Beyond the Beginning Jeremiah 31:1-6, Matthew 27:57-28:15

For everything there is a season, says the preacher in Ecclesiastes,
and a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die. (Eccl.3:1-2).
In other words, we all know there is a beginning to things and an end to things

We expect beginnings: the birth of a baby, our first real job.
And we expect endings: the last page of a good book, our final breath.
Beginnings usually make us happy.
Endings we sometimes deny
like when we put off writing a will,
or bitterly resist giving up a driver’s license.
Yet, on some level we know,
there is a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to begin and a time to end.

There was nothing to suggest that Jesus’ life was going to be any different.
If Jesus’ beginning was special, as Matthew suggests,
his ending must have been a huge disappointment to those who knew him.
To be Jesus’ disciple in those final days of his life
must have been like trying to steer a car that’s hit a long patch of ice.
In moments like that things move in slow motion
and nothing you do or say or even scream makes one bit of difference.
All you can do is watch in horror as things spin out of control
and you head straight toward a giant tree – or, in Jesus’ case – a giant cross.

It didn’t help that Jesus kept hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes
as he hurtled toward the cross.
Every word he said, every action he took
seemed calculated to provoke those who wanted to do him harm.
Can we really blame the disciples for opening the doors at the last minute
and bailing out before the big collision?
Just because Jesus seemed determined to speed up HIS end,
didn’t mean they should, too.

Maybe they DID feel bad about the way they just abandoned Jesus in his last days.
Matthew tells us that Peter wept bitterly after the third time he denied knowing Jesus.
But, the scene Matthew paints for us of events following the crucifixion
doesn’t include a single one of the regular cast of Jesus’ most intimate confidants;
Not Peter, not James, not John – none of them.

It’s Joseph of Arimathea, in a cameo performance, who offers a final resting place –
a substantial tomb with an extra heavy stone
with which to keep OUT jackals and grave robbers and keep IN the smell.
And it’s Mary Magdalene and another Mary,
two women who were of no consequence in first century Jerusalem;
who kept vigil as Jesus was laid to rest.

There is a time to be born and a time to die.
All things have both a beginning and an ending.
It’s what we expect.
It’s how we order our lives.
Everything we do – eat, sleep, love, fight –
everything we do, we do with the end in mind,
in most cases, trying our best to keep our end as far as we can in the future.

Knowing what we know about death, about the end,
it’s easy to let ourselves obsess about it;
easy to let our dread of the end contaminate every other decision we make.
We store up treasures and, when we run out of storage space,
we build bigger barns because we’re scared we won’t have enough.
If others don’t have enough, well, that’s just too bad.
They’re not getting any of mine!
The assumption, of course, is that the more I have socked away,
the longer I can put off coming to my end.
It’s a faulty assumption, of course, but I still can convince myself it’s true.

We build bigger armies, finance more sophisticated weapons,
give up our expectations of privacy just so we can feel more secure.
I reinforce my stereotypes of those I perceive to be my enemies
so I can more easily identify those who might be a threat to me,
again, assuming that perfect security is a goal I can achieve
and, if I achieve it, my fantasy is that my end can be put off indefinitely.

All indications are that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary
went to the sealed tomb expecting all they knew about beginnings and endings
to be confirmed.
They knew, like we all know, that there is a time to be born and a time to die
and that the fear of death can sometimes make us
a little bit greedy and cowardly and mean
There was no reason at all for them to expect anything other than
to find a guard of bored, leering soldiers on cemetery duty
keeping watch over a sealed, occupied tomb.

