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Lent IV-A March 6, 2005
H O M I L Y G R I T S
Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 6, 2005
¶ Book of Common Prayer Lectionary
1 Samuel 16:1-13 He was sun tanned, had beautiful eyes, and was
handsome
Psalm 23 Dominus regit me. The Lord is my shepherd
Ephesians 5:(1-7) 8-14 Live as children of light
John 9: 1-13 (14-17) 28-38 Here is an astonishing thing!
The poet Elinor Wylie would not take sides in the fight of the
shepherd David versus the majestic Palestinian Goliath:
"If any have a stone to shy,
Let him be David and not I;
The lovely shepherd, brave and vain,
Who has a maggot in the brain,
Which, since the brain is bold and pliant,
Takes the proportions of a giant." *
George W. Bush casts himself as if he were Jehovah's favorite
witness, David the beamish boy, brave and vain, against the
menacing giant of international terrorism. As a Bible thumping
yahoo, and 'Furor' of the Israeli lobby in DC, he surely thinks of
himself as young David, the hero of our religion's most ancient wars,
the Mogen David now taken as a banner along with the Stars and
Stripes, for a kindly imperialist axis of the willing from Tel Aviv
to Capitol Hill. But no slow and sluggish Philistine has yet dared
stand to face Dubya's missiles, indeed it is only Palestinian boys
and girls who have the sling shots and the pebbles, and Dubya who has
the power of the stumbling giant, flailing his scimitar of bombers
and missiles and poison gas about and slaughtering innocents
everywhere on the way.
But so far, Dubya is the only selected President we have, and
perhaps the only one we deserve.
When Yahweh told Samuel he'd had enough of the Incumbent, and was
ready for a change, he told him to go find a successor among the sons
of Jesse. Now this was Jesse the Bethlehemite, not Jesse Jackson
we're talking about, for it's a safe bet Yahweh isn't ready anymore
than the U.S. electorate to
look for a presidential candidate among Jackson's kinfolk, then or
now. Oh, we can have Condoleeza for token Black in the cabinet to
take Colin's place, and though she looks better in boots, we have
Bush mounted on TV, riding side saddle.
Samuel (like the Church) is afraid of the Incumbent. So Yahweh
tells him to make the whole effort look like a religious activity,
so Samuel went on over to Bethlehem and arranged for a rally and a
Texas barbecue to bring out all the candidates, for Samuel to have a
look at them. One by one Jesse trotted out his sons, as the
Republicrat Party with its two right wings and its creaky caucuses
did, and the Lord said to Samuel, as perhaps the Spirit may say to
the churches, "Now don't look on the 'image' of the candidates, or
the height of their stature in the polls, for the Lord sees not as
humans see. You humans look at outward appearances, P.R. images,
manufactured by a compliant media--"but the Lord looks at the heart."
Seven macho men are exhibited before Samuel--about the number and
gender and kind that are flounced down the boardwalk for us to look
at. Jesse the Bethlehemite was probably confused by this rejected
assembly, for Samuel says, "The Lord has not chosen these." And
Samuel asks, "Are all your candidates here?" Jesse replies, "I have
one more, but this one's not yet a man, and doesn't fit the image of
a Furor." And the narrator says, "But this one is darkened from the
sun, has lovely eyes, and is handsome." We have just been told that
the Lord doesn't see the way humans see, and now we are told the
Lord has a good eye for a good looks. It's a graphic picture of
someone who not only looks pretty good but sees pretty good. "This
one has beautiful eyes." And Yahweh says at once, "Get up and pour on
the olive oil , for this is my candidate." And so Sam took the horn
full of olive oil and poured it over David's head in the midst of all
the other more impressive candidates, his brothers, all in the
family. "And the breath of Yahweh came mightily on David from that
day."
What this story tells us and why it was chosen to go with the other
readings today is that we should know there's a difference between
Looking and Seeing when we look at candidates. Both Jesse and Samuel
took a look at all the candidates, and both failed to see the one
Yahweh had in mind. The text says it was Yahweh who intervened in
the election and changed the direction in which things were going.
God relishes mixing herself in our politics.
The process we went through to permit the idiot Incumbent to be
elected looks like that which our tale tells us of. Perhaps Samuel
thought that an Abinadab would be the right one, because he looked
most like the Incumbent, who had been found to be a failure. They
have done that in the U.S., for
the mass media manufacturers of the candidates flail about, trying
to find another Ronald Reagan look-alike, and our Sitting Bush has
more than his popularity and good looks, if not social finesse, for
he's a kind of corn-fed version of Reagan, with a cowboy hat for the
rodeo.
