Sermon Draft for Sunday March 26
The blind man
stood by the road and he cried
Oh, show me the
way, the way to go home.
BLINDNESS, DARKNESS. SHADOWS
Darkness can be
frightening. When you are in an
unfamiliar place and it is pitch black. I remember one time we had to pole
across a river and were returning from visiting relatives in a Fijian village,
Navuso. It was getting dark, and by the time we reached the other side of the
river it was pitch black. Not a single light in sight. I was with our grand-children Jordan and
Andrew, and Andrew said, ‘Don’t worry Grandma, I know the way.’ He was about
eight at the time. So I grabbed his hand as we walked down a rough track about
100 metres to reach the road to catch a passing taxi. Show me the way to go home,
I was thinking. Anyway at last we saw the wink of lights from a house near the
road and my panic ceased.
SHADOWS AND LOW VISION
With low vision
such as myopia means to be able to see
your hands, a book, the computer, close up – but can’t see well enough to cross
the road. Can’t tell the
difference between a wheelbarrow and a dog in the garden. We
wear spectacles or contact lenses. How many people need and use glasses? Plenty. Some people even as small children. Imagine a seven-year-old girl at Swan Hill
Primary School. The teacher writes on the blackboard ‘Go home’ and tells the
forty children to follow the words. One girl sitting up the front who can read
and write well at her desk is the last to leave. She can’t see the board. The
teacher realizes that she needs glasses so writes a letter for the girl to take
home to her mother. Next week the girl is wearing round glasses (like Harry Potter’s) but she is amazed at
what the world looks like. She wore those awful looking glasses throughout her
school years but at least she could see to read, paint, play the piano, climb
trees, chase sheep.
Life is very
hard for some people with handicaps such as being blind . Imperfect vision in the days of Jesus meant the person was not
independent, could not really look after himself or herself, had a limited
scope of knowledge of the world, mainly just what he could touch near him.
The story is in John’s
Gospel concerns a man blind from birth who sits by a pathway
near the Pool of Siloam and begs. People
have always told him, -hey you, your blindness was because you are a sinner or
your Mum and Dad are sinners. That was the view of the people of that culture.
That the cause of disability was what people did. In the Middle East two thousand years ago the
people did not have the scientific knowledge that we take for granted today,
that with short-sight – myopia – a pair of spectacles can give 20 20 vision.
We know that blindness is not caused by
the sin of the parents or the sin of a person.
It may be caused by living in a place where sand is in the air much of
the time. It may be caused by a defect at birth. Or a potential for eye trouble
in the DNA. It may be deterioration with aging such as macular degeneration.
But
wait.... Jesus puts spit on the eyes of the man begging then tells him to wash
in the nearby Pool of Siloam.
The
Pool of Siloam is a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David,
the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the
southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by
two aqueducts. Other stories of blind men being healed in the other gospels
talk of a healing in the town of Jericho. Different.
CHANGE
TRANFORMATION A NEW W ORLD
The man
follows this instruction. The cloudiness disappears and he can actually
see. See people. See his friends. See the blue sky. See flowers. He is amazed. This is a miracle.
Perfect vision gives the man the ability to have new experiences, to see the
river, see the mountain, to be able to move about safely, and of course to see
the faces of his family and the face of Jesus.
THE CRITICS
Now the
story in the gospel of John goes on.
Friends took the man to the Pharisees as the custom then was to show the
Jewish leaders that the man is now normal and cured. The pharisees don’t say –
how marvellous, how wonderful at all.
They continue with the old superstition about sins of the parents. And also -they want to trap Jesus. He has
done this healing on the precious Sabbath, day when Jews are not allowed to
work at all! Romans could but not Jews. They even ask the parents of the man
what had happened, but the parents are careful in their answer knowing that to
acknowledge that Jesus does miracles, is dangerous They say – he’s grown up, ask him yourself,
and the man of course says, yes I am cured.
Then the critics replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw
him out.
Spiritual Blindness
The
story does not end there. Jesus meets
with the man again. Jesus
heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in
the Son of Man?”
