Try,
Trust and Tell
John
9:1-41
A
Sermon Preached by
University
Congregational United
I have grown to love the story
we are going to hear today. To help
bring it to life I have asked five of our senior high youth to help me out with
it – Emily Munday, Chris Aagaard,
Jeff Nash, Kayla Ballasone
and Chris Swanson.
My deepened relationship with
our youth and their families over the past two months has taught me a lot and
brought this story to life for me. I believe that the story is a story
about a teenager. As we will hear in the
story, the religious authorities go to the parents of the guy that was blind to
check out if his story is true. I don’t
think that they would have done that if this guy was 50 – but that they would
have done that if there was a sense that he was still accountable to his
parents.
This story is particularly
relevant to teenagers and their families – and others living through times of
lots of change (like all of us in our church as we go through this renovation
project!)
In the early church this story
was used in the season of Lent as a way for people to check out how their life
was going – and invites them to consider how their relationship with God is
going. The story asks us to consider
three questions:
What is something you are to
try?
What is something you are to
trust?
And what is something that you
are to tell?
The story assumes that each and
every one of us – no matter how old or not so old we are - has something to
try, trust and tell.
The story asks that each and
every one of us determine what that is for us today.
Let’s listen for the word of
God.
Walking down the street,
Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His
disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned:
this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”
Jesus said, “You’re asking
the wrong question. You’re looking for
someone to blame. There is no such cause
and effect here. Look instead for what
God can DO. We need to be energetically
at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is
plenty of light. I am the world’s
Light.”
Jesus said this and then
spit in the dust, made a clay paste, with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the
blind man’s eyes, and said, “Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam.” (Siloam means “Sent”). The man went and washed and saw.
We’ve been in this story many
times. Something is happening on the
street and a bunch of folks are sitting around analyzing the situation. In this case the disciples of Jesus are
scratching their heads, consulting their books, standing back and wondering
about this guy – who is he? And how did
he get to be this way?
We do it all the time – we hold
ourselves back from relating to each other.
It’s safer that way for sure. So
we drive by the guy with his sign – “Hungry, need food.” We leave our young people alone – for they “need their space”.
We keep ourselves cut off from relating to each other and sit back and
analyze each other instead.
But for the story to begin,
somebody has got to try to DO something.
We just can’t sit around and WONDER about each other – or CRITICIZE each
other. Jesus has no interest in the
“whys” of what’s up with this blind guy.
He just acts. He heals him.
“Just do
it” – Nike says. And that’s not a bad
way to put it. But – the lie in that
slogan is that you need a pair of $150 gym shoes to “DO” it! That’s crazy!
Instead, we need to just DO something – with whatever shoes we got – or
don’t got!
What are you called to DO
today?
Who are you just passing by and
ignoring, dismissing as a wino and kid, a jerk that you are called to DO
something with:
To roll down your window and
share your names, and share a dollar -
To ask, “How was your day?”,
and take time to really listen -
To say “Hi” as you pass on the
street.
If we want the story to start
up again in our lives – we need to quit standing around and ignoring each other
or driving by each other and risk getting involved. Risk doing something to relate to another
person.
“Soon the town was
buzzing. His relatives and those who
year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, “Why, isn’t this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?”
Others said, “It’s him all
right!”
But others objected, “It’s
not the same man at all. It just looks
like him.,”
He said, “It’s me, the very
one.”
They said, “How did your
eyes get opened?”
“A man named Jesus made a
paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ I did what he said, when I washed, I
saw.”
“So where is he?”
”I don’t know.”
They marched the man to the
Pharisees. This day when Jesus made the
paste and healed his blindness was the Sabbath.
The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see. He said, “He put a clay paste on my eyes, and
I washed, and now I see.”
Some of the Pharisees said,
“Obviously, this man can’t be from God.
He doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”
Others countered, “How can a
bad mad do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?” There was a split in their ranks.
They came back at the blind
man, “You’re the expert. He opened YOUR
eyes. What do you say about him?”
He said, “He is a prophet.”