But, as Matthew, puts it, “A new day was dawning”
as the two Mary’s went to pay an early visit to Jesus’ tomb.
Tom Long, in his commentary on Matthew writes,
“Somewhere along the path to the cemetery…they left one world and entered another.
Without even knowing that they had crossed the border, they left the old world,
where hope is in constant danger, and might makes right,
and peace has little chance, and the rich get richer,
and the weak all eventually suffer under some Pontius Pilate or another,
and people hatch murderous plots and dead people stay dead,
and they entered the startling and breathtaking world of resurrection and life.1

Everything these two women thought they knew about beginnings and endings
was rendered obsolete that Sunday morning.
They knew, they absolutely KNEW, that the stone sealing the mouth of Jesus’ tomb
would still be in place, because once in place, huge stones don’t move.
They KNEW without a shadow of doubt,
that the Roman guard would be menacing and strong.
Occupying soldiers NEVER show mercy to the occupied.
They KNEW without question that the “behind the scenes” manipulations
of the Jewish elite signaled the end of Jesus’ grand experiment in Truth and Grace.
There’s no getting past the roadblock of powerful men.

But a close reading of Matthew’s gospel tips us off to what the women will find
even if we’d never read about the empty tomb before.
A close reading of Matthew’s gospel leads us to suspect
that the power equation we all think we understand is about to be turned on its head
and what we KNOW to be the end of Jesus is not the end at all.

Way back in chapter one, Matthew has already told us
that when it comes to starts and finishes, beginnings and endings,
Jesus breaks the mold.
Remember? Mary is found to be pregnant.
It should have been the end of her relationship to Joseph,
who was, after all, a righteous man.
But an angel appears to Joseph (there’s that angel)
and rolls away the stone of Jewish law and cultural prohibition
and clears the way for Jesus’ birth.

The Wise Men come to pay homage to Jesus, stopping in Jerusalem first
to pay a courtesy call to King Herod.
Troubled by this potential threat to his power, Herod representing Rome,
consults with – oh look! – the scribes and chief priests - the Jewish elite,
and Herod tries through deceit and finally violence to squash the threat.
But Jesus and his family escape to Egypt
until Herod’s death signals that it’s safe to return home.

When it comes to beginnings and endings, Matthew has already shown us
that, with Jesus, all bets are off.
With Jesus we have to recalibrate what we think we know.

The women come to the tomb and, always one to put on a show,
God gives a drum roll in the form of an earthquake.2
Lightning flashes, the stone rolls away, and an angel appears, sits on the stone,
and crosses its arms as if to say, “What do you think of THAT!”
The angel says to them, “Come, look inside if you must just to satisfy your need to know
but don’t waste your time here.
Don’t waste your time HERE. There’s nothing to see HERE.

This place that you thought was the end is nothing.
Go quickly and tell his disciples that he will meet them in Galilee.
Go quickly and tell his disciples that he’ll meet them back at the beginning,
not so they can do it all over and hope to get it right this time,
because it was done right the FIRST time.
But tell them to go to Galilee because everything they thought was the end
is really a new beginning.
Everything they thought was the curtain coming down on all their hopes
is nothing more and nothing less than the curtain coming up
on the first act of a new life WITHOUT FEAR!”

The women ran – quickly like the angel said.
The women ran from the tomb laughing and sobbing, dancing and stumbling.
They ran from the EMPTY tomb to tell the disciples what had happened
and along the way they bumped into Jesus
and what could they do but fall at his feet and worship?
When the door has been opened to you
and the way has been cleared for you to step through into a new reality
where political power and military power and even death itself
have been revealed as nothing but paper tigers and candy clowns
what can you do but fall at his feet and worship?

“Do not be afraid,” Jesus tells them. That, and “Go tell my brothers to meet me.”
This is most important.
The disciples – the eleven who were left after Judas –
had abandoned Jesus in his time of need.
They had scattered in fear,
scattered because they bought into the lie that Rome and the Jewish elite
had power over beginnings and endings.
When the chips were down they had believed what their experience
had told them to believe and not what Jesus had told them to believe.
But with the resurrection that first Easter morning,
Their betrayal was put under a spotlight;
their fear and unbelief hung out for all to see.

Yet Jesus had a message for them.
He has a message for us.
“Fear is a powerful thing. Intimidation is scary.
By all accounts, death looms large like a huge stone
ready to drop on our heads at any moment.
You have given into the fear sometimes.
You have made unfaithful choices as a result of your fear –
choices that look greedy and mean and cowardly.”

