Spiritual awakening. When was the last time you had one? The lights go on, and everything is obvious: your place, God’s voice, what God desires for you and for this world, and what you should do in response to that. It’s all clear and obvious. When was there absolute clarity for you in terms of what God was motioning?
This Gospel text – Jesus healing the blind man (which only takes 7 verses) and the ensuing controversy (which takes 34) – this Gospel text is a metaphor for spiritual awakening. Jesus healing a man who once was blind but now sees. “All I know is once I was blind, but now I see.” Plain. Obvious. The Pharisees try to muddle it up, but the real clarity comes – ironically – in the “mud of Christ.”
In mud – water and earth – pasted on your eyes by Christ comes clarity! It’s time for a spiritual awakening, this 4th Sunday of Lent! That’s the gift of this text. Might not be a glamorous, high energy spiritual awakening, with dancing and singing, maybe like we see with our Pentecostal sisters and brothers. That might not really be your style for spiritual awakening. But Lutherans are not exempt from spiritual awakenings! Do not be mistaken: Christ is pasting water and earth in your eyes this morning, and calling you into the light.
How are you blind? Blindness is a metaphor for spiritual dryness. How has your spiritual life started to look cracked and flakey like the surface of the Sahara, desperate for a good rain?
How we can get dry! Dehydration sneaks up on us. I don’t know about you but even during the Spring time, all this rain, all this beautiful imagery in church during Lent of journeying, renewing, rich texts, Wednesday night services, fresh produce at our door, baseball season (Cubs and Padres both won yesterday!), and I still can get so dried up.
Dehydration sneaks up on you and suddenly you’re dizzy with “Pharisee business”, and it’s almost impossible to see.
Pharisee business is the stuff we have to do, or we get in trouble. Pharisees, were not totally bad people. [easy to separate us from them] They’re just about the business of doing what they—and keeping close tabs on what others—have to do: pay your taxes, get a job, “memorize it, because it will be on the test”, (in their day) honor all laws of the Hebrew Scriptures, stop at red lights, give to the needy. You can skip all that, all that Pharisee business, but you’ll get in trouble. The Pharisees were like the children on the playground, who run and tell the teacher when someone’s breaking a rule, the kids who get very upset when they themselves get in trouble for something that they didn’t realize was wrong (I live with a little boy like that…), because they’re just obsessed with doing what we have to (supposed to) do – Pharisee business.
But that Pharisee business is only a stage, a phase, in our Christian evolutions. For God is comin’ at us with mud and water for our eyes, with bread and wine for our bodies, with holy words of comfort for our troubled hearts, and holy words of challenge for our minds and hands and feet. And with a little smearing, we are ushered out of the walled-up region of Pharisee business as usual, and into a much wider world, a totally new realm we hadn’t seen before. During this Lenten season, we rub and wash and rinse and open.
And now we see in a new light. We walk as children of the light through the valley of the shadow of darkness, fearing no evil. For the light of Christ shines on us. We are nourished and fed at this table. Hydrated at this font. And we are sent by baptism – our pool of Siloam (which means Sent) –we flung from here, flung by God’s costly grace, to proclaim Christ crucified and risen.
“Spiritual awakening” means that this Pharisee business no longer defines us. We follow the good rules, we go back into that walled-up region, but not because we have to. We follow the rules because it’s just a small part of the much bigger picture that we now see, in this healing – for it’s now “Jesus business”.
From Pharisee business to Jesus business – Jesus business covers much Pharisee business, but is so much broader and richer and more real and more meaningful, in light of Christ.
Jesus business. That’s how we see now. It’s like a blessed spring, that has gushed all over our dry, cracked, dehydrated lives. We are filled with meaning and purpose and clarity. “Here’s mud in your eye!” (it’s a toast that means “Here’s to healing and seeing the world in a new way. Here’s to clarity through mud!”)
If we profess to be followers of Jesus, then we ought to be able to describe how we see the world differently now vs. before. How do you see differently, now that you’re about the work of Jesus?
The disciples and the Pharisees only saw and sin in the man born blind. “Who did it? Who sinned? Was it him or his parents?”
But Jesus throws out that parched concept of God and says, “This man was born blind so that God’s glory might be revealed.”
Japan. “Who did it? Who sinned? Was it this generation of Japanese or the generation before? Must be because they’re not Christian. Something like that will never happen to us – because we can see. We’re a Christian nation.”
That’s Pharisee talk, Pharisee business. What did Jesus say? “Right when you say ‘we can see,’ your sin remains.” That kind of judgment and pride and dehydrated compassion could put us right at the Pharisees’ side.
But Jesus work is what we’re about! We see tragedy differently – not something to celebrate, by any means, but a place for “God’s glory” to shine in the darkness. From the March 25th Japan situation report of our church body:
The ELCA has an expansive network of global companions through which it engages in relief and rehabilitation following major international disasters. Our church’s ongoing relationships – both Lutheran and ecumenical – enable us to engage swiftly and effectively with communities in need, as they recover from disasters.... To respond to the disaster in Japan, we are working very closely with the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Lutheran World Federation, and Church World Service in providing direct assistance to survivors of this disaster – and we’ll continue to walk with them as they rebuild their lives. On March 18th, the ELCA made an initial commitment of $240,000 to our companion’s relief efforts:
100,000 to the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church for initial relief efforts;
· $40,000 to enable the Lutheran World Federation to deploy an emergency relief advisor from India; and
· $100,000 to Church World Service for an immediate response to 5,000 households, about 25,000 individuals, now living at 100 evacuation sites in the northeastern area of Japan.
Jesus business. One example. We’re not Jesus, but we follow him. If it wasn’t for Christ, we’d still be stuck doing Pharisee business, but we have been found. We have been washed and healed by Christ. So we now see – not through the eyes of judgement and condemnation – but through the eyes of love. We are awakened and given fresh eyes. We are enlightened, not by the law of the Pharisees, but by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The scales have fallen, the spring is flowing, the water is splashed and now we are sent to where Christ will meet us and stay with us. AMEN.
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