Religious Turf

1 Samuel 16:1-13; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Several years ago, when I was serving as a pastor out in Strawberry Point, Iowa, I had the opportunity to help with the settlement of a family of Cambodian refugees. And I remember how, with a bit of nervousness, I went to my church's Administrative Board with the proposal that they help in the project. At that time I didn't know how they might consider such a project. About a week before the meeting was to take place, I remember discussing the matter with some of the church's members who were standing around inside the church. And one of the older members, Jim Gibbs, was listening to what I was saying. But, I didn't know what he was thinking. All I knew was that he was generally an outspoken member of the board. In addition, he gave the appearance of roughness and rugged individualism. And as he was listening to me, he would only say one thing: "This is something I feel strongly about," he said.

Well, immediately, I began to worry. "If Jim Gibbs feels strongly about this matter," I thought, "then this proposal to bring some Cambodian Refugees to Strawberry Point will probably fail. And, so, as I got ready for that Administrative Board meeting, I took my best arguments with me and went in, fearing the worst, knowing that Jim Gibbs felt strongly about it and would probably shoot the whole idea down.

But, man, was I surprised! When we got to that particular item on the agenda, I hardly had a chance to open my mouth when old Jim Gibbs almost stood up and said, again, "This is something I feel strongly about! We've got to help those people, and I'll give the first $100.00 to the project!"

My jaw dropped as I saw all of my presuppositions blown away. Instead of being my stiffest opposition, it turned out that Jim Gibbs was going to be my greatest ally. Not only did he give his $100.00, but he drove to the airport and got the family when they arrived. And I don't think there was hardly a week that went by that Jim Gibbs wasn't helping that family with groceries and meat until they got on their feet.

As I look at our scripture passages for today, I am reminded of that incident wherein I had my presuppositions blown away. For in our Old Testament lesson for today, that is exactly what happened to Samuel. Having been sent by God to Bethlehem to the house of Jesse, Samuel was directed by God to anoint one of Jesse's sons to be the next king over Israel and Judah. So, Samuel went to Jesse's house and had seven of his son's line up in front of him. And as he looked at these sons, he noticed how tall and handsome Jesse's eldest son, Eliab, was. And just looking at him, Samuel just knew that this had to be the son of Jesse that the Lord wanted him to anoint to be the next king over Israel and Judah. After all, he was the eldest son. And it was customary for the eldest sons to be given such honors. And, besides, he was so tall and handsome.

But the Lord stopped Samuel from anointing Eliab, reminding him that "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." And, so, Samuel had this culturally prescribed presupposition blown away, as he considered who was going to be king over Israel and Judah. And, not only did he pass by Jesse's eldest son, but he passed by all of Jesse's sons, except for David, the youngest of them all.

Indeed, God surprised Samuel by doing the unexpected, by ignoring the conventions of humanity, and by going after the least to be the greatest of them all.

One of the plagues of our modern culture is that we are so much dependent upon appearances than we are upon what really is in the human heart. When we are asked to go choose a leader, for example, we don't choose that leader by what is in his heart, we don't choose that leader because we know that individual on a person to person level. Rather, we choose someone to be our leader on the basis of how a public relation's expert has made that person appear to the public. And, as we have seen in the past, the work of a good P.R. man can sometimes do a pretty good job of selling a pretty questionable character. As in any campaign, we are far better off knowing the issues or the candidate personally, not allowing some advance men, or gossip, or half-truth get in the way of the facts. And, yet, in our very complex society, this may be a very difficult thing to do.

Or, take the church as another example. Sometimes we have some treasured presuppositions that we have held for many years. Out in Maryland, in a church I served while I was in seminary, one of the presuppositions that was cherished by the congregation was that a black person was not welcome inside the church. And, so, I remember the controversy we had when it was learned that the high school choir which had been invited to sing in the church had one black girl in it. Unfortunately, as a student pastor, I was not in the position to challenge that cherished presupposition. And, so, the invitation to the choir to sing at our church was withdrawn.

Jesus challenged some of the presuppositions of his own day when he healed a blind man on the Sabbath. In our gospel lesson for today we read how, one by one, these presuppositions were blown away. First, as Jesus met this man who had been born blind, someone asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" And Jesus said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."

When Jesus said this he walked all over somebody's religious turf. Indeed, for many years, the religious people of Israel had made a living out of making people believe that birth defects, disease, and accidents had take place because of someone's sin and God's judgment as a result of that sin. When a baby was born blind, or disfigured, the religious leaders explained it by saying that the parents of the baby had committed some sort of a sin so that now they were being punished. And the religious leaders made a lot of money with this sort of talk, because the parents would then go to the temple and make an offering, hoping that their offering would persuade God to look favorably upon them, once again.

So, now you can understand how Jesus' reply that the man's blindness hadn't been caused by anyone's sin could have angered the religious leaders of the day.

But, more than this, Jesus healed the blind man. And he did it on the Sabbath. Now, to show you how picky the religious leaders of Jesus' day were, they got angry with Jesus, not simply because he had healed on the Sabbath, but because he had spit on the ground, mixed the spit with the dirt, and made a salve for the blind man to put on his eyes. As far as the religious leaders were concerned, this was working on the Sabbath. And that was a sin.

But, even more than this, when Jesus healed the blind man he created a witness who went before the religious leaders and testified concerning the thing Jesus had done. In fact, the very man who had been blind for his entire life ended up showing the religious leaders of Israel how blind they really were, inside.

Our scripture lessons for today would ask us to consider what sort of religious presuppositions we may have that keep us from really appreciating Jesus' part in our life. Indeed, if Jesus offered us something new, something different, something challenging to us, would such an offer tread upon our cherished religious turf? Or would we be able to see Jesus, as the blind man saw him?

In the summer of 1959 on one of the hottest days in August, a power failure in New York City shut off air conditioners, fans and other electrical equipment in hundreds of apartments and offices. Particularly hard hit were workers on the upper floors of many buildings, who found themselves in pitch darkness without any elevators running.

But in one of these buildings the problem was easily solved. When darkness hit the guild for the Jewish Blind, the two hundred blind workers, who knew every inch of the building by touch, led the seventy helpless sighted workers down the steps and onto Broadway.

Certainly, there come those times in our lives when God asks us to let go of our presuppositions, to faithfully go into the unknown, taking hold of the hand of what we thought was uncertainty, but which is truly the hand of God. Amen.