Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Lent 4: March 2, 2008
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
Samuel 16:1-13
John 9:1-41
In his book The Heart of Christianity: How We Can Be Passionate Believers Today, Marcus Borg lays out four different ways Christian people have understood faith. The first is what he calls assensus—by this he means faith as assent to particular beliefs or propositions. The second he calls fiducia, that is, faith as radical trust in God, like floating in a deep ocean. The third he calls fidelitas, a pattern of faithfulness in our relationship to God that is very much like the attention we give to relationships with other people. And the fourth way of thinking about faith Borg calls visio, faith as a way of seeing the whole, of seeing “what is.”
Today our readings explore this last understanding of faith—faith as a way of seeing the whole, of seeing “what is.” And what we learn right away is that seeing the whole with God as a part of that whole or seeing the whole as if through God’s eyes can be very tricky for us.
In our first reading about the choice and anointing of David as the new king of Israel, we meet the prophet Samuel. Samuel is still grieving over the loss of King Saul and is terrified of Saul should Samuel play any part in the choosing of a new king. But God will have none of Samuel’s paralysis. He challenges Samuel to go beyond his grief and fear and to enact the future God has in store for the Jewish people. Finally acceding to God’s wishes, Samuel comes to Jesse and his sons, ready to anoint the new king of God’s own choosing. But once there, we again discover that Samuel’s vision is off, for whereas he would choose the tallest or the strongest-looking son, God has another way of seeing and deciding who the new king will be. God sees and decides, we are told, not by looking at appearances but by looking on the heart. God tells Samuel to pass over seven older, stronger brothers in order to choose David as king--David, the young shepherd as king, the son not thought worthy even to be present at the gathering.
Our gospel gives us a different but related perspective on faith as seeing. The story of the healing of the man blind from birth is a powerful image that life in Christ is about receiving a new ability to see. In contrast to this, those in the story who have their sight are utterly confused and benighted. Looking for someone to blame, looking for ways to deny that a healing has happened, or looking for ways to defend their perspective, they grope around in the dark, unable to accept either the newly sighted man or the new light of God in Christ that has come into the world.
And so these two very different readings taken together give us some insights into Christian faith as a way of seeing. Christian faith has something to do with seeing through appearances into deeper realities—the realities of the human heart, the reality of God’s hidden care for God’s own people in the midst of dispiriting circumstances, in the midst of upsetting and turbulent change.
Faith as seeing also has to do with our ability to be surprised into dropping our well-worn way of seeing things, just like dropping a pair of glasses—our ability, with God’s help, to drop our positions and defenses and to grope around blindly a bit in the dark trusting the new light, the new sight that God will give us. This new light usually has something to do a gracious present moment or future we had not envisioned.
Some years ago I was sent to train a group of church educational leaders in the little town of Dover, New Jersey. In those days I was an EFM trainer, EFM meaning “Education for Ministry,” a program in which leaders called mentors led groups that engaged weekly in a process of theological reflection every week together.
I was living in Manhattan at the time and so as I traveled to Dover, I was struck by the contrast as I went from the city into the New Jersey countryside. Dover was a small town with few jobs and not much big-city sophistication. And so I found myself feeing, a pang of sadness and, I admit, repulsion, as I drove through its down-at-the-heels streets, making my way to the Episcopal carish where the training was to be held. It was a grey, rainy day.
Once there I was met by Helen, the coordinator of the event: short, stocky, one of those busy church bees, full of purpose, bustling and glad to see me. She was easily ten years my senior but treated me as if I had come down from heaven to impart important and secret knowledge to the workshop participants. She was also eager to know what I liked and needed during my stay, and so the conversation ranged from my favorite brand of tea to my love of poached eggs, to what color markers I needed for the training event.
And so the weekend happened, the training got done, my important and secret knowledge, such as it was, was somehow transmitted. The trainee-participants, nowhere near the most talented or skilled group I had ever trained, were all very earnest.
On Sunday, I attended the Eucharist at the parish, a small, struggling band of Dover Episcopalians. It was painful for me—listening to a retired, part-time priest preaching a rambling, thirty-minute sermon and watching servers at the altar stumble through the liturgy with none of the sophisticated grace of the churches I had grown accustomed to in New York City.
Afterwards, the retired priest and I were invited to brunch with Helen, her husband and their three children at their home nearby.
I was in the living room chatting with the retired priest when Helen called everyone to the table. Ducking out for a moment to wash my hands, I was the last to get there. I sat down at my place and looked down.
There unadorned on my plate, there on everyone’s plate, was a single poached egg stuck in one of those triangular aluminum containers. I and everyone else at the table were silent, thunderstruck really, and perplexed. Only the children broke that silence as each of them frowned and poked their forks at the curious metal thing before them.
I thought to myself, “Here it is again—small town people not knowing what to do or how to do it.”
And then in a flash, it hit me—those stuck, inedible poached eggs were for me, were in honor of me. And so in an instant I saw the situation in a different light. This was not just some funky family brunch in a small town far from my big city digs—though it was all those things. It was also more. It was God’s heavenly banquet here on earth, God’s moving through people’s hearts to acts of generosity and hospitality toward those who were clueless that they even needed it, acts of generosity and hospitality that would not be recognized as beautiful to many, but were, I believe, beautiful to God, beautiful to the one who looks not at appearances but at the heart. This was an enactment of God’s own grace, a grace that has the power to lift the hearts of the lowly and to surprise and break open the sight and the hearts of those who had believed they had seen and understood all things.
We’re now halfway through Lent. It’s been a time and will be a time of looking at the glasses that we are wearing, examining the eyes through which we see the whole of ourselves and the world around us. It’s also, wonderfully, a time when the light, all by itself, is returning.
Faith is a way of seeing—seeing the world through God’s eyes or seeing God active and creative within us and in the world around us.
So cherish the light in the midst of the darkness, welcome it even if it means you have to lose your well-accustomed sight for a while. Attend to the heart hidden under the appearances, even though it may mean you will pass from what the world regards as beautiful to the beauty that the Holy One has chosen as a vehicle for his grace. And finally come to the table, the table set for you where you had least expected to see it. Come and see. Come and eat.
Works Cited or Consulted
Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity: How We Can Be Passionate Believers Today
