EYES WIDE SHUT
John 9:1-17a
Have you ever wondered what they really teach us in seminary--I mean beyond the Greek and the Hebrew and the nuances of church doctrine?
Well I can assure that the powers that be teach us plenty! We learn something about how to write a carefully prepared essay and how to think systematically--we learn about all sorts of people, whom I had never heard of, who risked their lives so that people like you and me could sit and worship in a place like this! We learn about how God can be distinctly three yet always one, and how the Reformers helped to shape the way we understand our faith today…you get the picture: we learn a heck-of-a-lot of really important stuff!
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But let me tell you about something that they don't teach us--one area of study that's been left out of the curriculum. No one ever teaches us why such horrible things have to happen in our world. We're never given the answers to the age-old question of "Why me, Lord…why?"
And frankly, this has been a disappointment to me. You see, growing up, I thought seminary was sort of like a Secret Club: it was this place that you went to for three years to study all kinds of things about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit--kind of like AP Sunday School or something--and then somewhere along the way, maybe about midway through your degree, a pair of shimmering keys to the Treasure Chest of all pastoral wisdom would be handed down to you. These keys--given only to the most enthusiastic of aspiring pastors--have the power to unlock all of the great mysteries of life, like: Where do we really go when we die?...and…How is it again that prayer works?
And there, lying in the bottom of the old Golden Box itself are scrolls upon scrolls of highly organized and highly systematized explanations for "why it all happens"--why life is so incredibly difficult.
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But now I'm in seminary, and yes, I've figured it out...there are no magic keys, and there is no Golden Treasure Chest.
But can you blame me for thinking that that's how it all works?
Can you understand why I was surprised when God's Reasons for Disease, Depression, Divorce and Disaster wasn't included in the Princeton Theological Seminary curriculum…when I realized that there was no upper-level practical theology course offered in Why Do Bad Things Happen to Us?
Well I don't know about you, but the pastors of my childhood never wept at funerals when everyone else was bent over in agony…I never heard any of them yelling out from the pulpit, "God, I don't get it? What are you doing up there, or down here or wherever you are?" Nothing ever seemed to knock them to their knees with doubt or disbelief. They always seemed to know just what to say in the pregnant moment of personal crisis.
So I pieced it all together--pastors must just know a whole lot more than you and I do about what God is up to in the world…somewhere along the line, someone must have told them all the answers.
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And isn't that what we're all wanting? Isn't this what the disciples were asking for from Jesus?…the riddle to be solved, the "Ah-ha!" that delivers us from the downward spiral of debilitating doubt? Aren't we asking why because we simply want to know?
Come on Jesus, just give it to us straight--why was this man born blind?
Why is my relationship in shambles?
Why does she have to suffer like that?
Who's to blame, God…is it him or his parents? Her or me?
I know you know the answer.* * *
But Jesus doesn't seem to be too interested in this question. He doesn't seem to be so into the "blame-game."
No, John tells us that that while the disciples are busy spinning their questions in place--God was getting down to the dirty work.
Jesus himself bends over and scoops up dirt from the ground--mixes it in his hands with some good 'ol fashion spit and smears the muddy paste all over the blind man's eyes. There are no voices of angels harkening in the distance, there is no magic fairy dust--this isn't the Jesus who approaches a stranger from on high…this is the Jesus who notices us and stops for us in the midst of real life and in the midst of the questions real life asks.
Yet oddly enough, even the healing hands of Christ himself do not deliver our friend from darkness…it's not the mysterious concoction of mud and mess that open his eyes.
It's not until Jesus says, "Go! and Wash!"--and the man does--that the healing begins.
Whatever questions the man born blind had about his life, his condition or his past are tabled--if only for a moment--in order to listen to the voice of the God-man in his midst.
And if we tune our ears just right, then we can almost hear the man whispering to his Lord, "Alright, if I can't know why then please God, help me to figure out what's next. I'm listening, now tell me what to do."
"Go and wash," Jesus says…then come back and look at me! See me for who I am!
I am the One who stopped to care--I am the Light that no darkness can overcome!
I am your God who crawls into the muck and mess of life with you…I entered Sheol for you!
I'm not afraid of who you are…remember, my own hands helped to knit you in your mother's womb.
I already know about your faults and your fears, your lies and your dirty little secrets.
I know about the guilt and the shame that you cannot seem to shake…and still I forgive you, because you are my precious child, and I love you.So go and wash, my son…for the darkness of night has broken forth into morning--come, and see!
* * *Cradled in the very arms of these verses themselves is the entirety of the gospel message: unsolicited and uninvited, God enters our world and uses the mess of life--the very "stuff" that you and I are made of--to heal our brokenness and restore our vision!
