March 30 -- Fourth Sunday in Lent

Listen to this sermon HERE.

I hate shaving.  The tediousness, the razor, the rashes.  I use a razor and shaving cream.  And the other morning, I rolled out of bed to shave, and I did it without my glasses.  Up to the mirror, by the time I was finished, I thought I had done a pretty great job...

Then I put my glasses on and turned an extra light on to check:  ...patches, uneven, and even some nicks.  

I thought I could see, but I couldn’t.  I thought I was just fine, but I wasn’t.  And thank God for the light and for the vision correction.

Today Jesus heals the man-born-blind and hopefully the Pharisees too, who thought they could see, but couldn’t, who thought that they were just fine, but weren’t.  Thank God for the light and the for the vision corrected.  [pause]

Today’s text is where we get that toast, “Here’s mud in your eye.”  Ever heard that?  My Grandpa used to say that all the time when we’d raise our glasses.  I never knew what it meant, but it comes from this passage, where Jesus takes dirt, spits, in it, makes mud, and rubs it on the man-born-blind’s eyes.  “Here’s mud in your eye” is a way of saying here’s to your health and healing, here’s to clearness of vision and direction.  Try it the next time you make a toast. 

But “mud it your eye” does not sound like pleasant experience.  And that must have certainly been true for those Pharisees who were called out by Jesus.  “Surely we are not blind, are we?” And Jesus says to them, “If you were blind you would not have sin.  But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”  Like me thinking I had done such a great shave with no glasses.  I’m fine.  I’m even great.  
This is a text and lesson about humility, and about relying on Jesus who is the only one who gives true light, who fully shaves away and wipes down our sin.  

We can’t do it on our own: Lent continues.  We can’t see clearly on our own.  We need Christ’s light and our vision corrected.  This isn’t about literal blindness at all.  Lent continues: let us turn-turn-turn back to God, like I turned back to get my glasses the other morning, only to discover quite a mess.  Christ, who slaps mud in our eyes, is our light and our healing.

But the healing doesn’t happen interestingly in Jesus’ presence.  This is the second time in John’s Gospel where healing happens -- not in Christ’s presence -- but after Jesus says, “Now go.”  In chapter 4, a royal official has a son who is sick to to the point of death and Jesus says to the father, “Now go,” and only at that point does he discover his son’s fever dropped.  Just like our text today, Jesus wipes the mud in his eye, but the man doesn’t see until he goes and washes it off.  Jesus tells the man-born-blind to wash in the Pool of Siloam, which means Sent.  Jesus wasn’t just standing there when the man receives his sight, when the fever of the official’s son goes away.  The healing happens -- not in Christ’s presence -- but in the Sent.  

What’s the point of that?  There is a component to faith, where we don’t get the results we want immediately, or in the way we envision them.  First we are told to go.  Can anyone name the 4 movements of our worship service each Sunday?  (in bulletin every week, in seminary, I used Bath-Story-Table-Sent)  The Sending movement of our worship service might seem like the shortest, but it’s actually the longest because it’s happening until we gather next week.  Our life becomes worship, as Christ says to us, “Now go, wash in the Pool of Sent.”

Two years ago now, I had that wonderful experience of flying to Colorado Springs to interview my 90-year-old Grandpa Roschke on video.  What a wonderful conversation we had about his life and his 60+ years of ministry as an ordained pastor in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  His longest call was in Kansas City, Missouri -- which is where I remember visiting them the most when we were growing up.  He was there for 25 years.  And as Grandpa was talking about those years he shared how that congregation planted 6 churches in the greater KC area.  6 churches.  And how hard that was, because his thriving congregation would grow and then it was always a struggle figuring out which members would venture forth to the new church plant.  No one wanted to be the one to be sent from the cozy mother church.  [pause]

And it occurred to me that I’ve never even thought along those lines.  I’ve never even had that kind of a vision for our churches today.  [pause]  But how do you suppose we got here?  (We were a plant of St. Luke’s.)  And how do we suppose others will hear the Gospel that God loves them, how will others come to know the Christ who abides with them in the light and in the darkness, in the good times and in the bad, in the Word and in the Meal, and in the community...if we don’t go and wash in the Pool of Sent?  Jesus sends us out.  That’s the whole reason for being church!

I was reminded recently that the early church, 1st century, had two purposes: to worship weekly together and to help the poor and those on the edges.  So, they always took an offering when they worshiped underground, and gave it away.  Then the church morphed when it got power in the world’s eyes, when emperors and kings and presidents made it their own.

Luther tried to restore those two original focal points and he added one more: education.  So that during the time of the Reformation, the church was called anew to worship, serving the poor and educating.  I’d like to think my grandpa was trying to restore that as well, and offer this vision once again to the church of the 20th century.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, where is God calling us today? In  this Lenten season?  For we have a vision before us, now that we are in Christ, now that we have been given sight.  We can see now that we have been near-sighted, that our work can indeed be patchy and uneven.  But thanks be to God, who has turned on the light and given us corrective vision.  Here’s mud in our eye!

Now.  We.  Go.  AMEN.