PASTOR’S SERMONS: "But Now I See" Sermon delivered by Rev. Fred Edmonds Benzonia Congregational Church March 2, 2008 Text: John 9: 1~38 I have never had a conversation with a person born blind. I've had conversations with people who became blind, or nearly blind, with macular degeneration... or cornea transplants that were not successful. I've had conversations with people who can no longer distinguish my ear from my nose, or my eye from my mouth... to whom I am but a shadowy blur in front of them. But I've never had a conversation with a person born blind. I wonder how that might feel... never to have seen anything at all... never to have seen a sunrise or a sunset, the beauty of a roses unfolding, the face of somebody you love. I wonder how that might feel. I was about eighteen years old when I was taken to the hospital. I was hitting fly balls out to a friend in a park near where I lived. He would catch them and throw them back to me... and they would usually come in on the second or third bounce. One of them went over my head. I stuck the bat high in the air hoping to stop it. It hit the bat but then ricocheted off the bat and struck me squarely in the right eye. My eye filled with blood and that's all that I could see. My friend took friend took me home and my mother took me to the hospital and they wrapped bandages around my head so that I could see nothing at all. The doctor said, "If you stay in this bed, do not get up for anything all, no matter what, chances are that in a week or so, your sight would be restored. “Chances are." You know, your mind can do all sorts of things with words like that. So for a week, I laid in that bed... and that week was like no other week I've ever had in my life. When you cannot see, you find other ways to interpret what is going on around you. The smells of that hospital room, I shall never forget. I voices of the nurses who fed me, I shall never forget. The whispered conversations in the evening as people would come to visit a friend or a loved one... on this 16 bed ward... some of those conversations I shall never forget. But all those memories pale in comparison to this one: the day the bandages came off and slowly I opened my eyes and the blood was gone... and next day, I walked out of that hospital... and the leaves were greener than I had ever known them to be before, and the sky, bluer, and the clouds, more whispy and ethereal than ever I had seen them. If I live to be a hundred, I shall never forget that day. But I knew also that that day was asking something from me. For it is not enough just to keep a day like in your memory. A day unlike any other day in your life, it is not enough just to forever remember it. That day was a gift to me, in so many different ways it was a gift... some ways in which I would even be embarrassed or ashamed to tell you about now. It was a gift to me... a gift begging for a response. Have you ever had a day like that... when suddenly some crisis appeared in your life that you never expected to have appear... and so you pray harder than you've ever prayed before, and you begin to think about the pattern and the fabric of your life, and whether that pattern and fabric is of the quality and texture that it ought to be and that God wants it to be... and the days move on, until one day, suddenly, you wake up and realize that the worst is over and you're still alive and still breathing, and still are there people out there who love you, and the seems not nearly as dark and dismal as it did before. Have you ever had a day like that... a day that was asking for a whole lot more than simply to be remembered... a day that was begging for a response from you? In front of us this morning we have a text about a man who was born blind. And in order for you to fully understand this text, there's something important you need to know. You need to know that when Jesus lived, it was a common belief in Judaism that if a person was born blind, somebody had sinned. Blindness was seen as a punishment from God for living an impure or immoral life. And thus the question that was put to Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parents~ that he was born blind?" W ell, it's hard to imagine that the man himself could have sinned before he was even born, and thus come out of the womb blind because of his sinfulness. That's difficult for us to comprehend in any sort of rational way. But it must have made some sort of sense to the Jewish community in which Jesus lived. But here's the other half of that question that was put to Jesus: "Is this man blind because of the misbehavior of his parents? Were the sins of the parents visited upon the children?" That question we can understand, not agree with necessarily, but at least understand within the context of Judaism. It is the answer Jesus gives to that question that I would like to lift up as a devotional thought for us today. This was his answer: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that the work of God might be revealed through him." And then Jesus cured the man, and he was no longer blind, he could see... and all the rest of the passage this morning, 30 or so verses, have to do with this man declaring again and again and again to people who would not believe that, yes, he was blind but now he sees. There are some days in your life unlike any other days you've ever had before. There are some days in your life that literally beg for you to respond. There are some days in your life that God is so kind to you that to keep silent about them would be nearly shameful. I was standing in our church kitchen one day about a week ago. I had some lunch in the refrigerator and I was taking it out and then getting myself a glass of water... when unexpectedly I heard a chorus of voices in the adjoining room, the