Blinded by the Light of the World

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 23 and John 9: 1-41 Sermon Title: Blinded by the Light of the World Preached on March 19, 2023 Has anyone here ever dreamed of having his own fire truck? On Monday morning, I pulled into the parking lot, and there was an antique fire truck parked in the church parking lot. I got out of my car, took a picture, and thought to myself, “How amazing is this? Someone left a fire truck in our parking lot!” Only here’s the thing: There it was, an antique fire truck, but I don’t think everyone noticed it, or, if she did, she stayed in her car and just looked, without getting out to make a big deal of it. It was parked in the lot where a lot of preschool parents line up to drop off their kids, and I can imagine many of the preschoolers noticing the fire truck. Surely, they wanted to get out to climb on it and couldn’t because I can also imagine that many of the parents who were dropping their preschoolers off had other things on their minds. I want you to know that the only reason I dedicated so much attention to the fire truck was because I don’t have a preschooler in the car anymore. Back when I did, I didn’t have time for fire trucks. I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I was always rushing to get to work, feeling like I was mediocre at everything. I felt mediocre at my job because every other week I had a kid home sick, so I couldn’t dedicate as much time as I felt like I should to work. I felt mediocre at exercise because I always had middle-of-the-night wake-up duty, and after staying up late to rock a sick or scared baby, I couldn’t always make myself get up early to go on a run. I even felt mediocre in marriage because for that season of life, Sara and I were more like nannies or drivers than husband and wife. However, today, with 11- and 13-year-old daughters, I’m getting plenty of sleep, I have time to notice the world around me, and with older kids at home, I love seeing little kids and stopping to talk with them. My favorite part of my weekday is 12:00. I’m on my way out to lunch, and I walk through the gathering area out there. All the preschool kids are lined up ready for pick-up. Little Kate Callahan sometimes stops me. One day, she noticed that I had cut myself. “What happened to your face, Mr. Joe?” she asked me. “I’ve been shaving for years now, but sometimes I still cut myself shaving,” I explained. One of her classmates, Colt Carden, said, “My daddy shaves with a mirror. Do you have a mirror to shave with, Mr. Joe?” I told him that I’d think about getting one and walked away with a smile on my face because the light just shines so brightly in those kids, but we must slow down to notice it. We don’t always have time to slow down. We are all sometimes too busy to slow down. None of us has enough time to notice the whole world around him. Our minds are focused on other things. There are plenty of things in this world to worry about. There are some seasons of life when it feels like all we can do is tread water, hardly aware of the world around us. Sometimes the light shines, and we are blinded by it, rather than rejoicing in it. That’s the theme in our second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of John. It was a long Scripture lesson. In case you got lost in it, allow me to briefly summarize: Jesus healed a man of his blindness, but this miracle made the religious authorities of the day anxious because he healed the man on the Sabbath. In those days, you didn’t work on the Sabbath. Everything was closed. Everyone rested. A healing sounded like work to the religious authorities, so they tried to crack down on Jesus, who didn’t observe the rules and customs of the day, and they went after the formerly blind boy’s parents. When they went after them, his parents felt attacked. They didn’t want to get into trouble, so they told the religious authorities to ask their son about it. “What can you tell us about the man who healed you?” they asked him. The boy who had been blind said, “One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.” That seems to me to be the main thing, yet the religious authorities didn’t see it that way. They looked right over the miracle as though they were blinded by it, so Jesus said to them, “I came into this world so that those who are blind might see, and those who think they can see would know that they are blind.” The religious authorities, “heard him say this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’” This is a wonderful question for anyone to ask him or herself, “Surely, I’m not blind, am I?” Of course, I am. We all are. When I was a father of two preschoolers, I was at least 50% blind. I had to be to survive. You can’t go walking around like Mr. Rogers at the pencil plant, leisurely taking it all in and appreciating every detail if you have diapers to change, two kids to get to preschool, a job to do, and a spouse to take out to dinner at least once or twice a month, bere’s the word I have for you today: If you are going to be 50% blind, don’t be blind to the miracles. Don’t be blinded by the Light of the World. Don’t be blind to the