The first thing the readings today tell us about vision is that our
human vision isn't like that of God's as history takes it cues and
prompts in whispers from the Spirit who blows where and how She
listeth. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your candidates my
candidates," says the Lord. Indeed, can we hear the Spirit's
postscript; "My gender is not your gender." We also hear that we
can look right at something dead in the eye and not see it. We can
look right through people's faces and not see their possibilities or
how their destinies might intertwine with ours. We can live with
them amidst the sheep dip and not know how to comb the wool. Even
Jesse the Bethlehemite didn't see the possibilities of callow youth,
and was trapped in thinking that this child was fit only for work as
a pastoral assistant. But on the insignificant one the Spirit of
God would fall, and it was David who for ever afterward gave the name
Pastor, Shepherd, Steward, all maternal gifts, to good
leadership. In spite of all his human failures, it was his origin
as care-giver and guardian, protecting the life of the flock and not
exploiting it, that would become the standard for substance as well
as style in political leadership in Western history until now.
David's origin as shepherd became the standard for all the
expectations of our people for our leaders, even for the coming
Messiah, for ever. We have always called the leaders of our
Christian communities by the name of Pastor, and laden them with the
symbolism of that calling. Our bishops carry pastoral staffs, like
the one David carried to Bethlehem, and knelt with before Samuel for
his anointing. That some wield the crozier as a battle axe is a
violation of its true utility, which is to rescue, prod, and
protect.
The epistle lesson is also abut Vision. As the first lesson was
about How We See, that is, What We Look At, so the epistle is about
the Light by Which We are Able to See. The apostolic letter says:
"Once you were darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord." The name
for Baptism in the youngest churches was Photismos, the Greek word
for enlightenment, illumination. We still give a candle to the
newly baptized, or to the godparents, and say to them, Receive the
Light of Christ. It is Baptism which is the daybreak, the
Amanecer, to those who waited all night in the dark, blind to the
truth about themselves and the world. We are warned to have
nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness, and we all know
(is it instinctive?) how frightening they are. Unfruitful, because
nothing can grow and bear fruit in the dark. On the west side of
Chicago, in the ghetto where I lived for thirty years, and here in
Managua, where I've lived now for fifteen years in a poor barrio,
the Night is often romantic and full of song, but it can also be
spooky, dangerous, and violent, without light and the voices of
friends (and pets) around. We avoid it, and stay near to friends
after dark, and light fires and candles when the city's power plants
quit suddenly and the street lights wink out. Certainly the cities
of the ancient world, unlit and un policed at night, must have been
as frightful as well. After all it wasn't until the nineteenth
century that London had a municipal police force. Managua today is
virtually without one, and if you call the police here they will ask
you to pay for the gasoline they'll use to drive to your house. There
are no police walking the beat, and the ones we see wear bullet proof
vests and carry machine guns. When I was a child and my uncle Ed was
Officer Friendly, he strolled about at night as the constable in our
village, with his flashlight under the elms, but he never learned to
shoot a gun except to destroy a rabid dog. I think I saw him once
with a shotgun, and was surprised. The world has moved away from
Officer Friendly. Folks who go out at night often go out armed, and
have done so for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. In any case,
the author of Ephesians wrote in images the readers could understand
when he said, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but
instead expose them." Our night watch, "el cuidador" Old Juan wears
a nightstick and carries a powerful "foco", a strong flash light to
splash its brilliant beams over the roof top and into dark patio
corners, all through the night. Where anything lurks it is
revealed and bathed in light. So it is that the epistle quotes a
baptismal hymn, "Awake O Sleeper, and arise from death, and Christ
shall give you light."
The believer's way of seeing, the believer's way of looking at
things, the world-view of faith, is also the epistle says, a Light
Source for the world. People of faith become themselves Lamps in the
darkness of our Midnight Culture. "This little light of mine I'm
gonna let it shine" because we all need it to see our way and to
show the way.
Finally, in the gospel reading, the way of Light is made most clear,
in the giving of Sight to the Blind. "I am the Illumination of the
World," Jesus says, "No follower of mine shall ever have to walk in
darkness, but shall have the light of life."
Jesus heals one who was born blind, that the Church might know very
early on that his healings were not simply medical interventions for
which there would be records available to us, in the archives of St.
Luke's hospital. or the medical or insurance industries, or even
specific spiritual testimonies as in the Christian Scienc Sentinel.
Instead, the person born blind becomes here the whole of the human
race, unenlightened, without a true perspective on reality. It isn't
just physical vision or physical healing that is celebrated here,
for this isn't a story of implanting corneas, or clipping out
cataracts by sleight of hand. This is clear from the exchange Jesus
has with the religious rigorists, who object to his ministry of
healing on the Sabbath. They are more concerned that religious rules
and rubrics be followed than that there be a work of healing that
technically violates them. They argue, "We know that God works
through our religious institutions, that is, God has spoken to
Moses, and through us, who are the official interpreters thereof,
but we do not know anything about this marginal practitioner, who
isn't even covered by our malpratice insurance." So Gene Robinson,
the gay bishop chosen Apostle of New Hampshire, is disallowed by the
Primates, and our Episcopal Church in the USA, and the Anglican
Church of Canada, are disinvited to take part in the Anglican
Consultative Council, where the issues--our lives, God's life in
us--will be settled without us. And then the Church born in the
blindness of homophobia and now enlightened out of it declares, "Why
this is a marvel indeed. You don't know his credentials, yet he has
opened my eyes." So the Church comes to grow in faith, because of
its vision, and finally is able to come to Jesus himself with faith.