library. I. stopped what I was doing and listened for a moment.. and then quickly realized that I understood the words that .were coming through that wall... words that I had heard many times before... the words of the Lord's Prayer. The people in that room, people addicted to alcohol, were ending their meeting with the Lord's Prayer. I stood there reverently and I wondered. I wondered whether the Lord's Prayer means anything different to a recovering alcoholic than it does to those of us who say it almost by rote here on Sunday morning. I wonder if a recovering alcoholic... or at least some recovering alcoholics... get up every morning and give thanks to God in a way that I do not get up every morning and give thanks to God. I wonder if , they remember the day they took their last drink... and see that as a day when God unclouded their vision and gave them sight. I don't know. I wonder. But this I do know. There are days in your life unlike any other days. There are days in your life when God is so kind to you that to keep silent about them would be almost shameful. I don't know if this is true for all recovering alcoholics, probably not but those I have known through the years of my ministry are not just interested in staying sober themselves... they are vitally concerned about the well-being of their brothers and sisters. You call them in a moment of weakness and they will come... and if they cannot come, they will see to it that somebody does come. Why? Because a life-changing gift has been given them... and it's a gift that demands a response. The blind man had no reservations at all in saying to people, "Yes, I was blind, but now I see." He had no reservations at all in saying, "Look, you believe what you want to believe, but I know what I know... it was the grace of God through Jesus Christ that healed me and made me whole." My friends, what has God done for you? Is there a one of us here this morning who cannot recall some day in our life unlike any other day... when God was so kind to us that all the rest of our days could be lived in prayerful and praiseful response to that one single day? I heard a sermon one time entitled: "Lives that Point Beyond Themselves." Well, I would imagine, ever thereafter, that blind man's life pointed beyond itself. Does your life point beyond itself? Are you a living, breathing declaration of gratitude to God for the goodness that God has shown to you? Sometimes I am blind to that goodness that God has shown to me. Sometimes, rather than counting my blessings, I count the very things that do not do me any good at all to count. Jesus left us a way to intimately remember him... through the bread and the cup. Seldom in my life have I failed to receive grace at this table. May the grace we receive this morning uncloud our vision and help us look back and remember all the days and all the ways that God has been so good to us. Amen. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Would Jesus Be Ready?" Palm Sunday, 2008 Rev. Fred D. Edmonds Text: Matthew 21: 1- 11: Matthew 27: 11-50 If the telephone rang at three in the morning, would Jesus be ready? If the telephone rang at three in the morning, would he have the experience to be Commander in Chief? Would he have wisdom to know when to send troops into battle... would he pursue Al-Quadi, wherever they wander, wherever they roam... would he not be timid about using power if the interests of America were threatened anywhere in the world? Would Jesus be ready if the phone rang at three o'clock in the morning? I don't know the answer to that question. My first inclination would be say... "No. There's no way in the world he'd be ready. The man knows nothing about Islamic fundamentalism. He knows nothing about sophisticated intelligence gathering. He knows nothing about weapons so powerful that houses and buildings and the very earth itself would crumble if ever these weapons were used. He knows nothing about any of that." My first inclination would be to say, "Were the phone to ring .at three in the morning, I would not want Jesus at the White House picking up the receiver." But sometimes I wonder about my first inclination. Sometimes I wonder about this uneasy truce I have made between the principles of Jesus and the ways of the world in which I live. What does it take to be Commander in Chief? It takes knowing when to do battle and when not to do battle. It takes a broad knowledge of global and international affairs. It takes shoulders broad enough to accept responsibility for the deaths of women and men and children... and even for those who lie in hospitals for months and years after a conflict is over. Would Jesus be ready? Could he step into those shoes and fill them responsibly and fill them well? I don't think so. If that's what it takes to be a Commander in Chief, I fear Jesus would be a colossal failure. Doesn't matter that he could answer any question that Tim Russert might ever put to him: "How do you pronounce the name of the new president of Russia?"