36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may
believe in him.”
37 Jesus said, “You
have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said,[a] “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and
asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
41 Jesus said, “If
you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can
see, your guilt remains.
What
does Jesus mean then? Perhaps he is
talking about truth, seeing the truth. The once blind man now sees reality, not
only a physical reality of the people in the street, the sky, the donkey
walking past, but the reality of knowing who Jesus is. A spiritual
relationship, a spiritual reality which the critics do not see.
So there is more to dark and light than physical. There’s a kind of symbolic meaning in the
story. It is not only physical light
after darkness, but a spiritual awakening, a new kind of seeing what life is
about, that going home for the blind man is not just to his house but it’s to
know that he has met the Messiah, that there is a relationship with God. And Jesus says yes, that’s it.
This is
what I believe. That we are created to
be in a relationship with one another, with family, with friends, with
community, with our social world, and we are created to be in a relationship
with our Creator, God.
SHOW US THE WAY
We are
sometimes like that blind man sitting by the road crying out ‘Show me the
way. And like the blind man we continually are curious, we seek answers
to questions, especially where am I going to. What is the purpose of my life.
Show me the way.
Just as darkness
limits our experience of the world, our knowledge, our relationships, to be in the light means knowledge,
experience, an appreciation of beauty,
and relationships with people. And Jesus implies that children of the light
also have a relationship with our Father God.
As we read
in Corinthians:
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
The blind man
sat by the road and he cried
Oh, show me the way.
We all sit by
the road and we cry
Oh, show me the
way.
And the answer:
Jesus says: I am
the way, I am the truth, I am the life
And the way to go home,
and our response:
And the way to go home,
and our response:
You are the way,
You are the truth, You are the life
And the way to go home.
And the way to go home.
Show me the way to go home
Home is a
place where we feel secure, safe, optimistic, in relationships with family and
a base for relationships with neighbours and community. But...is the word
‘home’ used here to mean a view of the future after this life – that is -
heaven? That’s how it is used in many
hymns of the 19th century. ‘I am coming home’. An old hymn expresses
the view that we need God to show us the way in a time of difficulties. We need
light in the darkness. Lead, Kindly Light is a hymn with words written in 1833 by John Henry Newman. Certainly
we need guidance in our world that has gone tipsy turvy at times with gross
selfishness and violence.
"Lead,
Kindly Light, amidst the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
"Lead, Kindly Light" was sung by Betsie ten Boom, and
other women as they were led by the S.S. Guards to the concentration camp
Ravensbruck during the Holocaust.
Lead, Kindly Light was sung by a soloist on the Titanic during a hymn-singing gathering led by
Rev. Ernest C. Carter, shortly before the ocean liner struck an iceberg on
April 14, 1912. Lead, Kindly Light was sung by British troops to the
accompaniment of nearby artillery fire during
the 1st World War at services held before going into the trenches the following day.
So
long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
Will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
Meantime,
along the narrow rugged path,
Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith,
Home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life."
Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith,
Home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life."
I AM SURE THAT IT MEAN\S A WALK WITH GOD
And a
verse from one of my favourite hymns ‘In heavenly love abiding’
2 Wherever he may guide me,
no want shall turn me back;
my Shepherd is beside me,
and nothing can I lack:
his wisdom ever waketh,
his sight is never dim,
he knows the way he taketh,
and I will walk with him.
no want shall turn me back;
my Shepherd is beside me,
and nothing can I lack:
his wisdom ever waketh,
his sight is never dim,
he knows the way he taketh,
and I will walk with him.
And
in our second reading for today which will be read at the close of today’s
service – from Ephesians 5:8-14 New International Version:
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of
light 9 (for
the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord.
Show me the way. The way to go home. It is the way of Jesus. It is to know truth and see what life is
really about. No longer living in shadows, of not seeing, of guessing, of
limits. Of seeing people in a real way, no longer just thinking of yourself and
your needs, but having empathy for other people, kin, friends, networks and
eventually to a world view of all people. And, walking with Jesus in that
journey.
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