"I Can See Clearly Now" by The Rev. Donald L. Hamer
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Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, Connecticut
Lent 4 – Year A – March 30, 2014
1 Samuel 16:1-13 John 9:1-41
“I Can See Clearly Now”
It was a cold January evening about 6 or 7 years ago. It was the weekend of the Martin Luther King Birthday holiday and Debbie and I were on our way out to visit my college roommate at his farm out in central Pennsylvania. And, as I usually do for a long weekend, I was willing to drive late into the night on Friday in order to have the full day on Saturday at the farm. We had made this drive many times before and I knew the roads well, even the part of the highway that was under construction on those twisty turns around Wilkes-Barre.
On this particular night, however, a surprise awaited us. What was forecast to be 2 or 3 inches of light snow suddenly turned into a larger storm coming off the Great Lakes and there we found ourselves on Route 80 in the middle of Pennsylvania with no highway lighting, no guardrails to guide us, you couldn’t see the lines marking the lanes on the road, and the snow was falling so heavily that visibility seemed like almost zero. I found myself sometimes losing my bearings, having no sense of whether I was in the middle of the road or about to go off of it – whether to the left or the right I was not always sure. I found myself trying to follow the stray car or truck in front of me – probably on the theory that we were better off being stranded with others than all alone. I realized that in many ways I was virtually driving blind – able to see almost nothing, having no sense of distance or depth, having no visual points of reference to assist me in knowing where I was.
Now, of course I have never shared this with Debbie – this is the first time she is hearing me say this – but that drive was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. I can’t really remember a time when I felt quite as frantic and vulnerable as I did that night. We did arrive safely and soundly at my friend’s house, albeit several hours later than expected.
The Lesson from the First Book of Samuel and the Gospel this morning each have something to say about sight and blindness, seeing and not seeing so I would like to spend a few moments exploring what they have to say about the subject and how it relates to us.
Let’s look first at Samuel. He’s having a whole lot of problems seeing a lot of things. First, he is having a problem seeing that King Saul is no longer in the Lord’s favor. He is blind to the fact that Saul hasn’t lived up to expectations, that circumstances have changed and God is ready to move on. “How long will you grieve over Saul?” the Lord asks him. Get over it! Go to Jesse the Bethlehemite and you will find my choice for the new king there.
The next thing that Samuel can’t see is a clear pathway to doing the thing that the Lord wants him to do. “How can I go?” he asks God. “If Saul hears of it he will kill me!” Samuel isn’t sure how this game will play out and isn’t prepared to put himself at risk to find out. So the Lord lays out a plan for him and to invite Jesse and his family to the sacrifice.
The third area in which Samuel is blind is in the criteria by which God will select the next king of Israel. As soon as Samuel lays eyes on the first son, Eliab, he says to himself, “Surely this is the one. This is the Lord’s anointed one.” But the Lord says, “Not so fast.” And then God admonishes Samuel about God’s standards: “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.” And so the procession continues: As Jesse calls up each successive son, the Lord tells Samuel, “No.” Finally, when the Lord has seemingly rejected everyone offered, Samuel has to ask Jesse if there are any more sons. And of course, there is David left – David, the youngest, whom Jesse didn’t even deem fit to come to the sacrifice, but left him tending the sheep. And of course, this is the one that the Lord chooses and instructs Samuel to anoint.
Our Gospel is on the surface the story about a man who was blind from birth and his parents, about Jesus and his disciples and about the Pharisees. Applying an ancient understanding of sin – a notion that regrettably still has some currency even today – Jesus’ disciples and the Pharisees all assume that this blind man is blind because of sin – either something that he himself has done or something that his parents have done prior to his birth. But Jesus rejects that argument head on. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus replies. Jesus says pretty clearly that he is less interested in being in the business of locating and labelling sinners than he is of working with others in a way that God’s works might be revealed in and through them.
When the once blind man is asked to offer his own testimony, his response is that he doesn’t know a whole lot about sin but he does know about results: He was blind and now he sees. It kind of reminds you of Jesus’ response when John the Baptist’s disciples come to him to ask him if he is the Messiah. He doesn’t answer directly, but he tells them to look at the results and judge for themselves.
