I See It!

In the past couple of weeks, I have had several interesting conversations about "church" and God which reminded me of this scene from John's Gospel (click the title to read the passage).

For some of the people we meet, a traditional church just never worked for them. They went, but felt nothing, experienced nothing. Many are not interested in placing a value judgement on those who are church goers but they struggle with a basic problem: what if their experience of God or Jesus differs from the one that is being proposed within the walls of the building they went to each week? What if they caught some glimmer of God somewhere else, perhaps in their work life, or while at the beach? What if they saw some aspect of God present in a place they never expected to see it because no one else saw it there before?

This is the dilemma that faces the person that encounters Jesus in John 9. Everything about this encounter parallels the way many of us discover Jesus in our own lives. This man has been "blind" since birth. It is obvious later in the passage that his parents are religious, or at the very least, thought they brought their son up according to the proper traditional ways. Jesus encounters this man and cures him of his blindness! What an amazing thing to have happen.

Or is it? Now this man, who was practically ostricized before, faces the religious leaders of his community who want him to explain what has happened. They want to know how it is possible for this man, born blind, to now suddenly receive his sight. You would think that if they had all the religious understanding they claim to posess that this should have been simple. They would either need to rejoice that God had somehow entered into the world to cure this man, or that a faithful praying community had somehow led to a healing unlike that seen anywhere else.

The problem for these leaders is that if they admit that Jesus heals the man, they have to rethink what God might be up to in the world. God may not be contained in the synagogue. God may belong to more than just the intellectual religious leaders. Jesus' healing of this man means that God comes to us; that God's grace opens our eyes in ways we never expected.

What has always fascinated me about this story is the fact that a man regains his sight and no one rejoices...save him. His parents disown him. In fact, they are cautious about even claiming that this person who can see is their son. "We know he was born blind, but ask him how this happened. He's old enough to answer for himself," they say.

When we discover God's presence around a table of friends enjoying coffee, or when we offer a helping hand or listening ear to another, others may find that this is just not "churchy" enough. Seeing God working in our community in new ways, or pulling away our own veil to truly see God's presence all around us can be dangerous to those who have contained God in a little space to be experienced one a week.

Following Jesus, means that once our own eyes are opened, we may not even be able to explain the "why" behind what it is we are doing. We just know that there was a way of living before we discovered Jesus, and a new direction now that we see the holiness that exists around us. Reconnecting to that sense of the holy in our daily walk, wherever you are, is what By the Way is all about.

The religious leaders in this story get all caught up in the "polity" of what has happened. They need to know the how, what , and who. The answers will not change what they do. In fact, they seem to even get a bit incensed with the man's challenge that the things he has experienced must have come from God. The Gospel works a little bit differently. We do not give up one set of laws, only to have new ones. The Gospel is for people like you and me, often blind to what God is up to, but open to discovering and being a part of whatever that is on a daily basis. It's about believing that Jesus goes ahead of us to show us just what a world could look like, if we listen carefully to what he is calling us to be.

In a way it is like telling people you are expecting a baby and instead of rejoicing in the new birth, they ask questions like, "Where will they go to college?", "What kind of car will you let them drive?", "When will you let them start dating?"

The kingdom of God allows us to worry less about these truly unimportant questions, and calls us into a relationship that invites us to become the people we were created to be. It is all around you if you look. Do you see it?