good all around you. That’s what happened to the religious authorities. They were blinded by the Light of the World. The miracle overwhelmed them, so they went back to analyzing the intricacies of the Sabbath laws. They huddled up and started saying to each other, “He was working on the Sabbath.” “Can you believe it?” “Isn’t it horrible?” “He should have more respect.” No! All that they were worried about is beside the point. If you have the choice between paying attention to Sabbath laws or a blind man receiving his sight, always pay more attention to the miracle rather than the Sabbath law. Pay more attention to the laughter than the pain. Spend more time discussing the light than the social conventions. Parents, you don’t always have the bandwidth to live up to the standards set by society, so drop what is unessential and rely on His grace so that you see what matters most and don’t worry so much about all the other stuff. That’s what I want you to hear this morning. We’re all running on these hamster wheels in this life. Someone was asked to describe what it was like when her second child was born. She said, “Well, it was like I was treading water in a pool while holding a baby. Then someone handed me another one.” If life is that overwhelming, like treading water while holding two babies, stop worrying about how you look in your bathing suit. Let go of somethings to hold others more tightly. Be blind to the insignificant and pay attention to what matters. Let go of paying attention to what’s happening in Washington, D.C. to pay more attention to the people in your neighborhood. Notice that a fire truck is parked in the parking lot and stop worrying about where your rich friends went on vacation. We all get distracted by the main thing, but don’t be blinded by the Light of the World. Focus on the light and don’t worry so much about all the shadows. Do you know what I mean by that? Focus on the miracle. Listen for the good news. Don’t sweat the small stuff. The worst thing that happens in this Scripture lesson is what happens to the boy’s parents. Did you hear what the disciples asked Jesus? “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Don’t you know they had been asking each other that question since the day he was born? Whose fault is this? Whose side has the genes that did it: yours or mine? Parents can test for this kind of thing now, and I wonder if that’s good or bad information to have because while we want to know whose fault it is, having the right person to blame is not the main thing. Don’t be blinded by the Light of the World. See Him. Trust Him. Follow Him. Amen.

Thirsty

Scripture Lessons: Exodus 17: 1-7 and John 4: 5-42 Sermon title: Thirsty Preached on March 12, 2023 My friends, the woman went to the well because she was thirsty, but she didn’t just need a sip of water. Do you know what I mean by that? As she walks into our second Scripture lesson encountering Jesus, all that we need to know about her is encapsulated in one subtle detail. Our second Scripture lesson began: “Jesus came to a Samaritan city, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.” Therefore, we know that Jesus shows up at the well when the sun is at its highest point. The sun is beating down. It’s hot, and he’s thirsty. Who else was there? No one. Why? Well, think about it. In a world without indoor plumbing, everyone goes to this well early in the morning or after the sun has set. It’s cooler that way. Plus, people need water for baths and breakfast. The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup. But you can’t have Folgers without water from the well. Everyone in town goes to the well in the morning, yet as Jesus comes to the well at noon, sun beating down; he’s hot, tired, and thirsty. Here comes this woman who is thirsty, too, but, my friends, the woman goes to the well because she’s thirsty, yet she doesn’t just need a sip of water. Do you know what I mean by that? If all she needed from the world was water, there would have been a bucket full in her house already. She would have gone to the well when her community gathered there, in the cool of the morning. It wasn’t the cool of the morning when she walked up and found Jesus there; it was noon. Why was she going to the well at noon? She’s thirsty, yet she doesn’t just need a sip of water. She also wants acceptance from the world, and because she goes to the well at noon, we know she doesn’t have it. Imagine her showing up in the cool of the morning before the sun rose. That’s when everyone in town went to the well. If you go to the town well at noon, it’s because every time you showed up there in the morning, someone said something that hurt too much to hear. I can see her walking up to the well in the cool of the morning and overhearing a conversation between the ladies of the town: “Did you hear that it didn’t work out with her husband?” “No, Gladys, I hadn’t heard that.” “Wasn’t that her fourth one?” “I heard it was her fifth.” “And who is she living with now?” “I don’t know the man’s name, but they’re not even married. Can you believe it?” You must be thirsty to walk into that environment. You’d have to be dying of thirst