“But let’s not dwell on that,” Jesus says,
“Let’s not allow those past choices be the stone that keeps you in the tomb.
Let’s begin again, you and I, not as teacher/student, not as Lord/subject,
but as brothers, as sisters.
Let’s go beyond the beginning, you and I,
into a life where the stone is rolled away,
and fear does not determine our every move
and Easter faith is our guide.

_________
1 Long, Tom, Matthew, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997, p. 322.
2 Ibid.

Celtic Knot ("The Blessed Knot")

The Blessed Knot Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Matthew 21:1-11

As the story goes, the kingdom of Phyrigia in what is now Turkey
was languishing without a king.
The citizens went to the oracle of the great father-god Sabazios for help
and were told by the oracle to crown as their king
the next man to drive an ox-cart through the city gate.
It just so happened that a Phrygian farmer named Gordius,
on his way into town for haircut and a good meal,
drove his oxcart into through the gate just as the oracle finished speaking.
Anxious to get the Phrygian economy back on track,
the Chamber of Commerce seized the opportunity,
planned an immediate coronation,
and Gordius, a simple farmer, ascended the Phrygian throne.

As a silent witness to his good fortune,
Gordius took that old oxcart for which he no longer had any need,
and tied it to a pole in the temple courtyard with a rope made of bark
using a very complex knot, known thereafter as the Gordian Knot.
A legend grew up around this tangled mass of rope
saying that anyone who wanted to conquer Asia must first untie the knot.

Though many tried, no one was able to untie the knot
until one day in 333 BC, the young Greek general Alexander came to Phrygia.
Alexander had an army and a powerful desire to make a name for himself,
so he was taken straightaway to the famous Gordian knot by some of the locals
no doubt eager to watch the cocky young general get humbled.
Legend has it that Alexander had but glanced at the famous knot,
when he pulled out his sword
and with a swift downward chop sliced the knot in two
effectively releasing the oxcart from Its pole.

Alexander the Great and his army did, indeed, go on to conquer Asia
bringing Greek culture and language even into the heart of Judea,
even into the ancient city of Jerusalem into which Jesus rode that day.
Alexander’s mighty sword was sufficient to achieve the result he was after
and he wasn’t about to let anyone’s knot bog him down or get in his way
no matter how complex it might be.

I imagine Jesus’ disciples anticipated nothing very complex
when they came to outskirts of Bethphage, a little village just outside of Jerusalem,
at the end of a long day of walking.
By Matthew’s account, they had started in Jericho that morning
and walked about 15 miles through the day climbing about 3400 feet in elevation.
At Bethphage, Jerusalem was in sight and they could already taste
the warm bread and falafel waiting for them.

Certainly the disciples must have been a bit tense
about being with Jesus so close to the center of Jewish and Roman power
when for months Jesus had done all he could, it seems,
to antagonize the authorities in the region.
And since it was the week before Passover and Jerusalem was swollen with pilgrims
they were probably anticipating an even larger crowd on this last leg of the journey
than they’d already seen.
But they were used to walking, the crowd was in a festive mood,
and it wouldn’t take them twenty minutes to travel the distance on foot.
But then Jesus put a kink in things.
“Go into the village,” he said, “And you will find a donkey and her colt tied up there.
Untie them and bring them to me.
If anyone objects just tell them the Lord needs them.”
Huh? They’d come all this way on foot and now suddenly Jesus wanted to ride?

The symbolism of what Jesus asked was lost on no one,
not the disciples and not the religiously minded crowd making their way to the city.
Though in his enthusiasm, Matthew makes it sound like Jesus straddled both animals
for his ride into town,
No one could have missed the connotation of Jesus’ performance art.
He was a well known rabbi, some said a prophet,
some said the Messiah they’d all been waiting for.
In a very deliberate and conscious way,
with the simple gesture of mounting a donkey for his ride into town,
Jesus became for them a living embodiment of an ancient prophetic hope.
He tapped into a reservoir of longing
that welled up in the heart of every old man who felt cut off from his memories;
and every mother’s child who felt crushed under an oppressor’s thumb.