If we try to DO something,
something will be different. We don’t
know how it will be different, what will be different – but something will be
different. And we hate that – or fear that
– most of the time. Being
different. We might talk a good game
about how we want to change – but do we really?
We keep on doing the things we do – even the destructive things for some
reason- for it gives us something we want and like.
It is hard to trust that God
might be alive in the changes going on in us.
And that is exactly what the story asks us to believe – that God is
alive and at work in the changes happening in us.
That’s a hard thing to
trust. To trust that God is there in the
work of change.
The neighbors can’t get it
through their heads that this is the same blind guy they always knew.
The Pharisees don’t think it
was possible this guy could have been changed.
We do this all the time – to
ourselves:
“I’m just like this. I can’t help myself. That’s just how I am.” And we right ourselves off from being able to
change.
“My parent’s just won’t
understand.” Maybe they won’t – but when
we leave it at that – we are assured that they won’t. What would happen if they did in fact
understand?
No, we are afraid of growing
and changing a lot – so we right off ourselves and others.
And yet without it there is no
room for growth.
As I have grown I have learned
that I am more complex than I thought.
The person I thought I was – who would never draw or dance or be a
minister – ends up doing the very things that I thought just weren’t “me”. But if I had left it at that and said “That’s
just not my thing” – I would have missed God’s invitation to do a new thing and
try something again. I would have missed
a tremendous gift.
And I have learned that believe
it or not – parents can change. Although
my parents were angry for years after I came out – and things were really hard
between us, today we have a great relationship.
If I hadn’t risked believing that they could change – I would have made
sure that they didn’t.
A college student put it to me
well, “I am a different person that the young girl I was 4 years ago. I have changed. And I want people to see that, know that. Not assume they know who I am.”
The man in the story believed
Jesus was a prophet – one who tells that things need to change – and puts their
TRUST in change to bring about a better way and world.
How are you being invited to
trust – and to change?
And who are you invited to see
in a different way and light?
The
religious authorities didn’t believe it, didn’t believe the man was born blind
to begin with. So they called the
parents of the man now bright-eyed with sight.
They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he now sees?”
His parents
said, “We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. But we don’t know how he came to see-haven’t
a clue about who opened his eyes. Why
don’t you ask him? He is of age and can
speak for himself.” (His parents were
talking like this because they were intimidated by the religious authorities,
who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah
would be kicked out of the meeting place.
That’s why his parents said, “Ask him.
He is of age.”)
They called
the man back a second time – the man who ahd been
blind- and told him, “Give credit to God.
We know this man is an imposter.
He replied,
“I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure. I was blind…and now see.”
They said,
“What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
“I’ve told
you over and over and you haven’t listened.
Why do you want to hear it again?
Are you so eager to become his disciples?!”
With that
they jumped all over him. “YOU might be
a disciple of that man, but we’re disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but
we have no idea where this man even comes from.”
The man
replied, “This is amazing! You claim to
know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my
eyes! It’s well known that God isn’t at
the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in
reverence and does God’s will. That
someone opened the yes of a man born blind has never been heard of – ever. If this man didn’t come from God, he wouldn’t
be able to do anything.”
They said,
“You’re nothing but dirt! How dare you
take that tone and with us! Then they
threw him out in the street.
We all have been taught to keep
things to ourselves. We have become all
too good at keeping our heads down, “putting up and shutting up.” We nod our
heads, grunt out a response. And its not because we are stupid- its because we know all too
well that telling the truth, speaking the truth can and often does get us in
trouble.
Sometimes we excuse ourselves -
wrapping our lack of telling the truth or asking for the truth in the virtue of
“privacy”. But privacy stops being a
virtue when we cloak our lives in it – it diminishes us as a community. So we don’t risk telling the truths of our
lives with one another – don’t speak of our alcoholism, our sexual abuse, our
depression - fearing how it would be received.
So we keep ourselves trapped.
And we keep ourselves,
protect ourselves, from hearing the truth.
As someone rightly noted, we don’t relate to our youth because we are
scared of them. We don’t want to hear
the truth of their lives for it will reveal far too much about our own lives
and anxieties and fears. Most of us are
in fact 14 year olds wrapped in adult bodies.
