AThe Light of the World@

The Light of the World

First UMC Fort Dodge

March 2, 2008

Mark Haverland

Ephesians 5:8‑14: For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of 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. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

John 9:1‑41: As he 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 him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). 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 opened" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

Elicit

Lubricious:

This passage about the blind man usually elicits comments about the degree to which sin accounts for our misfortunes. Did the lubricious behavior of the beggar or his ancestors cause God to punish him? The notion that we get pretty much in life what we deserve is still relatively popular in our own times – especially among those who are well off, but it was a firmly held position by just about everybody except Jesus in first century Palestine. Jesus responds to the blind man’s predicament with the shocking notion that sin had nothing to do with it. This man’s blindness is an opportunity for the love of God to demonstrate its power. Jesus channels God’s power by showing compassion for the person afflicted with a disability. In other words: There comes a time in all our lives when we can no longer keep asking the "why" question, because asking why is no longer doing us any good. If we get stuck in the why we begin to perish. There comes a point of spiritual surrender when we say, "OK, God, if I can’t know why, then at least help me figure out what’s next.” That is where spiritual growth begins to happen—when we move out of the "why" and into the "what now. When we make this move we find that Jesus is there with his hand outstretched to help us along.

Two weeks ago the metaphor was the wind as Jesus encounters Nicodemus and engages him in a conversation about being born again. Last week, Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for water and ended up giving her living water. Today the image is

Light, a favorite of the Gospel of John. All who claim the name of Christ are people of light.

Jesus had a lot to say about light. “We are the light of the world.” Don’t hide your light under a bushel basket.” “Let your light so shine, that people will see you and know me.” Humans have forever shunned darkness. The darkness beyond the light of the campfire was dangerous to our prehistoric ancestors so those who stayed closest to the light of the fire were the ones most likely to survive. It remains dangerous even today to go where you cannot see your way. The search for the best flashlight has been the holy grail of camping equipment for years.

It’s important to see everything that is out there, but having eyesight and enough light is not always sufficient to actually see what lies ahead. You also need to pay attention. Malcolm Muggeridge once said: “Every happening great and small is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.” In other words, the art of life is to be able to see what is right there in front of your face, but which we overlook because we’re too busy, too distracted, trying to multi-task too many things at once or simply aren’t paying attention.

No doubt there are two kinds of people in the world: those who have died while talking on their cell phones in the car and those who will some day do so. I had an experience once which brought this sad truth dangerously close. I’m sure that the experience was a parable whereby God spoke to me. I was driving over to see parishioners of my church in Polk City on a Tuesday evening about 7:00 pm. I had been on the go for several hours with one meeting after another. As I drove from Ankeny across to First on 118^th street, I realized that I needed to leave Faith a message about walking the dog. It was very dark along the stretch of 118^th Street between Delaware and Highway 69 that night. The black macadam of the road reflected little light. The trees along side the road were hazy indistinct shadows. Low clouds obscured the sky. As I sped into the darkness, I fumbled with my car phone and pushed the speed dial for home. No one answered. The voice messaging machine finally picked up the phone and I pressed the number to leave Faith a message explaining that Polly, our dog at the time, needed her walk and supper, even though she was in her kennel – normally a sign that she was in bed for the night. Before I had quite finished, I noticed that I was emerging into the light of the intersection with Highway 69. I came suddenly to a state of high alert. The phone message has a certain verbal exclamation point marking this moment. I glanced left and right to check for oncoming traffic, since I was skidding rapidly into the intersection and would not be able to stop. I noticed a car from the north which I was able to miss by accelerating rather than trying to stop. I was safely through the intersection before I knew it. I tell you, if I survive the cell phone and automobile age it will be a miracle.

If Muggeridge is right that every happening is a parable whereby God speaks to us, his message that evening to me couldn’t have been clearer: Don’t talk on the phone while you drive! The experience was also a lesson about how to approach the light of an intersection from the darkness of the road. It’s best if we burst into the light with our eyes on the road, attending to what is happening in front of us. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to slow down some so that we can deal with the dangers and opportunities of finding some light in the midst of darkness. And one should never assume that he is smart or lucky enough not to succumb to what is fatal to others. I do not lead a charmed life. I am as likely to do something dumb and die from it as anyone else. As someone once said, when all else fails, you can always serve as a horrible example, which I’m afraid I do all too often.