to go to that well to face such gossip. I’d rather lay on my back with my mouth open and pray for rain than face a crowd like that one. Can you imagine what she was feeling? Do you know what it means to be thirsty for more than a sip of water? If you’ve ever been the new kid at school, then you know what it’s like. Think of going to the well in the morning as walking out into the playground at recess. The new kid at school wants to play basketball with the kids who play basketball. Or maybe she tries to fit in with the group looking for four leaf clovers in the field. Do kids do that anymore? I don’t know what kids do at recess these days, but I do know that every child knows the feeling of trying to break into a group that’s already been formed, and if you’ve tried to break in and have been rejected too many times, you stop trying. To save yourself from the pain of rejection, you go to the well at noon instead of in the morning. You sit with the teachers during recess instead of trying to get the boys to pass you the ball. You feel the sun beating down, so you feel thirsty, but you don’t just need a sip of water. You need something else. How many here know that feeling? At one time or another, we’ve all felt it. I remember being the new kid at Hickory Hills Elementary School. I was 8 years old. My parents sent me down the street to wait for the school bus, number 89-03. Ms. Elrod was our bus driver. Do you know the feeling of walking onto a school bus for the very first time? Who do you know? Where will you sit? Your muscles tense up. Your throat gets dry. Do you know the feeling of being thirsty for more than a sip of water? That’s what this woman was feeling. She had felt that feeling so often that “thirsty” is who this woman was. She had walked to the back of the bus and back to the front without finding a seat to sit in so many times that she told her mom and dad she’d rather walk to school, and along the way, she met five men who made promises to her that they wouldn’t keep. Then one day, she met another man who asked her for a drink. It’s noon. Jesus is at the well. Here comes this woman, thirsty for far more than a sip of water, and what does Jesus do? Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” Did He even say please? If He did, it’s not in there. What’s the magic word, Jesus? Nope, that’s not how it went. Just, “Give me a drink,” He says to the woman. Shouldn’t Jesus be the one to give her something? Shouldn’t He be giving her acceptance? Forgiveness? Love? Respect? Instead, Jesus said to her (The Bible doesn’t even say, “asked her.”) “Give me a drink.” What do you make of that? If this passage of Scripture sounds a little crazy to you, then I’m doing a good job as your preacher this morning because it is a little crazy. The Gospel always should sound a little crazy to us because it’s a message that only the Savior of the World could deliver. His is a word that only He could speak. He is doing something new among us by saying to the victim, “Give me a drink,” for sometimes, when we treat the victim like she’s helpless, we push her deeper into victimization. Sometimes, when we give too much to people, treating them as though they were helpless, we perpetuate a cycle that leaves them in a worse position than they were in before. Sometimes, when we do something for people when they needed to do for themselves, they never discover the strength that is within them. When Jesus says to this woman, thirsty for more than a sip of water, “Give me a drink,” I want you to hear in His voice the words of President John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” I want you to hear the words of Mr. Fred Rogers, who asked a dying man to pray for him. I want you to hear the reminder that sometimes, those who are looking for the world to give them acceptance need to stop asking the for it. They need to see that they never needed the acceptance of the world in the first place. “Give me a drink,” He said, which is a funny thing to ask of a person who was widely pitied and never needed. “Give me a drink,” is a funny thing to request from a woman whom everyone talked about, but no one wanted to be seen with. “Give me a drink,” is the most countercultural thing the Savior could have said, the most unnatural thing Jesus could have requested, for we know that if He wanted water, He could have spoken the words and the heavens would have poured down rain. We know He could have turned the spring into a fountain of fine wine. We know He could have walked on the water from that well, but instead He said to the woman, whom the community saw as having nothing to give, “Give me a drink,” and suddenly, she was the source of something that the King of Kings needed. I want you to hear something out of my mouth loud and clear. Right here in this passage, Jesus is showing us what we must do to have abundant life. He is teaching us a lesson that the world is not teaching us. By saying to this woman, “Give me a drink,” He is showing us that sometimes, the way to heal the brokenhearted is by seeing what they can give. I heard about it once from a pastor. A pastor went to visit a woman who had lost her beloved