Maybe it began as a lark, like fans in a football stadium doing the “wave.”
Somebody started the undulating motion
and others joined in just for fun,
a crowd acting as crowds do, responding to contagious emotions
and going along just to feel a part of something bigger than themselves.
“Hosanna!” someone shouted.
“Hosanna!” someone else joined in.
“Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna, hosanna.”
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed,” someone continued.
“Blessed,” someone else called out.
“Blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed!”
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

You know, fun as it was, I wonder if it made the disciples nervous
this impromptu parade?
I wonder if it got a little out of hand?
Sure, it started in fun - started with a kind of holiday festivity,
but I wonder if it then got serious,
if someone got a little overwrought,
if a woman with a child tried to push the baby into Jesus’ arms
or a man with a crutch might have lost his balance,
as enthusiasm turned to jostling and jostling to desperation.
“Save us!” they were crying. That’s what “hosanna” means.
“Save us!” “Save us!” “Save us!”

And remember, as they make their way down from Bethphage,
they were coming downhill on a winding path from the Mount of Olives,
across the Kidron valley,
and then back up a fairly steep slope and into the city through the Golden Gate.
All this – Jesus on the donkey, the crowds shouting “Save us!” palms being waved –
all this was taking place in plain view of the Antonia Fortress,
the headquarters of the Roman garrison rising up over the city wall;
the place where Governor Pontius Pilate stayed when he was in town.
What were the Roman guards thinking as they watched this spectacle?
What if Pilate was out on his terrace reading the paper when all this commotion erupted?
In less than an hour, what was going to be a simple afternoon stroll into the city
got very complicated.
What could have been just a few Passover pilgrims
traveling anonymously into Jerusalem with hundreds of other Passover pilgrims
had suddenly become, in Jesus’ hands, a political and religious stink bomb
tossed into the living rooms of the Roman and Jewish elite.
His was an intentional act of provocation and he achieved his desired result.
By the time Jesus and his followers entered the city gate
Matthew says “the whole city was in turmoil asking, ‘Who is this?’”

Down through the years the church has called this event the “Triumphal Entry”
and the week that follows “Holy Week.”
The more familiar we have become with the story the less complicated it seems
but if we could look at it with fresh eyes,
or, better yet, if we had been in that original Passover crowd
or among that small band of disciples
think how confusing it would have been.
During this last week of his life Jesus managed to tie up everyone around him in a knot of Gordian proportions.

First of all, Jesus deliberately adopts the pose of the messianic king
riding into town on a donkey.
The crowd plays along waving palm branches and shouting “Save us!”
Immediately upon entering the city,
Jesus goes to the tables where moneychangers are and flips them over
blasting the temple rulers for making his Father’s house a den of thieves
After healing some folk, he then LEAVES the city, presumably the same way he came in,
and walks two miles to Bethany where he spends the night.
Then It goes from bad to worse.
Through the ensuing week Jesus returns to Jerusalem each day.
He teaches in confusing parables,
debates the temple elite,
curses a fig tree and foretells the destruction of the temple.
He reduces the six hundred thirteen commandments of the Jewish law to just two
ignores the growing tension and threats against him
eats a meal with his disciples where he refers to their food as his body and blood.
He doesn’t resist when they come to arrest him,
doesn’t make a defense for himself when Pilate questions him
doesn’t spit back at the Roman soldiers who spit on him
and finally, allows himself to be crucified with forgiveness on his lips.

Unlike Alexander the Great, Jesus does not seem to see complexity as a road block.
In fact, he seems to revel in it.
With the exception of that table flipping incident,
Jesus does not find his strength in impetuous actions and aggressive shows of force.
Instead, he is most often seen practicing patience and forbearance.
Jesus does not seem at all intimidated by the knottiness of life,
rather, he seems to welcome it, embrace it.

We’ve been studying Celtic Christianity in Sunday school during Lent
and characteristic of Celtic faith are the intricate designs called “knots.”
You have an example of such a knot on your bulletin.
The original meaning of the Celtic knot is lost to history, but scholars are confident
that whatever else it may represent, it at least symbolizes the eternal nature of life,
the interconnectedness of all things, and the complexity of the spiritual path.
The Celtic knot reminds us that, If nothing else, the lesson of Holy Week is that
• our faith, though simple in it’s focus on God’s love as it is shown through Jesus,
has a way of making our lives more complicated as we put it into practice.
• the path to God is not something we can forecast or plan,
but has a way of presenting itself to us at the last moment
as we step forward in faith.

