Seeing with New Eyes

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, March 22, 2020
1 Samuel 16:1-13/John 9:1-41

    It was almost exactly one year ago today that I was travelling back to Nebraska, my home state, on an airplane. I saw the devastation of severe flooding from above that the Missouri River had caused. Something like 94 counties had declared a state of emergency as whole communities were made into islands almost overnight from ice flows jamming rivers and heavy rains that the super-saturated ground couldn’t hold.  I was serving on the Nebraska Synod staff at the time so as I traveled to different areas, I witnessed firsthand the damage the flooding had caused – highways I had driven on my whole life were unusable.  Farmland was turned into sandpits and all kinds of debris piled up in other fields, carried by rushing water.  I could not believe my eyes.  There are STILL places in Nebraska recovering from last year’s devastation.  It was horrible to witness firsthand.
    And now this year, we have a new devastation to behold. We see on the news Manhattan streets and subways are empty.  As my family goes on walks through our neighborhood, we notice all the cars in the driveway, because everyone is home.  The church is empty on a Sunday morning.  The most I have “seen” of many of you has been a picture in my head as I talk to you over the phone, or if I’m lucky, a face on a computer screen.  These readings for today are the same every three years, and how appropriate that they come to us today of all days, to cause us to pause and think about how we see things these days; how God sees us today.  I don’t think I have to tell you that a lot of us are being deprived of the sense of physical touch more than we’re used to.  Apart from immediate family members we are fortunate to live with (those of us who don’t live alone), we are being strongly discouraged NOT to touch others.  I don’t think human beings are meant to live long without being deprived of physical touch from others.  So, we rely even more so, those of us who can see, on our sight, when our other senses are deprived.  
    It struck me right away when I read the gospel this time around that Jesus mixes dirt with his spit, makes mud, and touches the blind man’s eyes with that mud to heal him.  NO ONE SHOULD DO THAT RIGHT NOW! I thought to myself.  That’s an easy way to spread a virus, don’t you know, Jesus?!.  But at the same time, it’s a powerful message for those of us deprived of physical touch– Jesus is not afraid to touch you.  Jesus is not afraid to hug you, so that you might be healed.  Hold onto that image, in these days ahead.
    And so, we rely more heavily on our eyes these days, to send and watch videos of friends and even of this worship service, to look longingly out the window, to read and write letters and emails. What do we see?  On the news we see a lot of the negative:  people fighting over toilet paper and hand sanitizer at the grocery store, people congregating en masse at beaches when they’ve been strongly encouraged to “flatten the curve,” even on one of our family walks, rather than saying hello, several people averted their eyes and crossed to the other side of the street without even acknowledging our presence…some of what we see these days discourages us.  But I have also seen rainbows in people’s windows for children to count and look for on these neighborhood walks, and people waving warmly, shouting “hello!” as we keep our distance, many offers on social media and to me directly on how they can help our seniors especially during this time, and the daffodils in our biblical garden here at church are blooming – a sign of spring, a sign of life in the face of fear, death, and disruption.  My eyes have seen some beautiful things, gifts from God, this week.
God reminds Samuel in choosing David as Israel’s next king that mortals look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.  Jesus helps those around him see a blind man as a child of God and a witness to God’s good news.  “Isn’t that the guy who used to sit around here and beg?” they ask Jesus.  “Isn’t this man a sinner because he was born blind…or at least aren’t his parents sinners?”  In healing the blind man, Jesus doesn’t just give him physical sight…in fact, you could argue that was less important to Jesus. Instead, Jesus restores this man’s humanity – he transforms how he is viewed by society, and likely how he views himself and his own self-worth as a human being.  In turn, in restoring the blind man’s physical and SPIRITUAL sight, Jesus transforms how others see him.  They start to say, ‘He is a prophet.” And eventually, ‘I believe that he is the Son of Man.”  “This man is from God.”  In seeing others as God sees them, it is true that we also are more clearly able to see who God is.
This social distancing and self-isolation is changing how we see things, for sure.  Our scriptures urge us to consider looking at the heart, the inside, not just at what is obvious from the outside.  It is absolutely intentional that Jesus makes a point to the Pharisees that spiritual sight is more important than the ability of physical sight.  The one who is blind can see far better than they can. How does God want us to look at things, right now?  I would like for us to meditate on this verse this week, John 9:39, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”  What does God want us to see, and what do we need to become blind to, I wonder?  Amen.