Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have been blind all your life, as was that man born blind, healed by Jesus? Well, if you think about it, in many ways you and I are blind, far too much of the time.

In this Lenten season we've seen that God calls us to get beyond boundaries we too often draw arbitrarily or hurtfully between us and others. And today, as we heard about the man born blind who was healed by Jesus, we see Jesus cleverly uses the incident of the blind man to show us all how we draw harmful boundaries between us and others: because we are limited or are bound in our lives by what we make the effort to see. We are, indeed too often blind, too much, to what God wants us to see.

Indeed, what this incident in Jesus' healing ministry causes us to think about, first of all, is the need we have, as people of faith, to learn to see not with limited, prejudicial vision, but with a vision that sees as God sees--with a wider more open, perceptive, merciful and caring view of all peoples. The people of Jesus' day, remember, saw disabilities, like blindness, as some kind of a sign that a person must have been sinful. But Jesus makes us realize that's not the case at all. What is sinful is our failure to understand the human struggles and need for healing that others have--that indeed we all have--instead of judging others, which we too often do in order to feel better about ourselves. That's a very narrow kind of vision. We are called as a people of faith to have a wider vision--to see as God sees --with a wider vision that seeks to see and understand not just our world, but the worlds of all peoples.

An appropriate scripture, this is then, for the One Great Hour of Sharing--which calls us to share a caring love and gifts with people not just in our neck of the woods, but those beyond our little world, as well. The One Great Hour is a world-wide observance, with most Christian denominations participating. A reaching out of love and care and sharing that goes beyond all boundaries.
Yes, and not just in this One Great Hour, but every day as a Christian people, we're called to have a wider vision than just what we see in our own corner of the world, We're called to a higher view--to see the world as God sees it.

Thinking about the importance of a higher, wider vision, I'm reminded of a story shared by the late Blaine E. Taylor, who was a colleague and friend in our denomination here in New England. He once told the amusing, but truth-carrying story of the time he lost a funeral. That's right, he lost a funeral. He'd performed a service at the funeral home, and while the funeral director and workers were getting everyone into the procession, and the casket and flowers into the hearse, Blaine took the time to run into the restroom for a moment. To his chagrin, however, when he came out he discovered the procession had left without him. Fortunately he still had his own car, but ..there was one trouble. The city where he was serving had some fifteen different cemeteries scattered all over the city, and neither he, nor his associate who was with him, could remember at which cemetery this particular funeral was to end. At first they panicked, trying to think of a way they could find out from someone where to head, but even the secretary at the funeral home seemed to have left for the day, and everyone they could think of who knew the deceased was already in the possession, somewhere in the city headed to a cemetery . . without the pastor. Fortunately however, after their initial panic, Blaine's associate remembered . . the tower.

In the center of the city. You see, near their location was a large hill topped by an old stone observation tower. From up there, one could see the whole city. Maybe from there they could spot the procession! So into the car hopped, and up the hill they raced. Then getting out, and climbing the steps of the tower, they looked out over the city. And sure enough --there: there in the distance, they could see the headlights of the funeral procession, slowly winding its way to it's destination. It only took a moment, seeing where the procession was headed, to figure out the right cemetery, so into the car they hopped, and off to the races they went, and after only breaking the speed limit a couple of times, and taking shortcuts which the procession had not taken, they actually wound up at the cemetery just as the slow-moving funeral procession was pulling up. In fact, if they arrived just in time so that no one in the funeral procession, including the funeral director never knew . . the pastors had almost . . lost a funeral. [paraphrased from "The Missed Funeral," Real Life, Real Faith, Blaine E. Taylor, Abingdon, 1980,p. 20-21].

Too often you and I put boundaries around our vision and only see our own small little world, so no wonder we often get lost, or find the world beyond us bewildering, or something to fear, but if we'll remember to look from God's perspective, from a higher, wider view--then that widening of the boundaries of our vision helps us, in many ways, to better understand, and ultimately feel not as lost in our world, as is so often the case.

Then our Old Testament lesson today gives us a further understanding of why that higher or wider vision of God is all important, for remember what the Lord said to Samuel as one of the candidates to succeed King Saul, passed by? The Lord said, "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."

