in the prayers of the people, will grant us all the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, but the courage to change the things we can, like what we do with our leisure time, where we stick our anxiety that we're having, that is so natural.

And that God will give us the wisdom to know between the two.