Methodyopia

10-25-09

The other day I was sitting in an armchair at home and my daughter Abigail came over, crawled up into my lap and fell asleep. My husband and I had been desiring for her to take a nap, so when she finally fell asleep it was fantastic, and I didn’t want to move her for fear of waking her up. Here’s the thing: I wasn’t particularly tired, and I had just cleaned my glasses and set them on a table just out of reach. As I tried to read the book I had been reading, I had to hold it at arms length like God never gave me elbows, and I had to close one eye and squint to read the page. I felt a little pathetic.

I’ve got presbyopia. Presybopia kind of sounds like something only Presbyterians catch doesn’t it? Some of them may have it, too, but I can assure you that Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, even the non-denominational denominational folks are susceptible. Anyone know what Presbyopia is? "Presbyopia is a common eyesight problem. It comes from presby (meaning "elder/old man") and opia (meaning "eye, or having to do with sight"). It’s the slow deterioration of close-up focus. It develops when the clear lens of the eye loses its elasticity. Elasticity changes focus and focus determines whether you order shrimp scampi or sirloin steak."¹

Until recently, presbyopia was most often treated with the cheap reading glasses that hang on the racks at your local supermarket pharmacy. If your presbyopia progresses, the other option is laser surgery. So, basically, you either have several pair of cheap glasses that end up on the nightstand, on the back of the toilet, in the couch cushions, but never near you when you are trying to read the caller id, or you have a laser (you know those things used to carve steel and blow up bad guys in the science fiction movies,) pointed at your eyeball.

"Eighty-five million Americans have presbyopia and are looking for better solutions than glasses and expensive surgeries. Now, there’s a treatment for the condition called Transcleral Light Therapy. Although the procedure is still undergoing confirmation with the Food and Drug Administration, it looks to be a good option. A light beam is aimed at the ciliary muscles (the lens focusers), increasing their strength and flexibility. After five 10-minute sessions and periodic tune-up treatments, patients report that their glasses are obsolete. In other words, application of Light sharpens our focus on the world."²

Light sharpens our focus of the world (hmmm, sounds like an excellent sermon topic if you ask me.) This morning, we hear of a blind beggar name Bartimaeus. Both his blindness and his begging are strikes against him. He is at the margins of society, and overlooked by most people, but he has hope as he hears of the one called Jesus. As Jesus passes by, Bartimaeus calls out for mercy. But the crowd rebukes him. They do their best to remind him of his place in the world, to put him back into his neat cubbyhole in society.

This beggar’s story begins in darkness. In begins in emptiness. It begins in raw need. And as such, this son of honor, which is what the word Bartimaeus means, offers us a portrait of faith, and this is what faith looks like. Faith is needy. Faith is eager. Faith is assertive. Faith is hopeful. Faith is impetuous and persistent and risky and raw. Faith is personal and relational. Faith ends something and faith begins something. Faith is about God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves and faith is often about us. Something else we should remember, faith often leads us to places we would just as soon not go.

Bartimaeus has faith, and that faith tells him that Jesus may just be the light to help him see the world, so he yells even louder, despite the crowd’s attempts to quiet him. Even though he is physically blind, it seems that Bartimaeus is the only person in the crowd who can truly see Jesus for who he was and what he has to offer. The bible is fully of ironic stories like his where the disciples are the last to figure things out, and the ones in most need figure out this Jesus guy pretty darn quickly.

Jesus hears Bartimaeus’ voice and calls him over. When the Rabbi asks what he wants from him, Bartimaeus simply says, "My teacher, let me see again" (v. 52). He knows enough about Jesus to call him teacher and has enough personal belief to say "my." Healing him, Jesus connects Bartimaeus’ receipt of sight to his faith. The blind beggar know the message that we need to hear: Application of Light sharpens our focus on the world.

You may have guessed by now, that this story is not only about physical sight, but spiritual sight at well. This isn’t about whether we need magnifying glasses to read the inserts in our bulletins. Many of us struggle with our physical sight. Most of us struggle with spiritual sight. It can be quite dangerous to our health as individuals and as a church if we can only see those things that lie farther away from our inner sanctuaries.

You know, this week as I was preparing my sermon, I’ve read all sorts of stories of people regaining sight after procedures and surgeries, only to be overwhelmed. The world is much bigger then they had thought, bigger and more complex they could have ever imagined. The world is just too much, too much to see, do, be. Before the world was Better, Smaller, Quieter, Safer. Isn’t this true with our own darkness, our own blindness? To be able to see a larger picture, to be open to all the possibilities, to able to see not only beyond ourselves, but to see ourselves in a truthful light, would probably mean our world would no longer be smaller, quieter, safer, but larger, risky, uncertain, mysterious.

Jesus calls us to see. I want you to reflect on a couple questions with me for a few moments. Let’s think about Presbyopia for a moment. Presbyopia is the inability to focus clearly on things close to us. You see, we often talk and reflect on the ways we see and meet the needs of the world, while sometimes we have some kind of dysfunction or issue inside of the church that we conveniently cannot see. So, here are my questions, in what ways do we suffer from Methodyopia as a church? Methodyopia is a Methodist’s far-sightedness if you will. What about our church is fuzzy and needs some of our attention and focus? How can Jesus, the Light of the world, help us to focus our vision of our mission and ministry to each other and to the world?

What will we do? What will we see? This is what this story is all about. This is what the Gospel message, God’s calling, and Christianity is all about- to see or not to see. How will we have it? Smaller, quieter, safer; sitting in our comfortable and familiar darkness, where all the edges are rounded off so that we will not hurt ourselves, where we only need to concern ourselves with what is within our reach? Why make spectacles of ourselves? Why leave that space that is comfortable, when all we do is seek the comfortable spaces in a largely uncomfortable world? There is no sense in believing ourselves to be people who might see. We should stick with what we know, right?

This message this morning tells us differently. It tells us to open our eyes. It tells us to spring up, encounter God, and ask for our heart’s desire. It tells us to confront and overcome the fear that keeps us in the dark. While fuzzy issues such as these seem daunting and unsolvable, our first step is to merely expose ourselves to things that sit in the darkness. We need to read and learn. We need to educate ourselves and let the Holy Spirit guide us in the next steps after that. The coming of Jesus means Light into dark places (John 1:5). Bartimaeus knew it that day and screamed out in faith to receive his sight. For the blind man, there was only one way to get sight: Apply Light to sharpen your focus on the world. For the Christian with blurred vision today, the answer is the same. Can we learn from Bartimaeus’ faith? Can we be inspired by his courage to live it out? Will we take the lens of Scripture and the Light of Christ and apply them to issues that we don’t focus on and don’t see clearly.

It takes courage to see, new perspectives, new depth; to work around obstacles, bruise your shins, and your hearts, and your pride. Are you willing to see into the mysteries that surround you?

If you are willing to see, then go your way, your faith has made you well. Go your way as if you are seeing this world for the very first time; making sense of it all. Or go your way as if you have just regained your sight and your everyday way of seeing suddenly doesn’t look as appealing anymore, you might want to try a new way. And that new way of seeing will lead you to a place that requires courage; courage to love, courage to challenge, courage to accept, courage to live, courage to act, courage to speak, courage to walk, to see, to live justly. That new way of seeing will take you down a road with Jesus, a road to Jerusalem, a road that is not always scenic, but there is hope and grace, and new life waiting for you at the end. Take heart! He is calling you. Thanks be to God. Amen!!!!!