Sunday, March 19, 2023
/The Fourth Sunday of Lent
1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
The Rev. Jeff Bohanski
Jesus saw a blind man. Lord Jesus, forgive me when I do not see as you would want me to see. Help me to see as you would want me to see. Help me to walk in your love and walk in your ways. Amen.
The reading we just heard from John is long and seemed to go on for a long while. My hope for us all is that this sermon won’t.
There is a lot going on in our Gospel reading today. I suspect a whole Lentin series could be done from just this one reading. We could do a class on why a loving God would permit someone to be born blind. We could have another class on why all the Bible translations I’ve read from my little Gideon Bible to the King James Bible all have an English translation of the word Siloam added in in parenthesis. We could also do a class about the ways the blind man was healed. He was healed physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.
This morning I’m going to just offer a couple of thoughts and prayers that came to me as I meditated on the readings this week. Perhaps they will help you in your meditations and prayers.
When pray with a selection of Scripture, I read it several times. I imagine myself in the passage and I imagine who is in the passage. If Jesus is in the passage, I imagine how people are reacting to him. This week as I read the readings, I was drawn to the Gospel story.
I imagine the heat of the day and the dust in the air. I imagine the crowd pushing in around Jesus as they moved in mass to get to where they were going. I imagine the disciples being so involve in their theological discussion that they missed seeing the needs of the blind man in front of them. I imagine Jesus bending down in mid-sentence to help this man in need. I imagine the blind man whose eyes were covered with mud making his way to The Pool of Siloam.
The first thought that occurred to me was how Jesus treated the blind man. Jesus saw the man as he was, a person in need of his saving love. So, he simply lovingly bent down, asked no questions, and began the blind man’s healing process. It then crossed my mind that this is how Jesus treats us. He sees us and loves us as we are, as blind as we are, just as we are. Jesus wants to bring us healing to our blindness.
Then I began to think about my blindness. How at school I can be so intent on teaching a lesson that I don’t see the child in need who is right in front of me. Then I acknowledged how I worry that tomorrow I could be so distracted by the State takeover of HISD that I could miss the needs of a child in front of me who would really need my attention. That’s when I asked Jesus to help me to see as he would want me to see. Help me to see the person in need in front of me.
On Wednesday I read this Gospel again. This time it occurred to me that parts of it was like a cable news network. There were the disciples who were so concerned about who is to blame for the situation of the blind man that the blind man’s needs went overlooked. Then there were officials who were so determined to find a big lie in the story that they couldn’t see the fact that a blind man had actually been healed. Instead, the officials threw everyone out of the synagogue who didn’t agree with what they were teaching. I found I wanted to do what I do to the cable news shows when their noise gets too loud for me. I wanted to turn them off. So, that’s what I did. I closed my Bible, and I went for a walk.
On my walk I asked myself, where was Jesus in all this noise? My answer was, He was there where he always is. Loving, teaching, and restoring people to health. He was also confronting and correcting injustice. I prayed; Lord help me to hear your voice in the noise of the world. Help me to bring your healing love to those around me. Help me to confront injustice I see in the world so that you may correct it in your way.
I believe as a person who follows Jesus, I am called to act on my prayers and meditations. I see there is an opportunity for all of us to put our prayers into action next weekend.
Next Saturday we are holding a Parish Summit. We will be looking at our five-year plan for ministry and spiritual growth here at Saint Andrews. Over the three or four years I’ve been here I’ve seen everyone here play a part in God’s saving mission for the world. I invite everyone here today, if you are a first-time visitor or if you are a long-time parishioner, to attend. You hear God’s voice speaking to you, I invite you come add your voice and ideas to the prayerful discernment of where Jesus is leading us as a community so we may bring his healing loving and sometimes uncomfortable message to the community and world we find ourselves living in.
Come be a part of the future of Saint Andrew’s. Amen.