... Jesus would know it without even blinking an eye. But Commander in Chief... that's something else altogether. Jesus... at his fingertips the most powerful military arsenal the world has ever seen... and all of us depending on him to know when to say "yes" and when to say "no"... that's a different matter altogether. I hate to admit it but truth is truth. I would not want Jesus in the White House answering the phone at three in the morning. Would you? Oh... somewhat embarrassed we would be to scratch his name off the list. Somewhat ashamed too, I suppose, because after all, here we are this morning gathered in his name. But given the choices: John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Jesus Christ... I truly don't know how many people would vote for him. No matter if he had a doctorate from Harvard specializing in International Affairs. No matter if he had years and years with the State Department under his belt. No matter if he understood better than anybody else conditions necessary for an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Still, I don't know many people who would want answering the phone at three o'clock in the morning. But sometimes I wonder about the choices I make... and the assumptions that lie behind those choices. Sometimes I wonder... could the power of love, if given a chance, unite our world in a way that weapons of destruction have never been able to do? Call it idealistic if you will, but sometimes I wonder: could the principle of loving your enemies and trying to understand them before moving so quickly to hating them and calling them evil... could that unite our world in a way that weapons of destruction have never been able to do? I wonder. In front of us this morning, we have that pictures a man riding a donkey into Jerusalem. Many people had pinned their hopes on that man. And their hopes were not a whole lot different than our hopes. They needed a strong and reliable Commander in Chief. They needed somebody who could organize an insurgency. They needed somebody who could build up military power. Their problem, at the moment, was: they had no power. The Romans had all the power. They paid taxes to Rome. They were governed by Rome. Everywhere you looked, there were Roman soldiers to suppress any insurgency, might it arise. But you know how it is... once you've tasted freedom, you never get that taste out of your mouth. You'd do most anything to get it back again. So it was in Jerusalem. And so it was that people pinned their hopes on this man, Jesus Christ. They waved palm branches shouting, "Hosanna, Hosanna." They put coats and blankets and robes down in front of him as he rode by. Here's the one, they believed, who could break the tyranny of Rome and make them a free people again. Now, how this crowd could possibly have envisioned Jesus as a budding Commander in Chief, I do not know. For he never spoke of killing people except to say, "Thou shalt not..." He never spoke of fighting except to say, "Do not do unto others what you would not want them to do unto you." He never spoke of taking up the sword except to say, "If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also." So how this crowd could possible have envisioned him as an up and coming Commander in Chief, I do not know. But this I do know: sometimes we pin on the shoulders of other people visions of reality that are not their visions at all... they're visions that originate in our own hearts... and if, by chance, these people give substance to our vision of reality, then we are overjoyed... but if they do not, we cast them aside very quickly, sometimes crucify them, and move on to somebody else. On Palm Sunday, we have conflicting visions of reality. We have the vision of the people who lined the street... and we have the vision of the man who rode the donkey. And power was at the center of both of those visions. But the crowd understood power in an entirely different way than Jesus understood power. I saw something on television last week that moved me deeply. I don't know if you saw it but it was the apology of the Governor of New York, Elliott Spitzer, to the press who stood in front of him: "Over the course of my public life," he said, "I have insisted that people, regardless of their power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning the office of Governor." A man who wielded incredible power... who used that power often in positive and wholesome ways... and sometimes in selfish and arrogant ways. But, nonetheless, a man of status and prestige and power. But as I stared at that television set, listening to his words, I could not take my eyes off the face of his wife standing next to him. There was more power in that expression of suffering love than there was in all the words that Elliott Spitzer spoke that day. The power of force is the kind of power that our world understands and respects. Billions of dollars sustain that sort of power all over the world. It's the sort of power that people were hoping Jesus would take hold of on that day years ago. But Jesus wanted no part of that sort of power. He knew that the power of force always leaves lingering bitterness and hatred. A different sort of love he wanted to share with the world... a kind of love that had nothing to do swords or weapons or destruction of any kind. He wanted to be faithful to the life God was calling him to live... to the person God was calling him to be. Martin Luther King, in a sermon shortly before he died, talked about the kind of suffering that comes with civil disobedience... the kind of suffering that accompanies non-violence as a way of life... and he said some words that I have always remembered: "Unearned suffering is redemptive." "Unearned suffering is redemptive." Many Commanders in Chief has this world long since forgotten. Many battles bravely fought has this world long since forgotten. Many new and astounding weapons has this world long since forgotten. But never has the ride from Jerusalem to Calvary been forgotten. Never has the man who said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" been forgotten. Never has the love that challenges all our understandings of power been forgotten. Our lives may not always reflect what it means to love that way... and how it might be to live that way... but the truth is, we know he's right: that there's more power in suffering love than there is in all the air forces and armies and navies of the world combined. Maybe someday we'll even be ready to take the risk... to let someone of his stature and spirit answer the phone at three o'clock in the morning.