Based on Matthew 9: 27-34.
Today, our Lord Jesus is presented with two blind men. In their desire to be healed they cry out: "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" Jesus asks: "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They replied: "Yes, Lord." Then he touched their eyes and said: "According to your faith let it be done to you." And their eyes were opened.
In today's Gospel reading Jesus' desire to heal is coupled with the belief of those who come to him. Jesus desires to answer the desperate call for help, but before he can he wants to know if they believe he can do what they want. And how are we when we come to Jesus in prayer? Do we come to Jesus believing that God can answer our prayers and supply us with what we need? Are we ready to submit to God's will that what we receive is what is best, even if it is not exactly what we want?
Sometimes in our consumerist society that looks for instant gratification in every thing, we might find ourselves approaching God as our ATM. If only we will put in all the right numbers out will come what we want. We sometimes look at God as if God is the ever waiting department store clerk who will give us what we want if the price is right. And because we are often so self centered our expectations of others and of God and even ourselves always brings us up short. Some how what we wanted is not exactly what we get.
Lest we walk down the path of "God just wants to look for that opportunity to cut us short" and not think that really God is interested in our happiness, let us remember that in today's Gospel Jesus wants to give the blind men what they seek, but first he wants to know if they believe in him. And so God really does want to give us what we seek, but do we believe that God can give us what we need?
Sometimes much of our mistrust in God comes from how we treat one another. Sometimes in the name of Christian "truth" people do things that are so uncharitable that it cannot be put in to words. It is amazing what people will do in the name of God's word being the Bible and call it "Christian compassion." Many Christians will even use the statement: "Compassion without the element of truth is not compassion at all." Well, the problem with that is found in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians chapter 13: "If I speak with the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." (13: 1-2). Many who think they are clinging to the "truth" about homosexuality and use it as a weapon of mass destruction are just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal because they do not speak the truth in love, they speak the voice of hate and division. This is no where more true than a Christian parent, or ex gay ministry that suggests to Christian parents to "love their children, while hating the sin of homosexuality." Rather than help them see their children as being created in the image and likeness of The Holy Trinity, they would rather destroy their sense of self esteem and even their faith in the name of "truth." Such attitudes are not the kind of faith that these men came to Jesus with in our Gospel today. They come knowing that though they are different from society, that God loves them enough to reach into their situation and grant them God's love and mercy.
When a young person begins to recognize that she or he has a sexual orientation different than most around them, they experience a fear that can only be understood through listening to them. The first time I realized when I was in my adolescence that my attractions were different than most around me, and the harassment I experienced in Jr. High School, my thoughts would very much be like those in our Psalm today. "Listen to my cry for help, for I have been brought very low, save me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me." (Psalm 142:6). When you combine that experience with those of a minister or Priest who might tell someone that who they are, and how they love another person of the same sex is so dreadfully sinful, and their only hope is to cling to God lest they die of Spiritual starvation, is simply not the love and compassion of Jesus. These young people come to Jesus in prayer, through support groups, through their parents and ministers or Priests looking for the darkness to be lifted from their eyes. When they are spoken to as if they are just too dirty in side, told to change their God given ability to love other people because it is just too different, what they are doing is promoting blindness not only within the LGBT youth, but also within the church too.
Do we really want Jesus to heal our blindness? Do we really believe Jesus can heal our blindness or do we prefer to stay blind? Can we see beyond what we read in Scripture about homosexuality, and see a time, culture and history, not to mention languages that are used in ways that are not consistent with our interpretations about homosexuality in the Bible?
Can we see how our blindness to other people around us is so often due to our own cultural and religious biases? Can we come to Jesus and believe he can heal that part of us that is so covered in the darkness of our own prejudices?
God wants so much for us to see the truth about not only our faith, but also ourselves and others around us. God wants for us to be the loving hand that extends beyond ourselves into the lives of others, and become healers of a world that is broken by sickness, classes, races, sexes and bigotry of all kinds. But Jesus can only do some much. Do we believe that Jesus can make us see?
O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for all: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your path we may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Book of Common Prayer, Number 58, Page 832.
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