Readings for today: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; Ps 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
https://lectionary.anglican.ca/nrsv/?date=2020-03-22
Grace and Peace to all of you - my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Although we are living in a state of exile from our usual Sunday gathering place, let’s keep in mind that it’s the buildings that are closed, and not the church! WE are the church, and we are not closed – we shall remain open by God’s grace -- to each other, to compassionate love for the world God made, and to strength and resilience in these challenging times of fear, anxiety and constraint.
As I worked on this sermon on March 20th CBC news online reported that Canada had shockingly surpassed one thousand coronavirus cases! I thought we’d never even get that high, and obviously it’s going higher. To state the obvious, it’s all quite surreal isn’t it? I think that so many of us are emotionally exhausted from it all. Here we are, especially in Victoria enjoying beautiful spring weather, and the trees and shrubs and perennials all bursting with bountiful beauty. How can it be that behind all this there’s this horrible creeping virus advancing around our precious earth? Oh wait … actually as you may have heard Mother Earth, God’s good Creation is doing well! Satellite images show much less air pollution as fewer planes, trains, and automobiles clog up the atmosphere. There are even rumours of dolphins in the canals of Venice! Humans are getting sick, but the earth is healing. Silver lining for sure. It’s also a blessing that children rarely get the virus, and if they do, it’s very minor compared to adults. Nonetheless as someone online said – honestly we hadn’t planned on giving up quite this much for Lent, right?
Online I’m seeing so much good humour or ‘comic relief’ as Shakespeare often showed us. In his day I doubt they knew that laughter boosts the immune system, or as Reader’s Digest used to emphasize: laughter is the best medicine. Some are shocked at all this frivolous-sounding levity even in Christian Facebook postings … but we can only hope that the uplift of good humour is at least as contagious as this vicious and virulent virus. As Dame Judi Dench put it recently, while wearing wiggly bunny ears: “Just keep laughing. That’s all we can do!” Thanks to Hilary’s expertise, I’ve finally broken into the Two Saints Ministry Facebook page, and am trying to share uplifting things there, so I hope you’ll consider popping over to that page. In times like this having a free online forum like that where we can connect with each other, and comment and discuss things – is truly a Godsend. Whether on Facebook or by phone or other means, we are all encouraged to keep in touch with each other while we live through this wilderness of exile, and do our best to be a church without walls.
After all, most of Jesus’ ministry was done outside the Temple walls, as in today’s long story from John 9. Jesus heals a man born blind, and then there’s more back-and-forth fake news accusations than at a Trump rally, while the powers-that-be insist that No, No this man could not have been born blind. If he had been, how could he now see? Even the man’s parents are dragged in since surely they would know if he was born blind, and of course they testify that he was. They are not believed. They too are accused of spreading fake news, so to speak. They are asked to explain how that could be, given that he now sees? And they hardly dared to simply attribute this to the healing powers of Jesus, Messiah and Son of God. Or else they could be seen as believers or followers of this radical and revolutionary rebel Jesus. So they say that they don’t know how that could be. The healed man himself was subjected to similar scrutiny, and his answers get him thrown out of the place. Usually we are always trying to model Jesus’ behavior, but in this case not only are we ill-equipped to bring sight to the blind, we should also not use Jesus’ method in our times. As someone commented on Facebook: “WWJD hardly seems like good advice when this Sunday's gospel has him spitting in the dirt and rubbing it on some poor blind guy's eyes (John 9: 6)!” To everything there is a season, as it says elsewhere in the Bible – and this is not the season for us to try out spit-and-dirt healings.
But of course that would be taking the Bible too literally, which is dangerous at the best of times – we love and respect the Bible too much to treat in such a superficial, or staying on the surface, kind of way. When we go deeper into this familiar story we see lessons about spiritual blindness. Even the most faithful amongst us may have experienced times of spiritual blindness. I know I have … and often. So often I’ve been blind to the way God was working in my life. So often I was sure that I had the right idea about what I needed, or what was the best path for me and my family. And I was wrong! Many of my prayers were me telling God what needed to be done – or me thinking that if enough voices ask for this, like some kind of heavenly online petition – if enough voices ask, then God will have to do the thing, right? What were we thinking – that God was deaf, or that God was some kind of bean counter, and only when enough prayers tipped the scales would God grant our ‘petition’. It’s complicated though to find our way back from too much reliance on petitionary prayer. Perhaps after this gospel today, we could especially pray for God to heal our own spiritual blindness – to be healed of all the ways in which we view things with unknown blinders on. Some of you have seen the excellent Prayer for a Pandemic written by a young mother in Seattle, Dr. Cameron Wiggins Bellm, and I’d like to end with it here in the context of the healing of our spiritual blindness, or seeing the other side of the situation:
May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must choose between preserving their health or making their rent.
May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close
Remember those who have no options.
May we who have had to cancel our trips
Remember those that have no safe place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market
Remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for a quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country, Let us choose love.
During this time when we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other,
Let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbors.
Amen.