Lectionary Readings for Sunday, March 2, 2008

Lectionary Readings for Sunday, March 2, 2008
Fourth Sunday in Lent

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41


Life has a language.
And Scripture has a word for us.

Let us then connect with God's word;
Let us find what order it brings to our lives;
Let us heed our call that asks us to step forth;
Let us listen to the voice of hope;
And let us both share and receive the blessings of life.

This Sunday we are in a story teller's paradise. We can practically see the line of Jesse's sons standing in a line, waiting to see which one would be anointed as Saul's successor. We love it when the one who wasn't even standing in line, the youngest, the weakest, the least probable son is chosen for reasons indiscernible to the human eye. Just as Jesus would one day say, “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” It is a thrilling story that asks us to look beyond the expected to learn just how it is that God perceives life.

We are told the very same story in the Gospel of John. Last week we had that long, beautiful reading about a woman at the well who could never have expected that she would find living water in a conversation with this man named Jesus. This week we have another extraordinarily beautiful story about a man born blind.

As Jesus and the disciples pass by the man the disciples wonder to whom blame should be assigned. Had the man sinned even when he was an infant? Or were his parents at faualt? Surely there was a cause for his blindness, and surely blame could be assigned. Their question dovetails Eliphaz's understanding of Job's affliction: God does not punish the righteous. At the end of Job God makes it clear that such an assumption does not reflect the way the God of life works. Jesus makes the same point. With consummate insight Jesus answers both questions with a single word. “Neither,” he says. He pushes blame off the table and opens up an entirely new question world of perception. Blame and shame have the power to disconnect us from both ourselves and each other. Instead of enhancing life they block it.

At this point I am tempted to exegete the story using the five lenses of our Leading Causes of Life. We see connection with a man whose life was a “problem.” We see the battle for coherence as the Pharisees wonder who Jesus was and tried to draw boundaries to help them define and understand his extravagant gift of healing. We see hope fulfilled as the man proclaims his vision, we see that he actually did what he was asked to when told to go to the pool of Siloam. And we see the world of blessing at work as one man's experience produces a story from which we draw meaning in our own lives.

But on this day I would like to travel down another path.

Not long ago I received a report about the impact of healthcare costs on church insurance programs. An aging clergy encounters healthcare crises that insurance programs do not have the resources to handle. Small congregations can scarcely pay $12,000 or more a year to cover their clergy, and even if they do the pool is just too small to cover the costs of diabetes, heart disease, cancers, MRIs, CAT scans and the rest. Clergy tend to be an unhealthy group. Our levels of stress are high; our weight is often more than ideal; our self-care is minimal; and our expectation of being cared for is high. The report noted that the active clergy portion of the healthcare plan was in a “death spiral.” Denominations are both cutting back on what insurance provides and doing all they can to make preventative care a priority. At a recent Methodist conference in Mississippi clergy used the break times to walk with a vengeance on a track that surrounded the sanctuary. It was a group effort born of legitimate need but without a hint of shame. Not surprisingly, between breaks we took time to share our stories just as the man born blind shared his story two or three times in the Lectionary text.

If the disciples walked by healthcare system is in a death spiral, what might they have asked Jesus? Is it the system's fault? Is it the clergy's fault? Who is to blame for the death we cannot ignore? And what might Jesus' answer be? If the Lectionary gives us a leading, we can assume his word would not be one of blame of shame.

I write this with a certain ambiguity in my own heart. Fifty-two years ago, my immune system failed me and diabetes walked in the door and decided to stay. It is a costly disease. Thirty years later, and four days after my ordination, I lived through my first heart attack. Thirteen years later a second came along despite a regiment of exercise, healthy diet, medications meant to forestall the impending crises. The costs of keeping me alive have been significant. Indeed, they have been a drain. By all rights, the denomination should have said, “We simply cannot afford to have Type 1 diabetics serve as pastors. There is no way we can keep up with it.” My response is, “I'm sorry. My condition has nothing to do with choices I made or failed to make, but I am so sorry my life has been so costly and that there is no simple way to stem the costs that are part and parcel of diabetes.”

Which is to say . . . I assume the blame for something I did not chose. How would Jesus reframe the discussion? He found a purpose for the man's blindness. “He was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him,” Jesus said.

It is an imaginative flight but curiosity can't help but wonder . . .

“This church is struggling with healthcare costs so that God's works might be revealed in it.” Or, might it be, “This insurance company is struggling with costs so that God's works might be revealed in it as well?” Or, “This woman has epilepsy so that God's works might be revealed in her.”

And just how might that happen?

One thing we know is that it happens through the telling of stories. I imagine a small church in Pennsylvania or Tennessee celebrating the return of a member after heart surgery. What happened? What have you learned? What is life teaching you, would you share it with us? Where is God in your healing? How has Scripture come true?

I know of a small church in Montana in which a member was told she needed heart surgery. She decided to not undergo the procedure. The family had already faced medical bankruptcy once; she was not going to bring her family to the brink another time. The congregation, and the town, decided to “do something.” First thing you know there was a rummage sale and $5,000 was given to the woman to banish the shame and worry that had taken hold in her life. Later on, when she saw her doctor it was decided she didn't need the operation after all. Some may attribute this to a miracle cure; others to unseen strength that makes itself known when shame worry have been pushed off the table. Either way, her story took root in the church, the church took root in the town, and hymns of thanks found their way heaven-bound.

We have the opportunity to claim healing as a common ground. We have the opportunity to learn from Jesus who turned his attention to the works of God who sees not from the outside but from the inside.

It is a necessary conversation if we are life in the light of Jesus' closing words: “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”


John 9:1-41

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam' (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, 'Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?' Some were saying, 'It is he.' Others were saying, 'No, but it is someone like him.' He kept saying, 'I am the man.' But they kept asking him, 'Then how were your eyes opened?' He answered, 'The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, "Go to Siloam and wash." Then I went and washed and received my sight.' They said to him, 'Where is he?' He said, 'I do not know.'

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, 'He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.' Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.' But others said, 'How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?' And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, 'What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.' He said, 'He is a prophet.'

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, 'Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?' His parents answered, 'We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.' His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, 'He is of age; ask him.'

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, 'Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.' He answered, 'I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.' They said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?' He answered them, 'I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?' Then they reviled him, saying, 'You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.' The man answered, 'Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.' They answered him, 'You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?' And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him. Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains.


Larry

I welcome your response to these columns. I may be reached at:
larry@leadingcausesoflife.org
Or
larrypray@gmail.com