Just as insecure, Just as frightened.
Just as fearful of telling the truth.
I have had the great privilege
of having my life and work drawn more deeply into relating to youth. I have been asking them about what they watch
on TV and how they like to spend their times.
I’ve asked them if they have had experiences they would describe as
spiritual and what they pray for. At one
such meeting the other day, I asked a young woman how we as her church could
support her. “No one has ever asked me
that”, she said, “Your just asking me that question
makes all the difference.”
Because we fear hearing the
truth, we have blocked our youth off from adults more so than in any other
culture and time in history. But what
adults can our youth talk to when they can’t talk to their parents? What adults are asking kids how they are and
how they can be support besides their parents?
Most of our kids have no one.
Our youth are
needing to just talk and tell the truth of their lives. And we need to make the safe spaces for them
to listen. And hearing such truth will
and does change us.
“What do you want adults to
know about you, your friends, you life?”, I asked one
youth. “I want them to know that I
believe in God. I have as much faith as
you – although I express it differently.
Sitting still in church is hard for me.”
After talking to him, my view on faith was expanded and I began to see a
lot of different ways that we all live out our faith.
If we speak the truth of our
lives, we will often risk being kicked out – and we might well be.
But there is something worse
than that – holding back, letting lies fester in side of us – they grow and
build up – they are like diseases that spread
But truth is what can set us
free- clean us out, free us up. Circles
of trust in which we can share the truth of our lives can and do change our
lives.
What is the truth that you are
invited to tell?
Whose truth
are you invited to hear?
Jesus heard that they had
thrown him out, and went and found him.
He asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
The man said, “point him out
to me, sir, so that I can believe in him.”
Jesus said, “You’re looking
right at him. Don’t you recognize my
voice?”
“Master, I believe,” the man
said and worshiped him.
Jesus then said, “I came
into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the
distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who
have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.”
Some Pharisees overheard him
and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?”
Jesus said, “If you were
really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so
well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”
Why would I do any of this?
Risk getting involved and try
do something?
Risk trusting that God is there
and alive in the changes in my life?
Risk telling the truth?
I do those risky things again
and again not because I am bright or brave.
But I do them because of one thing only – my relationship to Jesus. And without that relationship I might do none
of them.
And such relationship is what
this story is finally all about and what it invites us to – to be the blind man
and risk having something happen to us – and changing and speaking truth.
To believe not in our heads but
in our bodies that Jesus Christ is the child of God.
That means to see in him how
God is.
And in looking at his life, I
get life.
The Gospel of John is a radical
gospel because you don’t have to wait until the end of the story to get the
prize – to in churchy language – to get whole, get saved.
No, according to John , we are not saved because Jesus died on the cross to
save us from our sins – but because the life of Jesus saves us. And as we draw our lives into closer
relationship to the life of Jesus, we too will be made whole.
That’s why John puts so much
emphasis on Jesus coming into the world.
Because Jesus’ life matters – and our relationship to his life.
And it is his life that shows
me how to try, trust, and tell it like it is.
I experience in him one who
didn’t stand back and analyze but one who did – just loved his neighbor and
enemy. Risked getting involved.
I experience in him one who
risked being changed. Trusting that God
could use him – and letting himself be changed as he grew in deeper
relationship to God.
And I experience in him one who
told the truth – even though it ran right against what those in power wanted to
hear.
So that we might be drawn into
deeper relationship to Jesus, we need to practice being a community that puts a
first and foremost commitment on relationship – being a place that asks – “How
are you?” and waits to hear and know. A
place where we are called by name. A
place where we can risk speaking the truth in love because we know that finally
the love we experience in Jesus’ life catches us all.
What are you called to try?
How are you called to trust?
What is the truth you are
invited to tell?
This is the life we are called
to live:
To try today to do something
that is healing.
To trust that God is alive and
at work in our lives.
And to believe that we, even
we, have something amazing that we are called to tell and share.
That is amazing good news.
Let us go forth to live and
proclaim the gospel.
Amen.