Today's Scripture Readings
1 Samuel 16:1-16 (NRSV)
The Lord said to Samuel, "How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons." Samuel said, "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me." And the Lord said, "Take a heifer with you, and say, `I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.' Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you." Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, "Do you come peaceably?" He said, "Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice." And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, "Surely the Lord's anointed is now before the Lord." But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, "Neither has the Lord chosen this one." Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, "Neither has the Lord chosen this one." Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, "The Lord has not chosen any of these." Samuel said to Jesse, "Are all your sons here?" And he said, "There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep." And Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here." He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, "Rise and anoint him; for this is the one." Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.
Psalm 23 (BCP., p.612)
Ephesians 5:8-14 (NRSV)
Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light-- for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
"Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."
John 9: 1-41 (NRSV)
As he walked along, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "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. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, `Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him. Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, `We see,' your sin remains."
Blog Reflection
Lent is now in its fourth week. Two weeks from today we will begin Holy Week. As we draw closer to the celebration of recalling Christ's total self-sacrifice for our redemption, the Revised Common Lectionary brings us to this reading of Jesus healing the man born blind. It is another long Scripture reading. Before we arrive with Jesus to enter with him into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we need to reflect on how well we see the compassionate love of God before our eyes.
In interpreting today's Gospel reading about Jesus healing the man born blind, we need to take some important key facts in mind. In the time in which this narrative would have occured, many had the horrible presumption that anyone who was disabled or a beggar was such because of some sin she/he or even their parents must have committed.
The major problem with John's Gospel, is that it is most likely written by the oral tradition of the Johaninne Christians. There was probably not one person telling the story, but many. They faced a great deal of persecution and affliction because of their faith. It resulted in a terrible amount of dislike for the Jewish Faith. That is why there is a lot of texts in John's Gospel that is very sadly antisemitic. In the case of this Gospel reading in John 9:1-41, it really does not help much that Jesus' reply was that the man was born blind so that "God's work might be revealed in him." This too suggests that God afflicted the man from birth for this moment. It is not exactly a ringing endorsement of God's graciousness.
The central meaning here is that Jesus put compassionate and healing love for the dignity of the man blind and poor ahead of the ritual rules. As the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees heats up, the issue becomes what is more important; the person born blind and being ridiculed and denigrated by those from whom he begs, or the rule about the sabbath?
As Christians, we too need to think and pray about what is more important. Is it more important for our Congressional leaders to please the Koch Brothers by denying millions of hungry people the funds for food stamps, unemployment insurance and protection from high-powered magazine rifles? Or do we value even more the Baptismal Vow to uphold and respect the dignity of every human person to motivate us to tell our Congress and President to stop putting politics ahead of people?
As the nations of the world decide how to best respond to what is happening with Crimea, Russia and the Ukraine; are economic sanctions really the answer? Those in control of the Russian government are not going to feel the most painful impact of such sanctions. It is those who really are poor who will pay the biggest price.
Christians in the United States really do have another matter that we need to examine to question as to the clarity of our vision.
The recent issue of "religious liberty" has swept its way into every important social issue from abortion and birth control, to equal rights protection for LGBTQ people, and to reducing gun violence is out of control. Any legislation on any Federal, State or Municipality level that seeks to address the needs of the poor, marginalized and oppressed becomes the subject of the "religious liberty" debate. It has become one of the most potent whispering campaigns that amazingly has found it's way into the ears, pulpits and court rooms of our country via the work of the Alliance Defending Freedom organization. I cannot remember such outrageous nonsense like this uniting the efforts of fundamentalist Christians and the entire National Conference of Catholic Bishops like this one has. The religious liberty talking point is nothing more than a sham on behalf of selfish and narrow minded people claiming to be followers of Christ who are sore losers. It is pathetic and immature. It is not liberty on the basis of religion. It is spiritual malpractice and doctrinal abuse disguised as religious zeal. It is meant to blind people about the real truth about what is happening. Conservative religious based bigotry. Because the same Christianist organizations who claim they are the victims of discrimination based on "religious liberty" think nothing of bullying a human service organization such as World Vision USA because they decided to end their employment discrimination practices towards same-gender married couples.
This past week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the arguments in the case of Hobby Lobby with regards to their "religious liberty" right to refuse to cover the cost of contraception to their employees as a result of the Affordable Care Act. As to what I think of this matter, I am going to defer to an article in USA Today written by Bishop Gene Robinson. See the quote below.
Sometimes, even for a bishop, it's embarrassing to be a Christian. Not that I'm embarrassed by Jesus, whose life was spent caring and advocating for the marginalized, and whom I believe to be the perfect revelation of God. I'm just sometimes embarrassed to be associated with others who claim to follow him.
The Jesus I follow always stood with the poor and powerless — and trust me, this struggle is about about power. Whether the issue touches women or gays and lesbians, our religion should be about more love, not less; more dignity, not less.
Christians need to be very careful about using our religious beliefs as weapons of mass destruction that could have a lasting impact well beyond the non-existent issue of "religious freedom" that has been exploding into a harmful and unnecessary holy war. What is in our hearts may be very well intentioned. But, if many of us would look into our hearts with Jesus, we may often find that what God is seeing there and what we think is there are not one and the same thing.
In our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures today, God tells Solomon: "Mortals, ,, look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). During Lent, we are looking with prayer, fasting, alms-giving and self-denial at what is in our hearts. We are inviting God to go there with us as we repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness. At some point, it befits us to see honestly the blindness we pretend is not there with regards to our personal relationship with God and others, and seek the help of Jesus to change our ways. That is what repentance means. To change the direction in which we are going. Christians have way too many examples in our history both far back and most recent of giving Jesus Christ a bad Name by fueling our prejudices. It is time for Jesus and others to see in our hearts and lives the unconditional and all-inclusive love that is compassionate and self-giving with no exceptions. It is time to put the love of God, neighbor and self ahead of our erroneous Bible interpretations and politics. It is time for our ritual worship and how we live and love to become one and the same. Handling people with the same care as we would the Sacred Vessels of the Altar.
Amen.
Prayers
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down
from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world:
Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in
him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 219).
Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us
grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace
with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom,
help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our
communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy
Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p.260).
Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it
with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt,
purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is
amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in
want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake
of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p.816).
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