In his interaction with Jesus, the once blind man is asked by our Lord if he believes in the Son of Man. Again he disclaims knowledge – I’m no theologian, he seems to say, but I would like to believe. When Jesus tells him that it is he, the man immediately responds, “Lord, I believe.” And here is the great irony: The man who was once blind can see what Jesus’ critics and even his own disciples cannot yet see. Once again, God turns the tables on our own conventional wisdom.
Both the Old Testament lesson and the Gospel direct our attention to the stark differences between the way God sees and the way we see. In Samuel, the issue is what we look like – the tallest and handsomest is not always the best choice for King. The Lord advises Samuel that he looks at what’s on the inside, in the heart, not what’s on the outside. In the Gospel, the issue is once again outward appearances, but this time the conventional wisdom is that lack of perfection represents the judgment of God. And once again, the Lord’s response, this time coming from Jesus, is that God looks to the heart, what’s on the inside, and not what’s on the outside. The man’s blindness is not caused by sin, nor does his blindness or the fact that he has been a beggar make him any less valuable in God’s eyes. Quite the opposite. Jesus says in that wonderful verse 3, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
We could spend a lot of time focusing on the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and the presumptiveness of the disciples, and the irony that the very ones who are so convinced that they alone can see are the ones who Jesus calls blind. But I invite you instead to reflect on this aspect of the importance of seeing clearly: Recognizing that each one of us – no matter what we look like, no matter what we do, no matter our station in life – which each and every one of us is born with qualities that allow God’s works to be revealed in us.
So often we are unable to see that. Blindness can be caused by a lot of factors. Of course there is actual, physical blindness, like that of the blind beggar. That’s what we think of as blindness. But the inability to see can be caused by other factors – pride, self-righteousness and arrogance, for example, attitudes that close the eye of our minds or our hearts – these can blind us to seeing the truth about ourselves and others. Or sometimes – as was the case in my driving experience through the blizzard – we can’t see because there is so much other stuff getting in our way, hiding that which is right before our very eyes.
The story about Samuel doing the Lord’s work in helping to identify the new king can be helpful to us in two respects. First there is Samuel himself – he is having trouble seeing his own role and how he figures into what the Lord is doing. So the invitation is there to take stock of ourselves, of our own lives. How can we participate in what the Lord is doing? As it was for Samuel, this may involve some risk-taking: Perhaps it will involve going where we haven’t gone before; perhaps it will mean God is calling us to go outside of our comfort zone. The lesson in both of these stories is that God will both guide us and provide what we need.
Then there is Samuel in his role of identifying the new King. As we saw in the story, he doesn’t do this on his own – he is constantly guided by the Lord, but note this well: God’s selection of the new king required Samuel’s participation, his partnership with the Lord, allowing God’s purpose to be worked through him. Much like Samuel, we, too, can and should play an important role in identifying the God given gifts of others – how God’s works can be revealed in them. Sometimes we are unable to see in ourselves those things that God sees in us. This can be for all of the reasons I have already identified, like pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, and so on. More often than not, I think, it is because of factors such as lack of self-esteem or lack of confidence in our own God-given gifts. And, yes, sometimes we just don’t want to be bothered – sometimes, it’s easier not to know. The man in the Gospel story received his sight – that didn’t mean his life got less complex. For all of these reasons, we can be like Samuel and be God’s partner in identifying gifts in others and sharing with them what we see. Heaven knows they may not be able to recognize in themselves the many ways in which God’s works can be revealed in them. We can be a Samuel to others.
God is calling us this today to seeing in a new way – to see the way God sees and not the way we are used to seeing. This relates to the way we see the world around us and all of its creatures – it also relates to the way we see ourselves and those with whom we share fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ. As we celebrate today a milestone in our journey together, let us see ourselves – each and every one of us – as valued children of God who were placed here so that God’s works may be revealed in us. AMEN.