Do not enter the light of Jesus in the way I burst into that intersection. Someone called me this week to ask about our church here and how one becomes a member. After an initial stammering to explain what kind of a church we are (you must have this experience from time to time with your neighbors and friends as you help them find a church), I found myself saying that people join this church like I should have approached that intersection: slowly and cautiously. Normally, people come visit us a time or two. If they like what they see, they come regularly for a few months or so. They approach the intersection cautiously, paying attention to what is happening in front of them. They don’t rush into church in the midst of blinding distractions. They approach the light of God’s grace carefully and cautiously. If you move from darkness into the light too quickly, you can be blinded. It’s okay to approach the church with some hesitation and caution, not expecting too much.

Sometimes we seek out a church because we need to find God and we’re in a bit of a hurry. The church is where they keep God, we reason, so we hurry on down. This is particularly true when we’re in a crisis. Well, it’s probably a good thing not to let your hopes get too high in this regard. Many churches haven’t seen much of God is a long time. Besides, finding God is usually a surprise, Jesus tells us, even in church. Nicodemus didn’t realize he was going to get a lesson in heavenly obstetrics when he approached Jesus cautiously one night, in the dark about a lot of things. He just wanted to find out what the buzz was all about. The woman who went to the well for a drink did not expect to find living water. She thought she was going to get what she always got, good old h2o. The beggar in today’s story didn’t have even an inkling that Jesus would enable him to see. He had just polished up his tin cup and headed for town, expecting at most to get a few coins. Just so, it is best to come to church not expecting much out of the ordinary to happen. And usually it doesn’t. We may have to come to church often and a lot before the surprise happens. It may take several years of faithful church going before God speaks. It’s like dieting. You need to live a disciplined life for a long time before you see results. But one day, if we keep on keeping on, God will surprise us. We need to be like this year’s Drake men’s basketball team: relentless. It’s not a bad way to describe the Christian life: Be relentless in your search for God and one day, God will find you.

When Kate was small, maybe two or a little younger, I watched her discover that she could control whether the world was dark or light. She would close her eyes for a few moments and then open them and look around. Then she closed them and paused as if pondering the disappearance of everything into the darkness. She repeated this cycle for several minutes before turning to some other activity, satisfied with her ability to control whether or not she saw light or darkness. It reminded me that we really can decide what and where we will see. The worst blindness may be when we decide not to see, when we avoid seeing something that is desperately trying to get our attention.

Choosing to see is a very important skill that is denied blind people, such as the man in today’s gospel lesson. He was denied the control over being able to open his eyes and see, something all of us take for granted. But Jesus gave to this man something life had forever denied him. Jesus gave him the ability to see. He no longer needed to live only in the dark. He could choose to open his eyes and look around. Gaining sight suddenly after being blind is a very rare event. According to an ophthalmologist well versed in these matters, the number of cases of people known to us who gain their sight for the first time as adults over the last ten centuries is not more than twenty.^{^[i]} This sudden gift of sight at an advanced age is the subject of a movie, First Sight, about a real life case of a man whose sight is restored. I haven’t seen the movie, but I read the description of the events surrounding the real person to whom this happened in a book by Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars. The chapter about Virgil is called To See and Not To See. The title captures some of the ambiguity of a person who learns to see again after virtually a life time of being blind. The man who regained his sight never really adjusted to being able to see. As in all cases of regained sight after long periods of blindness, being able to see is deeply disorienting. Such patients have no frame of reference to understand the unfamiliar inputs from their optic nerves. Such cases are of great interest to scientists. People who see first as adults can tell us how vision helps us order our environment. What Virgil taught the scientists is that those who learn as adults how to see have to unlearn how they have functioned before. Quite often those who regain sight as adults experience a crisis after about a year of seeing. Some of them even lose their sight again, overwhelmed at battling the many changes they experience. Virgil, the man described by Sacks, found that he preferred to be blind. Seeing so changed his identity that he preferred not to see and gradually sank back into blindness. Although the medical circumstances are murky, Virgil’s reaction to being able to see was such that it is hard not to conclude that he willingly allowed himself to return to the preferred blindness with which he had grown so comfortable and accustomed. Those who have new sight, new vision, either adapt or shut down.

That seeing is sometimes frightening is not hard to understand. It can be dangerous to see. We don’t always like what we learn when we see clearly. Salvation, baptism, joining a church is not the end of a journey. It’s the beginning. And as the beggar discovers, things can get rough once you can see the light. The poor guy lost his job. His family abandoned him. Finding Jesus is the beginning of a tough life sometimes. That’s why it’s important to approach the intersection carefully. There may be cars coming.