4 Lent Yr A

“Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; all else be nought to me, save that thou art – thou my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.” I have been wondering mightily what it means to really see, what true vision really is. And as I wonder, I recall the words from the movie Avatar. You may remember them. As our characters, Jake Sully and Neytiri, journey together on the planet Pandora, Neytiri says to Jake Sully, “I see you.” Neytiri teaches Jake Sully the ways of her culture, her language, her natural world, she shows him the mystery of life on Pandora, he walks beside her learning the ways of the people there, and somewhere, sometime on that journey, Jake Sully says to Neytiri, “I see you.” I see you, what does it mean to see? For these characters it means so much more than what is absorbed through the open eyes. It means that the heart and the soul, the body and the mind are engaged in knowing, listening, being, and suffering. It is a journey of seeing, a journey of knowing. In this story, the scales do not fall from the eyes in one instant, as they did for Paul on the Damascus Road. In this story, it is the relationship that affects the seeing.

What does it mean to really see? “Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; all else be nought to me, save that thou art – thou my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.” “I see you,” the people of Pandora say to their beloved, this hymn sings of a similar seeing. Seeing, vision, takes all of our senses and our sensibilities, seeing engages our entire being, and seeing presumes relationship, it presumes walking together.

As I have pondered this question, I also think of Kathy Davis, who is blind. When Kathy wants to see something, she takes it in her hands, she touches it, and turns it, she puts her fingers in the holes, she feels the sharp edges, she asks about its color. What does it really mean to see?

In the story of seeing we have before us today, having one’s eyes open does not presume seeing. In this story there are many characters, there is the man whose eyes Jesus opens. Jesus made mud and opened his eyes. When some of the Pharisees questioned him, his response is that Jesus is a prophet. And yet the Samaritan woman at the well has already named Jesus the Messiah, many Samaritans from that city believed in him because they saw the woman’s passion and joy at her discovery that the man at the well is the Messiah. Jesus has healed the official’s son, the man by the Sheep Gate who could not enter the pool took his mat up and walked, Jesus feeds five thousand people, he walks across the water, and yet this man whose eyes were opened calls Jesus a prophet. It is only later, after being questioned, after the dawning of who Jesus must be, does the man really begin to see who Jesus really is.

The man’s parents and the neighbors could not see that it was Jesus in their midst. And the Pharisees could see nothing at all, except the sin of the parents, and the sin of healing on the Sabbath. What does it really mean to see?

There is a clue in the reading from Samuel. The story we hear today is the middle of a longer story about the Lord choosing a king for Israel, the Lord does not really want a king for Israel, but the Israelites insist. So the Lord looks over each of these candidates for kingship, and each of them is rejected. Eventually, the one chosen is David, and we all know David does not turn out perfectly. But in the middle of the story today, we hear “for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. “

Is that what it means to really see? Surely that would be the meaning of the words “I see you,” as Jake Sully says them to Neytiri. Surely that would be the prayer in the words of our hymn today, be what I see Lord, be my best thought day and night, in my waking and my sleeping. What if we look upon one another with open eyes from the heart, would that change us? What if we look upon one another with eyes that forgive, would that transform our lives? What if we look upon one another with eyes of compassion, would we live more kindly, more gently? And, what if we truly believe that God looks upon us with love, forgiveness, and compassion, would we be transformed?

It is indeed the journey with Jesus and with one another that creates in us the gift of seeing. The blind man’s eyes indeed were opened, but it took some time before he was able to really see, before he was able to see who it was who gave him sight, before he was able to say “I was blind, now I see.” You see, this is fundamentally a story about grace. These stories before us today, all of them, the ancient stories from the Old Testament, the stories from the time of Jesus, and the very new stories that are told today, these are stories about grace. These are stories that reveal the truth of God in our midst. They are stories that reveal the truth of pain and suffering, of death and resurrection. They are stories that reveal the truth of disappointment and loss, and the new life that always results. They are stories that reveal the truth of communion and of community.

Together we walk the road, we make this journey together. We can’t do it alone. We can’t bear the pain and suffering alone, and we don’t want to bear the joy by ourselves. To see one another with eyes of the heart, to look upon one another with forgiveness and compassion, is to acknowledge our shared humanity; it is to recognize Jesus in our midst.

This season of Lent is a gift of opportunity. Lent gives us another chance to see, to see God in our midst, to see the gift of forgiveness and grace, to see one another as we journey together on this road of faith, to see one another on this road of compassion and mercy. Lent helps us to have clearer vision; it gives us a longer view.

And as we see more clearly, we realize that forgiveness and compassion are made manifest in who we are and what we do. What does it mean to really see? It means that our hearts are open to each other, especially those with whom we disagree. It means that we respond to God’s amazing grace by really seeing those who we are so unlike. It means that we approach God’s creation with our eyes, our hearts, our souls, wide open. And when we do that, we are able to see the need that is in our church and our community. The needs that you and I are able to address. We can feed people, we can clothe people, we can have hope and be the hope for others.

And as we do that, we reach out to each other, we hold hands, because most definitely we will step in the mess and the muck. We will step in the holes; we will trip over the obstacles. This Christian journey is a journey we take together, because together, we see more clearly.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.

3 Epiphany Yr C

I remember the days when we had one telephone line in our house; maybe we had two telephones, one on the kitchen wall and one in my parents’ room. I also remember being yelled at to get off the phone, because my dad, being a self-employed block layer and cement man as we called him, depended on receiving phone calls at home regarding work. I didn’t really spend that much time on the phone myself, but there were eight of us, I imagine it was hard for dad to get his calls.