Yes, and so, too does God want us to see others in our world, not only with a wider, world wide perspective, as God does--to see the whole picture beyond our own usual little world, but also to see others in that world, not based on appearances but on what's in people's hearts. What a difference that makes. It can help us bring down the boundaries, those invisible but real barriers that too often divide us in our world, because we have made quick judgments based on appearances, and so have in effect shut many out of our love and care, or just our attention or world of concern. Instead we're called by our faith to look into peoples' hearts-- to understand in other words what their world has been like, and what makes them do what they do. If we will and will see their heart--we most often find that underneath, though different in appearance, people are all just people like us--with the same need to be loved, understood, and accepted by others and our world.

Garrison Keillor, that deep-bassed Public Radio entertainer and storyteller, in one of his tales, recalled not long ago the childhood pain of being chosen last for the baseball teams of his youth:
"The captains," he said, "are down to their last grudging choices: a slow kid for catcher, [and] someone to stick out in right field, where nobody hits it. They choose the last ones two at a time--"you and you"--because it makes no difference. And the remaining kids--the scrubs, the excess--they deal for us as handicaps. 'If I take him then you gotta take him', they say.
"Sometimes, I go as high as sixth," he says, "usually lower. Just once I'd like Darnel to pick me first and say, 'Him! I want him! The skinny kid with the glasses and black shoes. C'mon!' But I've never been chosen with much enthusiasm." [Keillor, Garrison, "Dream On"; Homiletics; article for Sunday, February 15, 2008]

What pain, you see, we cause each other, when we judge one another in our world, based solely on appearances, instead of relating to them, in a heart to heart--understanding way. Who are the people in your world you've failed to reach out to and love because of appearances. God says look instead into the hearts of others, and do so with heart. And isn't that what our One Great Hour of Sharing is all about, brothers and sisters in Christ; we're called to look beyond our boundaries that we put up between you and me, and those who are different, to love others this day based on heart, not appearance or differences, or any of the other outward signs that we use to judge or exclude others. Instead, if we open ourselves with love, and look into the hearts of others, it's amazing how quickly, the boundaries between us fall away, and we become a more loving caring, world family.

And that also tells us, finally, to see others with mercy and understanding.

Yes, eyes of mercy and understanding, we're to have as well.

My father, who served as pastor of a church in California during World War II, had the experience of having a much loved family from their congregation, taken away one day to a concentration camp, by American authorities, because that family was Japanese. That was a very sad day for my Dad's congregation--they all the mourned the loss of that family from their midst, and yet were powerless to do anything. The fact that our country had concentration camps was due of course to the hatreds that war can cause. After all our country had been directly bombed by the Japanese--in Hawaii. But what that did was cause many Americans at the time to then see all Japanese, wrongly , as enemies. Just as today too many people of the Middle East are looked at suspiciously and with some hate, because of 9/11.
Well I think as a result of seeing what such experiences can do to people, my father, as you may remember my sharing, started years ago a German pastors exchange between our country and Germany--two countries who also had been at war, with many resulting left over prejudices. So each year for many years, my father would take a group of pastors from this country to visit Germany, and stay in the homes of pastors in Germany, to experience what life was like there, and on alternate years a group of German pastors would come here. And in the process, people who participated got to know and understand people from that land, and most importantly began to see beyond our differences and memories of the past, to see into the hearts of a people who yes, underneath were just people like us--with the same yearnings to love and be loved. Boundaries that kept us fearing one another began to come down. Eventually, the exchange also included lay people from churches on both sides of the Atlantic. Peggy and I participated in the exchange in different ways a couple of times, and it taught us a lot about how we need to begin to see others in our world based not in some judgmental way on our past and our narrowly bounded world, but based on mercy and a greater understanding of people who just outwardly seemed different from us. And so the boundaries between us and others began to come down, and we were together. German Christians and American Christians who participated, became just Christian brothers and sisters. With no boundaries, but bound together by love.

How have outward appearances or differences, or perceived wrongs by others, drawn divisive boundaries between us and others in this world of ours. With all the troubles and divisions in our world today, it's imperative we begin to try different ways to get beyond dividing boundaries, and get to know others and therefore understand and see them then not with judgment, but merciful understanding. If we will then we'll begin to see the world as God sees it--from a higher perspective that sees a whole world family that just needs to learn to understand one and love one--to see one another not with judgment for past wrongs but mercy. We're to see others beyond our boundaries, then, with grace, as we said last week. With love. And that's a good reason, don't you think, to have this reminder every year that we call the One Great Hour of Sharing. For every year it opens our eyes to see, as God would have us see-- all of God's people. Not with judgment or fear, or seeing only outward differences, but with eyes of a merciful, caring love. Amen.