Lent 4

Two weeks ago I preached on Abram's call." Go!" God said, "to the place I will show you. Leave behind your security and identity--all that you hold dear." This is the life of obedient trust--give up all to receive abundantly more! Today we hear it again.

Samuel has invested a great deal in the first king of Israel. Now God asks him, "How long will you cling to the past? How long will you grieve over Saul?" "Go to Jesse" and "I will tell you what to do" There is an added element, Saul has become irrational and explosive; Samuel feared death but went. Like Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Joshua---Samuel is chosen for a mysterious vocation. He must trust God and obey.  This is faith.

Samuel goes and in an ironic twist the people tremble in fear at his presence asking if he comes in peace/shalom. In Samuel, as in others, including Jesus, we see faith-full humans can still struggle with fear and worry. We can take solace in that. It is also good to know that just because you love and obey God does not mean you will suddenly know everything. Even the great prophet Samuel has no eye to see the chosen one, he sees as all men do. The Lord does not look as mortals, He sees the heart. Human seeing is always blindness. We are always in need of the light of the Holy Spirit or the Word of God to see as God does.

Back in 1989 I moved to Orlando. As I walked downtown I saw a blind man approach another man a few steps ahead of me. The blind man asked for directions to some building and the man in front of me paused for a moment, pointed down the street and said, "It is right over there," then continued on his way. It made me wonder which of the two was really blind.

Jesus meets the blind man. It is a very long story, yet it raises the same question, "Who is really blind?"
"Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents?" ask the disciples. They too are blind, they can not see a human in need; they see a perpetrator being punished. Their theology blinds them to God as well. They think that God controls everything so they try to make sense of human suffering and call it a direct result of personal sin. It is a nice, neat explanation of things (an explanation the book of Job rejected). Jesus says "neither."

Jesus says the man is blind "so that God's works might be revealed." The two Greek words, hina and phanaroo help us understand what Jesus is saying. The Strong's Biblical Hebrew dictionary in the blueletterbible says "hina" means "in order that (revealing the purpose or the result). In this sentence it is the latter, he was born blind and the result is God's works will be phanaroo--made actual, made real, made apparent, made understood, can be seen and experienced. Jesus says, "he was born blind but God is going to show the world what He can do."

The light-darkness contrast is a reminder of creation--the same creation which the Eternal Word (made flesh in Jesus) was an instrument in creating. "I am the light of the world" says Jesus--words which deserve an hour long meditation. "I work in the day, the time of God, for the night belongs to satan." He calls the blind man out of darkness, figurative and literal, He rescues him from the clutches of satan, the kingdom of sin and death.

The leaders of the Jews are also blind. They claim Jesus is a sinner. They badger the man who received his sight and call him a sinner. The poor man simply says what he knows, "I was blind but now I see." Eventually, unwilling to hear him and refusing to see Jesus for what he is, the leaders throw the man out.

Jesus comes to him and asks, "do you believe?"
"I believe" he says, "I believe"--those words open him to the Lord in a deeper way.

As I stood on the street in Orlando watching a man who could see point and say "over there" to a blind man I was stunned. Jesus is stunned as well. He is shocked that people who believe they have the answers and who know God could get it so wrong.
Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sins remain." For God does not see as man sees, God sees the heart.

This Lent, confess you are blind, over and over; repent in your heart for intentional blindness and pray for God to give you eyes to see. Come Holy Spirit of Light, make us to see!