husband. She was brokenhearted and had turned inward. She rarely left the house. She was angry at God for taking him. She was angry at the church for not supporting her more. She was angry at her family for not coming around. She was angry at her husband for leaving her all alone. The pastor went in her house, and she led him to the sun porch in the back. She sat him down and went into the kitchen to fetch a cup of tea. While she was in the kitchen, the pastor looked around and noticed that the sun porch was like a jungle of African violets. Do you know African violets? I had one once, and I killed it after a couple weeks. The sun must be right, but if you can get it right, then they grow and reproduce, so if you know what you’re doing, you can wind up with a sun porch full of African violets, and this woman knew what she was doing. The pastor drank the tea, then said to her, “May I have one?” She thought about it, wrote down the care instructions on a scrap piece of paper, then reluctantly gave him one. Strangely enough, it made her feel good to see him smile. A week later, the pastor called this woman to report that the African violet she had given him was still alive. In fact, it was blooming, and there was another woman in the church who had just lost her husband. Would she consider sending this newly widowed church member an African violet to care for? She dropped it at the front door of this newly-widowed woman’s house, with care instructions written on a scrap piece of paper, and it felt so good to her that the next day she read through the obituaries in the local paper and delivered an African violet with care instructions to every widow or widower in their small town. Why did she do it? Every time she gave a violet away, her own grief started to lift, for it is not always by receiving that we are healed. Sometimes, it is by giving a drink to those who thirst that our own thirst is quenched. This woman at the well was thirsty, but she was thirsty for more than a sip of water. How was it that she went from being the woman who went to the well at noon to being the evangelist who, leaving her water jar behind, rushed into a town full of people who had rejected her, proclaiming to the community, “Come and see a man who has told me everything that I have ever done. He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” I’ll tell you how: Jesus showed her how to quench her thirst. He showed her how to never be thirsty again, for it is by giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is by dying that we are freed from shame and born to eternal life. Amen.

I Heard the Voice of the Tempter

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 2: 15-17 and 3: 1-7; Matthew 4: 1-11 Sermon Title: I Heard the Voice of the Tempter Preached on February 26, 2023 Yesterday, Chick Freund sent me a video of the Rev. Joyce Meyer preaching at a women’s conference. She said that there’s this new store in New York where women can shop for husbands. The store has six floors, but once you’ve gone up a floor you can’t go back down. One customer started on the first floor, which featured men who have jobs. “That’s pretty good, but let me keep shopping,” she said to herself. Second floor: men with jobs, who also love kids. Third floor: men with jobs, who love kids and have all their teeth. Fourth floor: men with jobs, who love kids, have all their teeth, and clean up the house. “Should I keep going?” the woman asked herself. She did. Fifth floor: men with jobs, who love kids, have all their teeth, clean up the house, and have a strong romantic streak. She kept going, now thinking, “How could this get any better?” It couldn’t. Sixth floor: You are customer 6,857,943, proving once again that women can’t be satisfied. Neither can men. You may know this song: When I’m drivin’ in my car And a man comes on the radio He’s tellin’ me more and more about some useless information Supposed to fire my imagination I can’t get no satisfaction. Cause I try, and I try, and I try, and I try What is it that all of us, from the fictional woman in Rev. Joyce Meyers’ sermon to Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, have in common? The search for satisfaction goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. However, while we go searching for satisfaction, we don’t know where to find it. We long for more and go searching for what we’re looking for in forbidden fruit, and still we sing, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Isn’t it something that Mick Jagger sang those words? I mean, that guy’s rich. Today, his net worth is estimated to be 370 million, so he’s not the richest rock star in the world, but certainly he can afford to buy everything that you’ve ever dreamed would make you happy. He’s done all the things that many people imagine would make them happy, too. People go to all these extreme measures to become as famous as Mick Jagger is famous, and still the words of his song are, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Now, enter the voice of the Tempter, who tells us where to find it. We read in our first Scripture lesson from the book of Genesis: Now the serpent was craftier than any other wild animal that the Lord God had make. