Who and Whose we are

A sermon preached at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Mason, Texas.
The lectionary readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent are here.

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Last week, we had a story about a woman whose name we are not given. Today, we have a story about a man whose name we are not given. On Sundays when I’m not preaching, I write a reflection on the lessons in my blog and as I was thinking about the woman at the well, I wondered why John told this story in such great detail and yet left out the detail of her name. Some could speculate that it was because she was a woman but here we have John telling another story in great detail with a man who’s not given a name.

I think there’s at least two things going on with this non-naming. One should make us ponder who do we choose to leave nameless and why? And another could be that we see ourselves in the nameless individuals as a way to clear the dust and cobwebs away from how and where we ground our identity with a fresh way of seeing ourselves and others.

In both stories, Jesus welcomes a person who society has pushed to the margins because so much of the time, we humans label others by society’s rules rather than open our own eyes to see the image of God in others. And so many times we find our own identity in ways other than by the image within us.

Jesus’ disciples want to identify this man by what they presume is a condition caused by sin. This man’s blindness makes them uncomfortable and so they want to understand it, to know what caused it so they can ease their discomfort and justify pushing him to the margins.

The pharisees turned a blind eye to the gift and tried to discredit the healing because it was the Sabbath, yet again losing sight of the true intent of God’s laws.

Others didn’t want to believe his sight was restored, didn’t want to rejoice at the gift of sight but chose instead to try and discredit his story to ease their discomfort and justify pushing him to the margins.

His own parents tried not to get in the middle of the debate, keeping their focus on preserving their own comfort and justify how they had left their son to beg from the neighbors.

Can you imagine being in this man’s sandals? You’ve been blind since birth, pushed to the edge of society, treated as if you aren’t fully human and perhaps even believing that yourself, and suddenly a man comes to you and in a healing reminiscent of the creations story where God forms humans from mud, you can see! And instead of rejoicing with you, everyone, including your parents, are squabbling and bickering about whether or not it was done properly. Instead of asking what they can do to help you adjust to this new life, folks are more concerned with staying they way they are.

This man has been given a renewed life, a life of seeing and knowing who and Whose he is, finding his identity not in society’s definition but as God’s Beloved. And no one was happy about it because this miraculous change in him meant that they had to change too. All of the reasons they had seen him as less-than were gone and now they had to change the way they saw him.

The only name John uses as he tells this story of people choosing between growth and stagnation is Jesus, the one who knows without a doubt who and Whose he is. We get it mixed up all the time. One day we may feel we are the man, another the disciples, another the pharisees, the parents, or the people in the crowd. Do we find our identity in our political party, in our financial standing, in our work titles, in our family name, by who we exclude from our lives? How do we identify others? By our own comfort level? By the last worst thing they have done?  By where they were born or what they look like?  

When we feel insecure or like an impostor, when we are not living into who God made us to be or when we are taking up too much space in this world, or push others to the margins, we’ve lost sight of our identity as God’s beloved.  

At the beginning of the story when Jesus says the man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him, he isn’t saying that God made him blind so people would worship God. The God who made us in love for love and to love wouldn’t do such a thing. Jesus is showing us in flesh and blood how we can learn to reveal God’s work by accepting and loving those we want to push to the margins because they make us uncomfortable. This story is to help us see where we’d prefer to stay stagnant than do the hard work of healing and growing.

It is when we live our life growing into who God is always calling us to be that reveal God’s works in this world.

It is when we ground our identity in the image of God within us that we reveal God to this world.

It is when we have the eyes to see the image of God in others, all others, that we reveal God’s work of love.

Jesus took us back to the creation story by healing the man with mud. When we talk of ours or other’s sinfulness, when we define ourselves or others as sinners, I think we’ve forgotten that God created humans and called us good, not wretched or broken or anything but good. The sin thing didn’t appear until chapter 3 and it was our own choosing, not God’s plan. God has been pursuing us to remind us we are God’s beloved ever since. God’s goodness and mercy are with us, in the core of who and Whose we are.

Remember that you are God’s beloved, made good, made to reveal the image of God and shine the light of God’s love. And remember that everyone else is too, even if it’s hard to see. Amen.