Reverend Ref +

SERMON -- LENT IV A

Two weeks ago, we heard that Jesus came into the world not to condemn it but to save it; and I talked about hate being easy and love being hard. It’s easy to hate someone different from you. It’s easy to hate the "other," for whatever reason. It’s easy to create a system of rules and regulations that keep people out. But it’s hard to love those who are different. It’s hard to open up the doors of society or your church or your heart and let people in. Love is hard work.

Last week, we heard the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Jews and Samaritans, men and women, outsiders and insiders. The overall theme of that particular gospel, as I presented it, was acceptance. Are you willing to accept the "other" for who they are, and can you accept the fact that God loves them as much as he loves you?

These two themes – that Jesus came into the world to save it and that we are called to meet the outsider where they are – come together in today’s gospel. We see Jesus reaching out to the blind man. This is important on two levels. First, in John, there’s a lot of light and dark issues. The blind man is walking in darkness. Jesus heals him and he is able to see the light of the world. Second, the blind man is an outcast in society. Jesus reaches out to he who is different and touches him where he lives.

However, there’s trouble in paradise. The blind man is healed by Jesus on the Sabbath, and that causes a ruckus with the religious leaders of the day because he, Jesus, isn’t following religious law. Jesus isn’t living by the tightly defined rules that determined who was worthy of the church and of God, and who was to be shunned or excommunicated for disobeying scripture and tradition.

Jesus, in this gospel, is being labeled a sinner by the religious authorities. As I just mentioned, Jesus doesn’t play by the rules, and that upsets a whole lot of people. He doesn’t fit into that itty bitty god-box that people build so that they don’t have to be challenged by God. It’s simple really – if somebody does something that doesn’t fit into your box, they get labeled as a sinner. Just as Jesus was labeled by the religious leaders.

Not only do the leaders attack Jesus, but they attack anyone who affiliates themselves with him. If you choose Jesus over the law, you are out. This is why the parents of the blind man refused to answer the questions of the leaders. And I also think it’s why the religious leaders of today attack anyone who doesn’t fall into their idea of "orthodoxy." Remember, there’s a big difference between "unorthodox" and "heretical." Jesus was unorthodox, but he wasn’t heretical.

And in one of the most hypocritical statements in the bible, the leaders say, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses." Do you remember the Old Testament reading from last week? "Did you bring us out here to die?" Even though God spoke directly to Moses, and he had those ten plagues, the pillar of fire and cloud of smoke and crossing the Red Sea thing going for him, the Israelites were still ready to stone him.

What this tells me is that, regardless of who the leader is, people don’t want to change. They have God and all their answers wrapped up in that tiny little box that they can understand and they don’t want to be challenged. Because if somebody challenges them, if somebody starts asking questions about what’s in the box, then they might have to confront the fact that all those answers they have so carefully worked out might be inadequate.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that anything goes. But we need to take a good hard look at what we believe is core to our faith. Is it our own set of religious laws and holiness codes that determines who is in and who is out? Or is it simply the Trinity, the resurrection and that Jesus is the Messiah and our Savior? I tend to think it’s the latter. And if we truly follow Jesus, then everything else will fall into place.

Remember, it wasn’t the religious authorities that welcomed the former blind man, it was Jesus. So in the end, the question we need to ask ourselves is this: Are we walking around in the dark blinded by our own set of predetermined rules on what constitutes "orthodoxy;" or are we willing to be a bit "unorthodox" as we reach out to those different from us as we try to shine the light of Jesus on a dark world?

So go ahead, be a little unorthodox and help light up the world.