St. Luke s Lent 4A It s a medical fact: In the human body, the place where a broken bone heals actually becomes stronger than before the break. Last year my book club read Strong at the Broken Places by Richard Cohen. Cohen who suffers from MS and is a cancer survivor spent three years chronicling the lives of five individuals living with chronic diseases: Lew Gehrig s Disease, lymphoma, Crohn s disease; muscular dystrophy; and bipolar disorder. All five stories are both inspiring and heartbreaking. Two threads run through the five experiences. All five found within themselves and with the help of family and friends, the strength to live complete lives and to help other people who happen to have chronic illness to do the same. All five gained new identities. The hardest part of their living with chronic illness is the ignorance of the public. The chronically ill are diminished every day by those who wish they would just go away. Cohen writes, For the sick, living among the healthy is no piece of cake. Empathy is in short supply. There are daily brushes with public ignorance and indifference and the stigma of being sick in a society that worships health, brand and define the chronically ill. Many of us in this room have a chronic disease of some sort. We could go around the room and document our aches and our pains. We may grow out of some pains but a chronic illness means that we have to live with it always. That is hard to swallow. Perhaps the man born blind was also easily dismissed. Even the disciples of Jesus ask if he or his parents have sinned since he is blind. Someone must be responsible for the blindness. And then along comes Jesus who says that this is not the point. Blindness is not because we have character deficiencies.
Then Jesus did something that was highly unusual, he spat on the ground, made clay with the spittle and the dirt, anointed the man's eyes, and sent him off to take a bath. The man came back with sight and insight into his own life. Jesus did not buy into the system that blames the victim. Rather he uses the stuff of this earth to heal the man. Jesus took ordinary parts of our universe to lay hold of his healing powers. There is no need to blame anyone for illness, certainly not the person who is suffering. And Jesus is saying that healing comes from that which is around us and from touch. We do not have to be super heroes in order to help heal. And as the story goes on, the man says less in each scene about the miracle and more about who Jesus is. Besides healing, the story is about identity. About the identity of Jesus and about the identity of the blind man as he begins to see in a new way. I can t imagine what it would be like to live without eyesight. My father was blind. He did not realize that when he was experiencing flashes of light that the retinas on both eyes were detaching. His brother was visiting him and it did not seem like a big enough deal to stop and go to the doctor. He waited too long and his total sight was gone for several years. He had sight issues for the rest of his life. He had to relearn everything. He would accidentally turn on the hot water in the shower instead of the cold. And he could not drive. That was a terrible hardship for someone who was so independent. And my father had to reinvent himself. His world, as an engineer, revolved around sight planning, seeing small details, drafting his ideas unto paper. It was an issue of identity as my father learned how to survive, but more importantly, how to see in a new way. I remember walking with him, when he had less than ten percent of his eyesight, on a tour of a Civil War battlefield. And as he walked he stumbled on the mounds of dirt that were in the field. But he gradually gained more confidence and started asking
questions about what was around him and to my surprise, he knelt down and tried to read a sign that explained some aspect of the battle. Then my father touched the earth and slowly pulled up a handful of dirt. He smelled it. My father was learning to see viscerally in a new way. It forced me to change. I had to slow down. And I had to be more attentive, to take on a new role as I read stories to my father. I was learning to see too. In the gospel story, there is confusion about the man s identity. It is he, said some, while others countered: No, but it is someone like him. And the healed man kept insisting: I am the man! The Pharisees were also questioning the identity of Jesus. Is he a man from God or not? When the neighbors take the man to the Pharisees, the man born blind first repeats some of what happened to him and then reflects Jesus must be a prophet. His controversy with the teachers of the law helps the man see Jesus in a new way. After his parents insist that the man must speak for himself, he tells his story in eight words, I was blind, and now I can see. His healing is a sign that reveals Jesus for the man but remains a sin in the eyes of the Pharisees. The blind man sees; the seeing teachers remain blind. Perhaps you have seen the film Amazing Grace. It tells the story of one man named John Newton. In 1773, in a church in rural England, the congregation gathered for worship. The minister, Newton, rose to preach and began with a poem he had written to describe his conversion experience 25 years earlier. "Amazing Grace," he began, "How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind but now I see." Newton had been the notorious captain of a slave ship. While crossing the Atlantic on his way home, he and his crew
encountered a terrible storm. Assuming all was lost, Newton cried out, "Lord, have mercy on us!" They survived. Newton never forgot that moment. He eventually gave up the slave trade. He went into the ministry, and became a leading voice in the movement to abolish slavery. His reversed his identity. One moment he was blind to the presence of God, the next he could see. Ironically, by the end of his life he actually did lose his eyesight, but never the vision that sustained his faith. This morning s gospel is about seeing on two levels. The first is about the physical healing that comes when human healers care for and use the gifts of this earth to heal one another. It is about receiving the gift of physical sight with all of its wonder. It is about the goodness of this earth with all of its capacity to heal. The second level is about the gift of sight that comes to the heart. The gift of sight allows us to give voice to what we know, to speak out about the gifts that God has given us. We are responsible to act on that which we see. This week it might be a good Lenten meditation to ask the question, What have I been blind to? What is it that causes me to stumble, to move in the dark without joy? And then to have empathy for our situation. How do I change bit by bit? What in my definition of self needs to shift? The questions are the beginning of our journey into the world of light and sight. And one exercise for you this week. Go outside, maybe to a garden, close your eyes, smell the damp sweetness of the earth. Dab your body with Mother Earth and ask Jesus to help cure any blindness that you may have. It may be a blindness about yourself, your own self-care. Or about a neighbor who is in need and has been bypassed. A hard challenge would be to turn on the internet and look up the phrase starving children in Syria. Look at the faces of the children whose images emerge. Really look. We are in the midst of an international crisis.
Eleven million Syrians are on the run. Many are starving children. If we cannot take a child into our home, can we send some finances to an agency who can be our eyes there? Can be part of our identity, our outreach? These are examples and the challenge is to heal one broken bone in this world. Just one. And we will be stronger at the broken places. "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see."