• and the twists and turns of our life are not reasons to panic,
but, if followed in faith, have a way of creating, in the end, a beautiful design.

As we enter this holy week may our prayer be
that God will help us see the potential blessings that come with
the knots in our lives; blessings that become opportunities for growth in patience and in faith.
And may we find the confidence to believe that though being a disciple is sometimes hard
God is true to God’s promise and will incorporate even our most exhausting struggles and our deepest doubts
into a breathtaking tapestry that will, one day, be revealed.

Come Die With Me Ezek. 37:1-6, John 11:1-45

Even if you and the Bible are barely on speaking terms,
you probably know that the gospel of John is different from the other three gospels.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the “synoptic” gospels
from the Greek word meaning “to look alike.”
John, however, takes a somewhat different tack
when telling the story of Jesus’ life and ministry.
He seems to have a different purpose in mind for telling Jesus’ story.
Among the unique features of John’s gospel are what are called “sign” stories.
These are miracle stories – turning water into wine,
healing the man born blind,
and raising Lazarus from the tomb, to name a few.

These “sign” stories are different from miracles Jesus performed in the other gospels
because they follow a certain formula.1
For one thing, in a “sign” story, Jesus always acts according to his own timing
with his own purpose in mind
and does not react to external pressures on him to do something.
For example, in the story of Lazarus, messengers came from Mary and Martha,
to find Jesus doing a little wilderness camping
out by the Jordan River where he was baptized.

When the messengers arrived, panicky and breathless,
they probably threw water on the campfire and started taking down Jesus’ tent
in an effort to be helpful and to expedite his swift departure for Bethany
where his good friend, Lazarus, lay critically ill.
They must have been puzzled, indeed,
when Jesus just sat there by the rock like he had all the time in the world
dreamily casting out his line into the river and reeling it back in again.
What would they tell Mary and Martha?
What would Mary and Martha think when it took three more days
for Jesus make a one day journey?
Jesus has his own purpose in mind; his own timing.

Another characteristic of a “sign” story is that its primary purpose is revelation.
The miracle in the story is not an end in itself.
In a “sign” story, the miracle always has something more to say
about the meaning of God’s glory and God’s presence in the world through Jesus.
For example, calling Lazarus out of the tomb after he’d been there four days
is not just an happy tale about one man getting some extra time tacked onto his life
to spend with his friends and family.
It’s more than that, much more.

It is, instead, a story that draws us into a discussion about the nature of death and life.
It invites us to consider that, when seen in the light of God’s power
demonstrated by Jesus, the Roaring Lion of Death is exposed for what it really is;
a toothless old bag of bones,
But the story of Lazarus also reveals the paradox of God’s eternity;
that only through dying can we live.

The air around Jesus had been humming with death ever since he and his disciples
had arrived in Jerusalem that winter to celebrate Hannukah.
Hannukah, also called the Feast of Dedication, was a politically charged festival anyway
and there was much excited talk among the locals
about Jesus possibly being the Messiah; the one who would free them from Rome.
No doubt sick of the disruption Jesus was causing
and probably a little jealous of all the attention Jesus was getting;
the Pharisees brought matters to a head.
They challenged Jesus right there under the temple portico to put up or shut up.
When Jesus responded to them by speaking of “his sheep who hear his voice”
and how he was going to give his sheep “eternal life,”
the Pharisees couldn’t stand it anymore.
They picked up rocks and were going to stone Jesus for blasphemy,
but somehow Jesus was able to escape the city and go out to the Jordan river.