We don't get Doc Brown from Back to the Future who enables us to travel back in time in order to reconfigure our pasts…We don't get an optical illusion or magic man.
We get Jesus: the One who takes us just as we are--where we are--and heals us from the inside out. There's no life "redo" issued--no offer to erase what's already happened…simply the command to listen and follow.
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And this I believe is, where spiritual healing begins to happen: in the movement from the why to the what next?
But if it's that easy, and we simply follow the blind man's lead--if we stop asking why--why the illness? Why the broken heart? Why the disappointment? Why this pain?--and instead start asking, "Ok, God, what's next?"--then will all the hurt simply stop dead in its tracks, will the suffering end? Will it all get fixed and go away?
Well I wish I could say yes, but unfortunately I don't think it's quite that simple, because a changed heart isn't the same thing as a brand new one…and healing still doesn't rid us of the vexing problem of memory.
But I will tell you this, and I believe it with every fiber of my being: the healing power of the Holy Spirit is real, and I know this because it is what I have experienced.
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It was a Monday morning about 10 o'clock when the call came…I was working in North Carolina as a youth director in a Presbyterian church when my pastor called me down from the office to tell me that Hunter--one of our most active 9th grade youth had been taken to the emergency room--he wasn't conscious, a blood vessel had ruptured in his brain.
I froze. I had nothing to say. I had no idea what to do…so my pastor put his hands on my shoulders, stared me straight in the eyes, and he said "Grier, welcome to the ministry." At 24 years old, I had never experienced anything like this--I had never been to the hospital to see someone who was dying. I had never lost a friend before.
Wholly unprepared to be of any help to anyone, I went through the motions and gathered my keys, got in my car, and drove off to the downtown hospital. When I got there, I was greeted by the soft eyes and pursed lips of Hunter's mother, Lynn--we didn't speak a word to each other, just hugged and held on. Then, from around the corner flew her best friend yelping in hysterics, "Why is this happening, Grier? Why?"I said nothing--just opened up my arms and clung to her…trembling in fear.
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And then – unsolicited and without invitation--the ding of the elevator chimed and out poured five of Hunter's closest friends…then three more…then eight…they just kept on coming!
When they caught sight of Hunter's parents they ran to them in tears, gasping for breath, "When can we go in and see him? What's going on? Is he going to be alright?"
Eventually, the nurses had to come over to herd the adolescent mass into a special waiting area--so I followed, still in shock and wondering if somehow it was still possible that all of this was just a nightmare. But it wasn't…it was real.
Hunter's mother came in and told all the young people that if they wanted, they could go in to Hunter's room to say goodbye--so two by two and three by three, Hunter's friends--most of them youth from our church--filed in to hold Hunter's hand, to read him poetry, to sing and even to laugh with one another about old times, and to pray with him--Bibles in hand.
For the most part, I simply stood there like a wallflower, doubled over in awe as this swarm of 14-year olds embraced the body of their dying friend--tubes and monitors and needles and all.
Hunter's heart did stop beating later that day, and his parents called to report the news to the church. At the end of the conversation, Hunter's mother asked our senior pastor if it would be possible for the youth to plan and lead in Hunter's memorial service. And thanks be to God, he said, "Yes, of course."
So two days later on a dreary January afternoon, twenty-five of our Senior Highs gathered in the youth room to learn how to piece together a funeral service. Just as in pain as any of the rest of us--perhaps more so--these kids got down to business, and with the help of the church staff and youth advisors, they started to decide:
Who was going to help select the scripture passages?
Who was going to open the service in prayer?
Who would be willing to learn how to write a funeral homily and then speak it in front of 12 hundred people?
Who had ideas about which hymns we should sing?For 3 hours we sat in that youth room together--collaborating and care giving--making sure that every last detail of that service would go over just right.
And it did. The church was bursting at the seams, and the young people led in one of the most moving and beautiful and challenging worship services I have ever been to.
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You see, they got something about the "what next?"--their suffering was no less real than anybody else's, yet somehow, some way they were able to pause and listen for the voice of Jesus who showed up in the midst of the darkness. I think they must have heard him saying something like, "Go! Plan this service for your friend! Care for Hunter's family! Lead our church! Bear my Light, and let it shine!"
Their friend had died, a mother and father had lost their son--yet somehow, even there, the faint glimmer of hope and life could be seen in the faithful actions and loving kindness of our church's young people.
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And that was the day I learned that pastors really do cry, and that they certainly don't have all the answers….
That was the day when I first believed that the Light of Christ is never lost in the darkness.
That was the day I learned something about our own Healing Lord--and something about what it must be like to have been born blind, and now see.That was the day that I decided I'd go to seminary.
March 2, 2008
Fourth Sunday in LentGrier Booker Richards
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