Living as Light 030208

Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9

Margaret Scott

Hymnbook-favorite hymns

All written by one woman, Fanny Crosby

Fanny was blind

When something bad happens to me, I often try to find someone to blame. I know a little boy …

Fanny chose instead to find someone to praise – God helped her through her sad and bad times—so she used the gifts God had given her to write songs to praise the god who loved her and helped her.

Next time something bad happens, and you want to blame somebody, try to find a way to use God’s good gifts instead.

(idea from Sermon4kids)

T at T last week great story about a couple’s visit to San Francisco- leaving brightly lit streets of opulent and abundance shopping, heading back to comfort of hotel—found themselves suddenly in a dark and dangerous neighborhood, drug deals going down, homeless hugging doorways, you get the picture—they had to walk through this valley of dark shadows before they found themselves one block from the luxury and safety of their hotel.

She said, it’s like our lives, sometimes we’re just one block away from the darkness, and we can find ourselves deep into it before we realize it.

How true: one block away from darkness, one paycheck away from bankruptcy, one accident away from a handicap, one argument away from a broken heart, one loss away from a deep grief. And we can find ourselves deep in darkness.

Today’s story SEEMS to be about a healing miracle of Jesus, with the darkness being the blindness of this one man. Jesus brings light to his darkness by healing him, and even claims "I am the light of the world"

But I don’t think that’s the primary story here; I think it’s the setting for a more challenging story. Because Jesus ultimately challenges all the other characters in the story about their blindness

With our Lenten cross this year, we face the darkness. We acknowledge the darkness that increasingly surrounds Jesus on his way to the cross. And I believe all of us come here, week by week, and others only for special occasions, with deep, often unacknowledged, unaware needs – to be healed, to be enlightened. Some of us come like the blind man, others like the disciples, the neighbors, the parents or the Pharisees.

So let’s see if we can find ourselves in this story. We didn’t read all the details of the story, but you’ll catch on, and you can always read it all at home later.

There are several kinds of darkness and blindness in this tale.

First, obviously, there is the blind man. A victim of circumstances, he has become a victim of social thinking. He is the object of derision, at best thought of as inferior because of his handicap, at worst ignored as an outcast. Are you he? Feeling inferior, an outsider, perhaps stumbling your way through life with great uncertainty about the way forward? You are in the right place at the right time. Jesus the light of the world is here.- ready to touch you, instruct you, send you into the light.

Then there’s the disciples. Their question is one of traditional but cruel thinking: whose fault is it that he’s blind? As I suggested to the children, that’s the wrong question—instead of playing the blame game, Jesus, the light of the world, suggests they see suffering as a way to point people to God. The darkness of blaming is pierced by the light of praise. Might you, or I, be a disciple like that?

Or perhaps we’re like that same general society—where elitism continues to humiliate others. Where the ‘haves’ continue to ‘have’ power only because of the powerlessness of the ‘have nots’ – and it’ll stay that way. Jesus, the light of the world, challenges that. He actually sees the ‘have not’ person and his needs, and sets about doing something about it. Might you and I not do the same? Pierce the darkness of poverty, for example, with the light of political action?

Then the neighbors. Used to the same old same old, they are skeptical about change. They see someone they have stereotyped and now he’s different. Used to what they are used to seeing and knowing, some new evidence confuses them. How are we like that? Jesus the light of the world challenges what we believe, and we grasp all the more tightly to our own understanding, desperately trying to make new evidence fit our old thinking.

The darkness of skepticism is pierced by the light of new life.

Then the parents, swept up in the controversy, stuck between gladness for their son and fear of the authorities, they cannot make a commitment. They are masters of fence-sitting. But Jesus the light of the world brings a fresh breeze that COULD blow them off it. The darkness of fear can be pierced by the light of assurance.

And those faithful Pharisees. Oh dear, the professional clergy.

Concerned more for the institution than the suffering of the individual. We’re sort of used to putting these guys down, but I realized this week ("Simply Christian" class) that they weren’t just concerned with the rules and laws for the sake of it. These rules and laws were their identity as a people, as a nation. And if they lose those, they risk losing their identity as the Jewish people. So of course they’re going to hold on to their ways. In a world of oppression by the Romans, they are fighting for their life in some ways. I also have a little sympathy for them because they are having a hard time believing that God might actually be at work among them. Don’t we often fail to really believe that God is present? Right here, right now, right there in the grocery store, right then at the water cooler? Oh, we know it with our heads. But believe it? There is a darkness that is blind to the presence and action of God in our very midst. But Jesus, the light of the world, IS God at work. As the man said, to do this he must be from God.

So often, we don’t recognize the activity of God right in front of our noses.

Confession of a professional clergy: Anguilla story of cats, darkness, grace.

The darkness of the soul pierced by God’s light. God’s light can reach us in ANY condition we find ourselves in.

I am discovering very personally, that God acts during the dark night to move us away from our attachments to and dependencies on power and prestige and control and possessions, so I might be more open to the inflowing of the healing light of the holy spirit.

And once this blind man is healed, he changes. His lifestyle is different; his demeanor is different.

We are blessed in this congregation with many healed persons. People who are engaged, committed believers and worshippers.

People who have received the light themselves, live with it in them, even when they’re experiencing personal darkness….

because they know enough to name and embrace the darkness, and allow it to open them to God’s healing light. The journey towards the light, the journey towards wholeness and peace, begins when we acknowledge the dark. Otherwise, as Jesus says, we’re still blind.

It is our job, we who know Christ as the light of our lives, to do what our greeting from Ephesians said: to live as children of the light, to carry the healing light of Jesus to those who are not here, to share the light with an increasing dark world.

Thanks be to God.