It’s no wonder then, that having spent time in the relative safety of the wilderness,
Jesus’ disciples were in no hurry to go to Bethany,
just a stone’s throw from Jerusalem,
even though they knew how much Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters.
You can feel the internal struggle and the temporary relief
when first Jesus says that Lazarus is “asleep.”
“Oh, well, then, if he’s only asleep he’ll be fine, no need for US to go.”
But then when Jesus says, “No, you ninnies, what I mean is, he’s dead,”
they reluctantly come around to what they have to do.
Thomas says aloud what the rest understand,
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

In the safety of our Rockfish valley we experience very little in the way of external threat;
nothing compared to larger cities like Richmond or Washington, D.C.
where violent crime seems quite frequent.
We hear on the news of horrible bomb blasts in Iraq
and Palestinians in Gaza and students in Jerusalem being killed for a cause,
but it’s all so distant.

Death does certainly intrude into our quiet valley scene –
the occasional automobile accident,
or a dire diagnosis that hits a little too close to home,
but still, it’s fairly easy here to pretend everything’s OK,
to hope that, in our little corner of the woods,
death is but a rare and unusual event.

If Jesus was here among us right now, I think he might say,
“No, you ninnies! Death is NOT a rare and unusual event!
Death comes to us all.
You will not only fall asleep. You will die.
One day the breath will leave your body and your heart will come to rest.
Your brain will fire its last electrical impulse and your blood will cease to flow.
Friends and family will mourn your passing,
tears will be shed over your demise.
and you will be dead.

But in the same breath, Jesus would also say, “Death is real, but only temporary.”
For those who believe in the power of God, death is but a doorway;
a transition from life on this earth to life with God.
In John’s gospel, eternal life is not only a future hope,
it is also a present reality.
That’s the sentiment behind Jesus’ words, “I am the resurrection and the life,
those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
and every one who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Martha gets the gold star for her declaration of faith that Jesus is the Messiah,
so why then is Jesus so disturbed?

Kenneth Bailey, a biblical scholar who lived many years in the Middle East
and has a knack for knowing the cultural nuances of Jesus’ day
points out that, though our Bible says “Jesus was disturbed”
the original Greek says “Jesus was angry.”2

What was he angry about?
Sentimentalists say he was angry at the unfairness of death,
at the pain it caused Mary and Martha.
He wept with them and the crowd out of compassion.
Kenneth Bailey believes something different.
He believes that Jesus was angry to the point of tears
because for three years he had been teaching Mary and Martha and the others
about the power of God; that death is not the end.
He was frustrated beyond imagining that they were weeping and carrying on so
over Lazarus’ death as though they were ones who had no hope.

We see the residue of Jesus’ frustration in the way he barks orders.
“Roll the stone away,” He says.
“Lazarus, come out!,” He says.
Some wonder that Lazarus didn’t come out kicking and screaming,
four days gone to paradise only to get hooked and pulled back into this world.
He came out doing a bad Boris Karloff impersonation in The Mummy,
all wrapped up and tied together
until Jesus gave one more order, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It seems so spectacular, this miraculous revival of Lazarus’ physical body,
so utterly remarkable and outrageously beautiful
until you stop to think about what Lazarus had in store now.


For one thing, Jesus called Lazarus back to the land of the living
only to face the prospect of experiencing death all over again.
Even for the most faithful among us, those of us who don’t fear death,
it’s the thought of the dying process that makes us go pale.
Who wants to do that twice?

For another thing,
by being called forth from the tomb by him,
Lazarus was linked with Jesus from then on.
Just a few short passages later in John we find the Pharisees plotting Lazarus death
because he is a living testament to the Jesus’ power
and the reason more and more people are believing in Jesus.

Remember, the story of Jesus calling forth Lazarus from the tomb is a “sign” story.
It’s not about giving Lazarus a few more weeks, months or years.
It is meant to give John’s readers – meant to give us
a new and better understanding of God’s plan for our death and life.
Frederick Niedner, professor of biblical studies at Valparaiso University
puts it this way.3
“To the rest of us, Jesus’ summons at the tomb where each of us will one day lie
sounds something like this:
‘Come out of there friend. Come with me. We’re going up to Jerusalem.
So much for ordinary dying from disease, accidents or plain wearing out.
So much for living the sole agenda of not dying and desperately extending our days.
Let’s go to where we can give our lives away. Come die with me’.”
Niedner continues by saying, “This command comes…not merely in some final moment
in a grassy graveyard, but every day of our lives.”
Every day, though worn down and worn out, we are called to die in the waters of baptism;
we are called to die with Christ in order that we may live.

