Finding Faith ... in Jesus curing our blindness

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on March 22, 2020. This was the first digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.

Jesus cures the blind man.

As we worked through those readings today, and the way that the lectionary works, and we've talked about this before, is that years in advance there's a group of theological scholars that get together and they pair these writings with each other.

And so it is today, I think it is absolutely the Spirit at work, with the Psalm 23 being chosen. Such a comforting Psalm for all of us, that we often go to in times of trouble. We look towards Jesus, our shepherd, in this time, and his rod and his staff comfort us in this time. So I think that was a very applicable scripture for this week.

But I also look to the First Reading and the Gospel because there was a common theme. And that common theme is: Often, even those of us who consider ourselves faithful, we miss seeing God where he is in action in this world.

In the First Reading, as they were looking for the anointed one, they looked over the youngest, of course, because how could he be that? ... Little David, ruddy-faced, handsome boy, how could he be the anointed one? Even his father overlooked him.

And then we get to today's gospel. It's a very long gospel in Luke in which there was a blind man. And in those days, when people had physical afflictions, it was often thought that it was a punishment from God. But early in that gospel text, Jesus turns that on its head, and he reminds us that in that blindness God is working through this man. And so in that moment, when the people are around Jesus, and they are gathering, and he looks at the man, puts his own saliva in the mud, and he makes that mud to rub on the man's eyes. And, all of a sudden, lo and behold, miraculously he can see.

And so I don't think it takes a great theological mind to see how that gospel is playing in our present world in the sense that, maybe it is us who are playing the role of the Pharisees in our most recent times. Maybe it was us prior to seven days ago, 10 days ago, when this COVID 19 pandemic kind of shut down our normal lives, made us shelter in place in some states, made us more aware of being at home, made us more aware of the presence of our family in our lives and not so much the busyness.

Maybe it was us that were playing that role of the Pharisees before all of this started because we couldn't see ... we didn't see God in action in our neighbors or in the daily miracles that were happening around us.

And yet maybe this is that incident in which God is working through us. Maybe, in this particular fable that we're talking about, maybe the blind man is this pandemic. And maybe Jesus, in our moment of need, is taking mud out of the earth and using his own saliva to rub it on the eyes of the blind man, and get us to see. ... Get us to see how and where God is in action in this world now.

We don't have school events that are busy in our lives, and most of our meetings, many of our meetings are being cancelled. And were not getting together in our social groups. And we're at home and we're seeing our loved ones maybe for the first time in a long time in a different light because maybe, just maybe, we're not as harried.

Maybe, just maybe, we can put down those electronic devices, ironically, that are separating us in our normal lives. Maybe we can pull out those board games that are sitting in closets and have layers of dust on them. And maybe we can pull a book off the shelf that we normally don't have time to read.

Or maybe we could just sit down and write a physical note for that loved one that might be in a facility where they can't come or go. Or maybe it's time that we can pick up the phone and call somebody who we haven't reached out to in a long time.

Maybe this particular time that we're living through is our time to see where God is in action, to get used to noticing the daily miracles of that sunrise. I don't know about you, but as I was driving out to Faith Lutheran Church today, and I was preparing to get online with our Sunday schoolers at 9 o'clock, I was just aware of things in a different way. As I drove down the highway, and I saw that sun creeping up in the east, and the pink, soft glow, and that orange, and later on that brilliant, golden yellow orb rise into the sky, it felt different this time.

And when I got to the church this morning, and unlocked the doors, thinking how are we going to do a service without a sanctuary full of people? And I looked around the church, and I thought to myself, "Maybe this is where we stop taking our Sunday get-togethers for granted." And getting to have squirrely, little Sunday schoolers running through the church, and screaming with glee, and we stop taking that for granted.

I ask you to stop and take a look at the First Reading and our Gospel, and see the common message: Maybe we just have to look a little bit harder all around us in this pandemic time to see where God is in action. And maybe now, without being blind ourselves, we'll be able to see all of the miracles happening around us.

And that is the Good News for this Sunday. ... Amen.