I would watch my kids, talking to two and three friends at a time while listening to music and allegedly doing homework while sitting at the computer. If I need to make or receive a phone call I can do it from my cell phone, or even from the landline that gets very little use. From our computer we can keep in touch with friends that have been dispersed all over the country and all over the globe. Away from the computer we can facebook from our blackberry’s and iphones. Doctors can take pictures of our insides and send them anywhere instantly for another doctor to take a look at on their computer screen, and tell us what’s up almost instantly. It’s an amazing world. It is a world I lament and a world I rejoice in all at the same time.

When the words of I Corinthians were written, could anyone have imagined this world we live in today? In 200, and 2000 years, will anyone be able to imagine the world we live in today? Just the other day, there was a group of us meeting, and we were talking about language, and how the meaning of words we have taken for granted has changed, because the experience of people today has changed. Some of the words we talked about are community and body of Christ. How do you talk about these things in this world when community can as easily mean a group of people gathered together in a church to rehearse the story of salvation, as a group of people logged into virtual church in second life, miles or even countries away from each other connecting the dots of their own stories?

For some time I have lamented what I have perceived to be the lack of community and connection between people because of the internet and all it offers, good and bad. I have decided no longer to lament but to rejoice in the ability of people to connect not only face to face, but keyboard to keyboard. I am able to keep in touch with classmates by e-mail and facebook, and when we meet face to face it is as if we have never been apart.

I know all of this has not diminished, but in fact expanded how I understand community, how I understand the body of Christ. We are all connected, maybe even now more than ever. What we do here in Rapid City matters to people as far away as Haiti. Maybe if Paul were writing today he would use a metaphor like the one that James Cameron uses in the new movie Avatar. Maybe you’ve heard of it; maybe you’ve seen it. Avatar is a story about the “outsider” coming into a world of “insiders,” becoming one of the “insiders,” and saving them from destruction. The people are hunters and gatherers, and have a great spirituality of connection with the planet, the animals, and the plant life. Each can literally connect with creation through appendages from their heads. They can connect to their ancestors, they can connect to the beasts they ride, and they can even connect to their Creator. Our main character gets separated from his team and taken in by the indigenous people on the planet Pandora, and eventually learns to become one. Through the process, he learns to love them and become one in more than just his appearance. They accept him as one of them until he must go on his own journey of self-exploration to fight for the people and culture he loves. By becoming one of them, he ends up saving them.

There’s another story with the same archetypes, one that we Christians know pretty well. One about a true outsider who comes to our world, becoming like us in order to save us. We know this as the Incarnation. God, in the form of human flesh in Jesus Christ, becomes one of us, in order for us to be connected to God in a way we have never experienced before. Avatar’s story is one of incarnation, one of love for God’s creation, one of transformation in order to understand.

Many would say that the Messianic archetype stretches far beyond the story in which Christians have placed their faith. It’s a story that has been told in many religions pre-dating Christianity. But that’s what makes the story so good. It’s a story that will never end. Humanity will always need its saviors. Movies like Avatar create fantastic parables to help us understand the world around us. That we are in need of something greater than ourselves and how blessed we are to have a God who loves us so much that God wants to become one of us. Avatar may not be a factual story, but it is a true story. The people are connected as a web, to each other, and to the entire environment around them. Much like the body that Paul describes.

Jesus embodies, enfleshes, incarnates, and proclaims God’s love in ways that make a difference for the lives of others. This is what we mean by body of Christ. Transformation is something that doesn’t happen to us like magic, transformation is something that is effected by our participation in the body of Christ, the community of faith, by proclaiming and making a difference for the lives of others on Jesus’ behalf.

And transformation doesn’t happen unless all of the parts of the body participate; all of the parts of the body, even the stinky feet. We tend to place limitations on parts of the body. We tend to think that participation in the body has to be on our terms, and by that I mean on the terms of those of us who are already here, who already claim the salvation of Jesus, but the truth is that there so many who could contribute so much to the body of Christ but don’t, because we look at them like they are stinky feet. These are people who find community through the internet, through texting, and at coffee shops. These are also people like you and me who refuse community because it doesn’t meet their needs. Community is not meant to meet our needs, community is meant to meet the others needs.

But, the body of Christ is not complete, it only limps along when we are all not present, and I mean present in the relationship sense of the word. I can be present with someone even when I am not physically in the same room with me.

We are transformed by the telling of the story, the telling of the story of God’s creation and blessing, of God coming into our world as one of us to show us the way. We tell this story and we hear this story and it becomes our story. It becomes part of us and we become part of it and it makes us different, it transforms us into the people God intends us to be. And God intends us to be people who love and serve one another. Not only do we tell the story of God’s activity in the lives of God’s people when we gather together in whatever way we gather together, we also need to tell our own stories of God’s activity in our own lives. It is when all of us, all parts of the body, contribute our own stories that the body can be complete.

The challenge to us right now is how we build up the body of Christ in this world without walls, in this world without limits it seems, in this world where community no longer necessarily means the gathered people. How do we show forth God’s love and wholeness in the body of Christ, in a broken and fragmented world? How do we invite people into this web of relationship with one another and with God?

We do it by showing God’s love in the world, by being God’s love in the world. We are God’s face, and what we do and what we say matters to the web, to the body of Christ. Let us be the embodiment of Jesus in this world; let us manifest God’s love in ways that make a difference for the lives of other. Let us make visible God’s justice in every part of our lives, in our work, in our schools, and in all our conversations. And let us invite others into the work that God is blessing here at St. Andrew’s.

The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.