_____
1 Craddock, Fred. “A Twofold Death and Resurrection (John 11::25-26),” Christian
Century, March 21-28, 1999, p. 299.
2 Bailey, Kenneth, “The Confession of Martha and Jesus’ Anger,” The Presbyterian
Outlook, February 12, 2008,
3 Niedner, Frederick, “Reflections on the Lectionary,” Christian Century, February 26
2008, p. 21.

Would You Look At That! John 9:1-41

On pretty days – days that weren’t too windy or wet,
Amy liked to walk to her son Mark’s school, meet him by the front steps
and then, together, walk back home – sometimes stopping for cocoa and coffee
at the corner coffee shop.
It was at the corner they first saw the woman with the alarming tics.
She had a large hand bag under her arm and she carried an umbrella
though it had been sunny all day.
As they started past her toward the coffee shop door,
the woman’s head jerked violently to the right, her left arm flew up like a chicken’s wing
and she uttered a high pitched squeal followed by a sharp cough
followed by a low growl.

Six year old Mark stopped in stunned surprise and just stared at the woman.
Amy tugged him toward the coffee shop door.
“What’s WRONG with that lady, Mommy?” Mark asked.
“Shhhh!” Amy hissed, wishing that, for once, Mark didn’t have to say aloud
every single thought that popped into his little head.

Children sometimes lack the ability to censor what they say in delicate situations,
but we expect better from adults.
Certainly it seems we should be able to expect better from Jesus’ disciples.
Yet, in John’s story of Jesus healing a man born blind
the disciples act like they have no tact at all.

Here they come, walking down the street,
corn dog in one hand, giant Slurpee in the other.
Peter stops in front of a man sitting on the bench at the Jerusalem Post Office.
The man just sits on the bench, eyes directed straight ahead.
Peter waves his hand in front of the man’s eyes – no reaction.
He swallows a bite of his corn dog,
and, assuming, I suppose, that because the man is blind
he must be deaf, too, he says in a loud voice,
“Hey Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

How rude!
“Who sinned, this man or his parents?”
Can you believe he said that?
John doesn’t say it was Peter, but it sounds like something Peter would say.
The man had no governor on his tongue.
You and I, of course, are much more polite, much more careful about what we say –
not wanting to offend, not wanting to create a scene.
We do have manners, after all. Right?
We would never SAY such a thing…
But we WOULD think it.

Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
In other words, whose fault is it?
It MUST be SOMEBODY’S fault!
Who can we blame for things not being as they should be,
for things not going as they should go?
We’ve got to blame SOMEBODY, because the alternative is just too scary.
If there’s NOBODY to blame then the world becomes too unpredictable.
If we can’t figure out what CAUSES it, how can we PREVENT it?

When a child is born with a disability you can bet there’s a whole lotta blaming goin’ on!
One of the reasons there’s a divorce rate of around 80%
for couples who have a disabled child
is because one way to make sense of such a difficult thing
is to find someone to blame, and the closest person to blame is the spouse.
Of course, the blame of a spouse isn’t nearly as bad
as the blame you heap on yourself – fathers do it, but especially mothers.
If a child doesn’t develop “normally” you can bet that child’s mother
spends every conscious, and probably every unconscious, moment
examining in minute detail every hour, every MINUTE she carried that child
for something she did wrong, somewhere she failed.

Who sinned, this man or his parents…?
Whose FAULT is it?
That’s the human condition in a nutshell.
It goes all the way back to Adam, sniveling under God’s stern reproach.
“Have you eaten of the tree from which I told you not to eat?” God asks.
“It was that woman,” Adam accuses, “That woman YOU gave me!
“SHE made me do it!”

We can’t be too hard on Peter, or whichever disciple it was
who posed to Jesus the question of blame regarding the man’s blindness.
He was just the one who asked out loud what was on everyone’s mind.
The Pharisees, especially, were champion fault finders.
They were professionals in the blame game.
They were the ones others went to.
They were highly skilled at weighing sin
and deciding which sins deserved greater punishment.

