“The Gift of Sight”
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Communion Meditation for the Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 2, 2008
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Ephesians 5:8-14/John 9:1-41]

“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

“Amazing Grace” was, if I may say, an amazing film, and for many reasons. There is one scene, however, that, out of the whole film, stands out for me. William Wilberforce goes to visit John Newton, Anglican priest, hymn writer and former slaver, who has now gone blind. Newton quotes a line from the hymn, “I once was lost, but now am found/was blind, but now I see” and says, “I wrote that, didn’t I?” Wilberforce affirms it and at that point Newton grasps him and says, “Now (referring to his physical blindness) I know it to be actually true.” “I was blind, but now I see.” When we say, “I see” what we’re saying is, “I know – I understand.” And often we want to be the ones who see, who understand when no one else around us gets it. I’m not sure if it’s the need to be right that’s a part of the human condition – and I’m also not sure if it’s only just men who are afflicted with this part of it, though we manifest it more regularly – or what it is that drives this, but I think we’ve all experienced it in ourselves and in others.

When Jesus healed that blind man sitting there in front of him he was reaching out to teach us a lesson and to give us the gift of sight – just as he gave that gift to the man born blind. The lesson is this – God sees differently than we do and we should seek to see the same way God does. The blind man had greater sight than all the people standing around him who had eyes that worked. All Jesus did was to give him physical sight – the spiritual sight was already there, it recognized God at work. Only the blind man was really able to say, “I see” – both before and after his healing, because he had been given the gift of sight.

John’s story is very appropriate, then, as we mark the halfway point of our Lenten period of self-reflection. This story is an invitation to think about the state of our spiritual sight. The great Puritan poet, preacher, and theologian John Milton was blind. He once wrote to someone:

I would, sir, prefer my blindness to yours; yours is a cloud spread over the mind, which darkens both the light of reason and of conscience. Mine keeps from view only the colored surfaces of things, while it leaves me at liberty to contemplate the beauty and stability of virtue and of truth. . . .Let me then be the most feeble creature alive, as long as that feebleness serves to invigorate the energies of my rational and immortal spirit; as long as in that obscurity, in which I am enveloped, the light of the divine presence more clearly shines.

We have to ask ourselves if there is a cloud spread over mind or heart, even though the eyes seem to see quite well.

It goes along with what another great mind of English literature and art, William Blake, had to say in “Auguries of Innocence:”

To see a world in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.

When we begin to see, as God wants us to see, we experience the spiritual even in the midst of the material. We begin to understand the interpenetration of the Transcendent with our world. God touches us and we begin to understand why the Celts talked about “thin places” where the Transcendent, the Divine is very, very close to us. But to see this, to know it, to feel it we need the gift of sight.

The Jewish critics of the blind man and Jesus protested that their sight was quite clear. They saw and understood what had happened and very well. Yet the blind man pointed out to them, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.” There was the evidence; they knew their facts and nothing could get them to see differently – not even the familiar figure of one that had been blind earlier that very same day. And when his parents came they were told, “This is your son whom you say was born blind…” Pardon the pun, but sometimes visual evidence isn’t enough, and, in this case, seeing wasn’t believing, except for a blind man.

Biblical commentator Christine Roy Yoder says that this story asks a series of difficult questions:

To what extent are we really blind, despite our protestations that we see? Are there values or traditions to which we so cling that we miss God’s revelatory work right in front of us? Are there expectations, loyalties, or prejudices we hold so firmly that we dismiss those who testify before us in truth? It is a messy business of mud and spittle in the eyes to see the world differently. But that isn’t the hard part. What do we do when we see clearly? Do we tell the story again and again? Do we say with conviction, “I was blind but now I see” even when neighbors walk away or powers-that-be make it costly?

I found this question she raised the most difficult of all: What do we do when we see clearly? When we open ourselves to God’s healing touch, the water flows, and we become “children of light” the story isn’t over. In fact, it’s just really beginning. We’re given spiritual sight so that light may shine in the dark places of our world. Our light is to expose “unfruitful acts of darkness,” so that the Spirit of righteousness, justice, love and peace may flourish among us to a rich harvest. Light came into our lives so, as Milton said, the divine presence might more clearly shine in our world.

Long ago, the mystic Catherine of Siena wrote:

So there can be neither a true will

Nor living faith

Without action.

This light of faith nourishes the fire within the soul and makes it grow,

For we cannot feel the fire of your charity

Unless the light shows us your love and affection for us.

You, light, are also the fuel for the fire,

Since it is you that makes the fire grow in the soul.

Just as wood makes a material fire grow and become more intense,

You, light, are the fuel that makes charity grow in the soul,

For you show the soul divine goodness.

And charity in turn nourishes you,

For charity desires to know its God and you want to satisfy it.

If there is neither “true will nor living faith without action,” all of us must act and live in the light. Our behavior, our attitudes, everything must reflect the light, the fire of God’s charity burning within us as individuals and as a church. It implies that once we’ve been given the gift of sight that we’ll do something with it, that we’ll use it to make a difference and not just in our own lives, but in the lives of others. Just as John Newton, the self-proclaimed wretch, turned from a life of enslaving others to one of offering spiritual sight and taking an active role in abolishing the slave trade. The gift of sight means we keep opening our eyes to see the wonder of God at work in us and in the world around us; to realize those “thin places,” where God is so close, are never far from us.

The first action, I believe, is to be people of prayer and of study, because one cannot contemplate the wonder of God and remain as one was. When God touches us, we see differently. The blind man was the truly sighted one as those with physical sight only became even more blind. God’s presence makes a difference – if we see it. We learn to accept the gift of sight through our exploration of God’s Word and through prayer. The second action is to have prayer and study bear fruit in the daily living of life – by the way we go about living with family and friends, conducting our business, and reaching to others.

Let me conclude today with a story I came across that was told by and about Steven Covey. Covey is the author of the best selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and he tells of an experience that he had one Sunday morning in a New York Subway car.

People were sitting quietly. Some were reading newspapers, some were dozing, others were simply contemplating with their eyes closed. . .

A man and his children entered the car. The children were soon yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s newspapers. It was all very disturbing, and yet the father just sat there next to them and did nothing. It was not difficult to feel irritated. Steve could not believe the man could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild and do nothing about it. . .

Steve said to the man, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?” The man lifted his gaze, as if coming into consciousness for the first time and said, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”

Steve says, “Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? Suddenly I saw things differently. Because I saw differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or behavior. My heart was filled with this man’s pain. Feelings of compassion and sympathy flowed freely. “You’re wife just died? Oh, I’m so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?”

Nothing changed in that subway car. . .except a way of seeing it all and, with the seeing, a change of behavior.

[from Wm. J. Bausch A World of Stories for Preachers and Teachers 23rd Publications, 1998]

When Jesus invites us into the presence of God, when Jesus touches us with healing hands, when Jesus opens our eyes it makes a difference. We see now and if we see with those eyes that God gave us, then the world is a different place and we’re different people -- we have to be. Part of the problem with mainline Christianity for the last fifty years has been to admit that we see. We have been afraid to live as Christ has called us to live. And that means to be different and to make a difference. Churches and people and societies only change when people are different – that’s what our faith promises. That it will make us different from the inside out, even the way we see. The gift of sight, a healing touch, is offered to us so that we might be whole and the world around us might be perceived differently and touched by God through us. If we have been recipients of the gift of sight, if we have received “Amazing Grace,” it cannot stop there, it can’t stop there. To have been blind and now to see makes one have to make a difference – “I once was blind, but now, now I see.”