Blindness and Sight
Thursday, September 4, 2008 -- Week of Proper 17
Paul Jones, Bishop and Peace Advocate 1941
Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 983)
Psalms 37:1-18 (morning) 37:19-42 (evening)
Job 16:16-22, 17:1, 13-16
Acts 13:1-12
John 9:1-17
Blindness and sight.
Job can see only the incongruity of his innocence and his suffering. The only possible resolution is death, which in Job's day was the nothingness of Sheol, cut off from both God and human life, the hopeless darkness where the Pit is one's father and the worm one's mother. For Job, nothingness is better than his living misery. He would prefer the blindness of death to the sight of his suffering.
In our story from Acts, the church in Antioch sets apart Barnabas and Saul/Paul to travel in their work as apostles. They sail to Cyprus where Paul has an encounter with a magician who challenges Paul. By the "hand of the Lord" Paul strikes the magician blind. For a while, the man will be unable to see.
It is an ironic and potentially hopeful event. After all, just a few chapters earlier we saw Saul acting as an enemy of the Gospel when he was struck blind by the hand of the Lord. His blindness was his turning point, and he became a follower of Jesus. There is no word about the future of the magician. Will his blindness be his illumination, like Paul? Or will he simply suffer blindly?
Then in our reading from John, Jesus heals a blind beggar. It causes quite a controversy. There is a dispute over the facts -- is this the same person who was the blind beggar, sightless from birth? Yes, he is the same person. No, he is not the same. He has changed. He sees, and he will testify to what has happened to him. His testimony will cost him dearly.
But Jesus has healed the man on the Sabbath. Jesus instructed the blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam. Such an instruction would have been regarded as a violation of the Sabbath. It was an act of work to wash oneself thusly. It would have been regarded as an act of work to heal another on the Sabbath. There are six other days to heal and wash. Religious tradition expected observant Jews to refrain from such activity on the Sabbath, out of respect for God and for the gift of weekly rest.
The religious authorities cannot see the regaining of sight of this blind beggar as a good thing. Not when it is done on the Sabbath. Their eyes are closed to the gift of life that Jesus has offered. The blind man now sees, but he will be banished from the synagogue. The authorities have seen a miracle of healing, but they are blind to its goodness.
When does our suffering make us blind to anything else? When does our worldview, our opinion, our religious belief make us blind? Can our blindness be turned into new insight? How do we know what we are not even seeing?
Today is the feast day of Paul Jones, former Bishop of Utah. In 1917 he caused scandal when he declared his belief that "war is unchristian." A House of Bishops Commission denied his right to object to war on the grounds of faith and conscience, and recommended that he resign. Bishop Jones did so, and spent the next 23 years of his life working to promote peace and the right to conscience.
The Bishop who was forced to resign because of his pacifist vision is now commemorated with an annual feast day in our calendar. The notion that "war is unchristian" is no longer inadmissible. I look forward to the day when those of us whose conscience objects to the 1998 Lambeth Commission's position that homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture will be recognized, possibly with a feast to honor Louie Crew the founder of Integrity. Whoever has eyes to see, let them see.
Lowell
_____________________________________________
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
Lowell Grisham, Rector
Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts
About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.
Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.
Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
posted by Lowell @ 7:47 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Lowell: Do you believe that Paul by God's hand and not his own put blindness on the magician? We see miracles today and healings but no one goes around striking people blind that I know of. I wonder when God took that off the table? After all who doesn't have a thought occasionally to do something mischevious to someone we don't like. Anyway I mean this sort of in a spirit of levity. It just struck me as a little funny.
Dear Anon,
It would be pretty intimidating to be able to strike someone blind (especially someone you don't like).
I've had the experience of being hit with something that was so shocking to my worldview -- such an unexpected anomaly -- that it felt like being struck blind. Everything I thought I once saw, seemed fuzzy and unfocused and unreal. But I couldn't see my way into a new reality, not at once.
I walked around "not knowing" ("not seeing"?) for a while, asking, searching for light, until I finally was able to incorporate the impossible possibility into a new, broader vision.
One of those moments comes to mind. Many years ago, when I shook my finger at an openly gay priest, and scolded him, saying, "Don't you know, your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit."
He looked at me with clear, focused eyes, and said with a integrity that came from deep within him, "Yes! My body IS the Temple of the Holy Spirit."
It was like I had been struck blind. I struggled for nearly a year with that challenge to my worldview. I studied a lot. I talked with others. I thought. I prayed. My vision expanded, and I saw more reality than I had ever seen before. It was one of the most grace-filled experiences of my life.
Lowell
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