The Pharisees had probably tossed a coin or two in the blind beggar’s cup,
made a show of helping him step down off the curb.
Though they wouldn’t ADMIT it, his blindness served a purpose in their minds.
It served as an example of what happens when somebody doesn’t do as they should –
when somebody – parents or child – when SOMEBODY sins.

The disciples asked Jesus – “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.”
Let me repeat that: “Neither THIS man, NOR his parents sinned;
he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

Do you see? It’s no one’s fault. It’s no one’s fault. It’s no one’s fault.
It happens. Bad things. Good things. Sweet things. Sour things.
I’m not saying that actions don’t have consequences,
that we bear NO responsibility for careless choices.
I’m not saying that violence and hatred don’t leave scars,
or that love means NEVER having to say you’re sorry.

I’m simply saying that for too many of us the question of innocence or guilt
becomes the dominant question in our lives.
Too many of us spend WAY too much time on the question of blame
and far too little time celebrating the way God’s works are revealed all around us.

It seems like it would be easy to change that.
It seems like we would jump at the chance to celebrate instead of nit-pick.
But this is where John’s story rings so true.
Jesus spits on some dirt, makes a little mud, smears it on the blind man’s eyes
and tells him to go wash.
The man does as he’s told, and, sure enough, he’s healed. He can see!
But look how people respond to this miracle of God.

His neighbors, used to seeing him begging, used to looking down on him,
used to pitying him and speculating about the awful things he or his parents have done
to leave him in this state –
These NEIGHBORS of his don’t recognize him!
They don’t SEE him.
The man’s neighbors EXPECTED to see him begging on the street,
his eyes locked in a vacant stare.
After the man was healed his neighbors’ eyes registered his presence,
they noticed his physical being, but they had no category in which to place him.

Not only did his neighbors not recognize him, but the Pharisees, his spiritual LEADERS,
tried to pull him back into his old role of “blind man”;
tried to get him to denounce Jesus;
tried to make him doubt his own eyes.
Even his own parents wouldn’t stand up for him.
Even his own parents couldn’t celebrate God’s mighty work.
But to the man’s credit, he stood his ground.
Of all the people in Jerusalem, he was the one person
who managed to consider an alternative reality to that of blaming and fault-finding.
Under all the pressure, and despite all the chances they gave him
to knuckle under and return to his blindness the man refused.
He bore witness to a new reality.
“I was blind, but now I see.”


If you think about it, it’s the fear of being blamed that keeps all of us blind to some degree.
It’s our pitiful attempts to create around ourselves the aura of goodness
that keeps us from really LOOKING at the world as it is;
really SEEING our place in God’s creation
really NOTICING God’s works as they are revealed.
But sometimes the curtain lifts; sometimes the scales fall off if only for a moment;
and we truly SEE.

You probably read that he Philharmonic Orchestra was in North Korea this past week.
For perhaps the first time, North Koreans saw Americans as talented musicians
and Americans saw North Koreans as an appreciative audience.
No one was trying to blame the other;
the scales fell away and they were able to see each other in a new light.

My friend, Bob Gamble, who was pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Daytona Beach
went to Ukraine with a friend and SAW children living in abandoned buildings.
Once he SAW, really SAW he couldn’t go back to NOT seeing.
He had to find a way to help make their lives better.
His eyes were opened, and, in turn, their eyes were opened,
and now that they’ve gotten to know him and trust him
God’s work through Bob is taking off in ways he never would have imagined.

Often we express surprise at some new sight, some unexpected spectacle
by saying to each other, “Would you look at that!”
I believe that’s God’s word to us this morning.
Would you LOOK at that, really LOOK?
Would you look beyond your narrow categories,
past your need to justify yourself or protect your self or blame somebody.
Would you look at the person next to you, the person you live with,
the strangely acting lady on the corner next to the coffee shop
and open your eyes to the possibility that at any moment,
in the most unexpected and remarkable way God’s works might be revealed.