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” Then, the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knew that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” You know what happened next. By reaching for satisfaction in the place God told them not to go, the first man and first woman were exiled from Eden, that garden where all their needs were met if they would just trust God to show them how to live. This is the human condition: We want satisfaction. As we go looking for it, we listen to the voice of the Tempter rather than the words of our Creator. We’ve been provided with a manual by our Manufacturer. However, like a stubborn father on Christmas Eve trying to put a playhouse together, we threw the directions out with the box, and now we’re stuck with four screws that have no place to go. We were born with these desires. We desire connection and community, but where do we go looking for these things? We go to the internet, where we are told that satisfaction is just one click away. Easy and accessible and risk-free. We go to the credit card companies who promise to fulfill our grandest material dreams. Again, easy, accessible, and risk free. We listen to the voice of the Tempter who calls us to want more, yet the more likely result of us listening to him is debt and shame rather than satisfaction. “I can’t get no satisfaction,” we sing. The voice of the Tempter tells us where to find it, but Jesus knew not to listen. We read in Matthew that Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards, He was famished. The Tempter came and said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Can you imagine how hungry He was after 40 days of fasting? I can’t. Even when I’m not starving, I still think that satisfaction might come from bread, or a donut, or a slice of cake. However, Jesus said, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” because in the end, bread can fill our bellies, but it can’t satisfy our souls. For satisfaction, we must go to the Word of God, which might tell us where to find it, though it’s not so simple as just reading the Bible. I say that it’s not so simple as just being able to read the Bible because next, the Devil took Him to the holy city and placed Him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to Him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” That’s straight out of Psalm 91. Did you know the Devil can quote Scripture? He can. Plenty of evil people can quote Scripture, and they use it for their own gain. We go looking for answers in Scripture, but be careful because we don’t get to the heart of it unless we understand love, sacrifice, and humility, so Jesus says: “Again it is written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Not relenting, the Devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to Him, “All these I will give you, if only you fall down and worship me.” Now, this is the great temptation. How many believed they could put the world right if only they had the power to change things. Yet Jesus says, “Worship the Lord and serve only him” because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We all go looking for satisfaction. These days I believe we go looking for it in having more, not realizing we will only have satisfaction when we learn the meaning of enough. We go looking for satisfaction in power, not realizing we will only have satisfaction when we learn the meaning of humility. We go looking for satisfaction in safety, not realizing we will only have satisfaction when we learn the meaning of sacrifice. While the voice of the Tempter is all around us today, peddling satisfaction in the form of excess, comfort, power, and pleasure, hear instead the voice of Jesus who says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” My friends, the voice of the Tempter is all around us. He whispers to us, day in and day out. We’ve given him entrance to our homes through television commercials and the internet. We’re always being seduced into thinking that satisfaction will come with the next click or by ordering the right product. Celebrities tell us where to find it, but look at their lives and see that they don’t know where to find it either. Yet, the Savior of the World offers us another way, and this is what He says: It is better to give than it is to receive. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. Take up your cross and follow Me. This is the way. Follow Him and know satisfaction. The world may not understand because the world is convinced that satisfaction will come through having more: more food, more safety, more power. On the other hand, I call you to look to Jesus on the cross and to hear the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: A man who doesn’t have something for which he is willing to die is not fit to live. Hear the words of Dr. William Sloane Coffin, “Up on a cross he breathed his last breath, and so ended the most complete life ever lived.” The voice of the Tempter sneaks into our lives to tell us where to find our satisfaction. If you haven’t found it, then try listening to the voice of Jesus. Amen.