The healing of
the blind man story we had for our gospel reading is almost comic. The religious leaders are stumped to explain
how this blind man received his sight.
How can a man blind from birth be cured by Jesus, who was in their
opinion at best an iterant preacher who didn’t observe the Sabbath and spread
about dangerous ideas? Their
investigation turns up more and more evidence against them. They don’t know what to do. And faced with irrefutable facts they blind
themselves and deny the truth of the whole thing. If the story were a joke the punch line would
be near the end when some of the Pharisees say, “Surely we are not blind, are
we?”
Um, yes, you
are. Ironically a man blind from birth
can now see while those who should see clearly have blinded themselves.
But there’s more
because there’s a second punchline said by the blind man. When interrogated by the Pharisees he says at
one point, “I have told you already, and you would not listen.” They would not listen… Perhaps they are not
only blind but also deaf!
Before we shake
our heads at them too much however, we also remember that when we criticize the
Pharisees we are in dangerous territory.
Usually our biblical authors present the Pharisees as being an awful lot
like ourselves. And indeed this is the
case here.
“We are not
blind, are we?” they asked. And we too
like to say we have sight, but it seems to be deep in human nature to ignore or
avoid that which we see but do not like.
Two weeks ago, when we had confirmation, I preached about the way we
humans have always wanted to be our own god.
We want to look to ourselves for our own fulfillment and not depend upon
God. Oh, we’re all for God when we’ve
gotten ourselves into a situation we can’t get out of. Then we’re all for divine help. But for the most part, when we can do
something ourselves, we do it – which is a good thing. We are made to be that way. But then rather than thanking God for our
abilities we claim them for ourselves.
That is the beginning of our blindness.
Last week at
synod assembly there was a report from two pastors in the synod who went to
Zimbabwe last year. Those pastors were
Deron Milleville and Dan Hoffman. Life
in Zimbabwe is nowhere near as primitive as we may picture. They have cars, superhighways, cities,
hospitals and the like. They have solar
panels for dependable power in remote areas and all sorts of things. But on the whole people are still very
poor. They have little. Yet what they have they are very generous
with, and their hospitality is incredible.
Offerings during
worship are very different there. People
often don’t put anything into the collection plate. This isn’t because they have automatic
withdrawals from their bank accounts. It’s
because they have no money to give.
Instead they may bring food or other items. And as is often the case, if they don’t have
a church building but are meeting in a tent or in the open, they bring building
materials for their offering. Pastor
Hoffman showed a photo of a man bringing a bag of cement and other people with
buckets of bricks. I’d like to see how
our acolytes do with eighty pound bags of cement or buckets of bricks!
The Lutheran
church in Zimbabwe grows and grows. The
people are happy. They live full and
enriched lives. And overall I’d say if
you could measure happiness they’d beat us hands down.
How come we,
educated as we are, with the riches we have, and the security we enjoy, not be
happier than them? How come with all our
blessings our churches decline while theirs grow? Remember, the Lutheran church is a
predominately African black church; not white European.
Because we are
blind, and they see.
There is plenty
in the news about political spin and “fake news”. There are Trump lovers and Trump haters. Each thinks the other side is moronic and
wrong. And I can’t pretend to be above
such thoughts myself. And yet, when I
sit back and reflect, I believe both sides are blind to a deeper truth, and
this is really just a sideshow that keeps us blind.
We live this myth we call
progress. We believe in economic
development and growth. We label
ourselves “first world” and people like those in Zimbabwe “third world” and we
seek to spread our ideals to raise them to be like us. They’d be fools to accept!
Here are truths
that are right in front of our eyes, but we don’t want to see them. Our way of life is consumptive to the point
of disgusting. Our lifestyles consume
far too much energy. (Think about it,
when you drive to the grocery store your car is burning more energy getting to
and from the store than the energy you body’s going to get from the food you
buy.) We create garbage by the
mountainful, almost literally, with some landfills reaching as tall as
skyscrapers. It’s pretty bad when you’re
cultured biggest construction are garbage piles! But it’s worse. In 2012 Forbes reported an ugly truth. America’s biggest export is garbage. Indeed, some of it is recyclables being sent
to other nations for reprocessing, but still that’s not what we want to be
known for in the world.
And one final
problem to point out, my family doctor, Dr. Doug Alling, has pointed out to me
that most of his work is not about healing people. It is medicating people against their
lifestyle choices. People’s consumptive
habits are so bad that we have to use ongoing medical treatments to keep us
functioning.
We are no longer
considered citizens, we are labeled as consumers. When was the last time you read or heard a
news article about good citizenship and compare it to how much you hear about
things like Gross Domestic Product, economic growth, inflation and that sort of
thing? Our minds make these things
supremely important, and it is to our cost.
At synod assembly
last week I heard more reports and worries about the church’s continued decline
in this country. I heard about hopes and
strategies, about reorganization and new ideas.
While I don’t want to be too cynical, I admit that I sat there thinking
we’re either too afraid or too blind to admit the truth. We are victims of original sin. Like Adam and Eve, when we think we can make
it on our own we tell God we don’t need him.
We are simply too prosperous for our own good.
And so what do we
do? Well, I don’t bring all this up to
make us feel guilty. Maybe we should,
but guilt is not a good motivator. If
you’re like me in this regard, and I’m sure you are, you hear something. You feel guilty. You resolve to make changes. And then two days go by and you forget all
about it, or you just ignore it and keep doing the same old thing.
No, guilt doesn’t
work. But I do think we need to be more
aware that the gospel of prosperity, growth and development that is our
unofficial national creed, is a lie. It
is ongoing blindness. And I hope we can
begin to relook at everything we do and ask ourselves, does this really lead to life?
Those things that
really lead to life will be lasting, of good quality, and they will equip us to
be more effective in living God’s love.
Otherwise it will be a consumptive purchase that will bring cheap joy
for a while but lead to no lasting satisfaction. I don’t mean to say that we have to stop
buying things, or that we cannot enjoy luxuries and comforts. But we do need to limit ourselves and ask if
we’re really getting lasting satisfaction.
And never fall
into the trap that avoiding hardship will lead to happiness. It won’t.
Hardship wisely managed will lead to lasting wholeness. Our whole Bible reading from 2 Corinthians is
about that. For the Corinthians were a
lot like us. They had lots, but were far
less fulfilled than their poorer neighbors.
God has called us
to do good and lasting things – good things that lead to life and wholeness,
not consumption. Lasting things that
will endure, not fade with time. And so
may we have the sight we need to see the truth of things. And the courage and endurance we need to act
on them, so that we can live in true happiness and fulfillment – the way God
intended.