"Do you belive in the Son of Man--the truly Human One?" Jesus asks
him, as if leading a novice in the catechism. "Who is he, Sir, that
I may believe in him?" And the answer declares that Vision provides
his identity. "You yourself have SEEN him, and it is he who SPEAKS
now and teaches you."
On the other hand, those who make claims to have the orthodox
Vision, the Right View of things, those who claim they have Sight
(Oversight? Insight? Foresight? Second Sight?) and wish to enforce
those views on others, are the rigorists, the fundamentalists, the
upright Pittsburgh Pharisees. "Pharisee" started out as a
compliment for a faithful and true practitioner of religion--a
"holier" one, and has alas come unfairly to mean only a Bible
thumper, one who uses religion in personal life as a handgun, and
votes for those who will use it as an ICBM, a merciless war where
"all options are on the table."
My calling, says Jesus, is to bring sight and light to those who do
not see. He invites us to see, and to look at, the Bible and all
religion and health and vision in a new way, in new light. In
Central America even today there are gatherings of people in cities
and villages across the land, for Scripture study and reflection.
They are called Comunidades Ecclesiales de Base--or, Base Christian
Communitries. They urge and encourage refracting the traditional
scriptures through the lenses of the life experience of the poor.
Ernesto Cardenal recorded the Springtime of this movement in his "The
Gospel in Solentiname".** Once long ago when he was the Minister of
Culture of revolutionary Nicaragua, Father Ernesto tried to visit the
U.S. of A., but the immigration enforcers seized his Bible and
riffled through its pages. What were they looking for? "Photos"
maybe? A word that means "Light" in Greek. The Guatemalan
dictatorship in the seventies also seized copies of the Bible
illustrated with photos from the life of the poor and burned them.
They could see only contraband in the illustrated Bible, where the
poor see the Gospel of Liberation, linked to their lives and
hopes.
The word of God is contraband, seized and perverted by
fundamentalism, in the world today. But, at the same time, all
across the world, people born blind and un-enlightened to the reality
in which they live, have begun to be healed from their midnight. The
Churches now rise up, The Risen One empowers and enlightens.
People see that they are the Church, and know that the hierarchy
("rule of priests," in Greek) are called to be their friends, their
servants and guides, and employees, and they see that the Bible is
their book, the Church's book, and not the hierarchy's weapon. The
Bible is a threat to oppressive political systems, as is the Qur'an
and all the Scriptures of the liberative religions of humankind.
A dear friend in Tulsa whom I have known for many years, Joe Meinhart
started out with ordination by the Presbyterians, a denomination
derived from the 16th century Calvinist Reformation, and has since
followed a pilgrimage through the Roman Catholic Franciscans, and is
now a Quaker with an interfaith spirit of exploration into Buddhism
and Islam. In a letter Joe talks about modern pharasaism.
"William Placher, at Yale, has written about the evil of the
second generation., i. e., .how the original insights of a
leader/reformer/saint are fresh and fiery until the second generation
of followers ossifies them and things begin to degenerate: his
examples are what the Roman church did to Aquinas' s
creation-centered and joyful philosophy, what grim, glum TULIP
Calvinists did to Calvin's heart mysticism (centered on thankfulness
and love as motives for life), and what joyless Lutherans did to
Luther ---all in the second generation. I think of that when I read
Muhammed and the Koran and compare it with the dominant Saudi-based
Wahabbism and the other fundamentalist forces in Islam...in public
discourse, I remind others that we are not all that different, having
our own mullahs in Falwell, Robertson, and now Franklin Graham. It
is interesting as I contemplate the fascist mentality of so many
young [Roman] Catholic seminarians, and so many fundy protestant
seminarians, that Taliban is simply a word that means seminarian."
***
Now it is your story and mine that is told in the story of the One
Born Blind. It is our story that is told in the story of the choice
of David, the one whom nobody noticed, to be the leader among God's
people. It is our song the epistoler sings when he cries to us,
"Awake O Sleeper, and Christ shall give you Light."
The nations stumble still in blindness--political, spiritual and
social blindness. As washing in the pool of Siloam gave light to
the One Born Blind, so Jesus bids us to refresh ourselves in the pool
of our own Baptisms. Let's open our eyes, and look, and see,
whether we are electing a president or a bishop or a pastor or a
mayor . Let's not look at 'images' but enabled by the habit of
constantly "improving our Baptism" to look at things in a new way and
a new light, to wash away the clay and spittle, go have another
look.
Of the furor over God's choice of Gene Robinson for an apostle, Bill
Carroll at Sewanee writes wisely, "I certainly understand (and feel
at a visceral level) the reluctance to see the Church split. At the
same time, as Stacy Sauls, bishop of Lexington, argued recently, if
the Anglican Communion can't survive one openly gay bishop, then it
is simply not worth saving. What does it profit us to gain the
Communion and lose our soul. I think the problem is that we already
have a nascent schism (and have had one for decades) and that there
is a real sense in which none of the sides (there are far more than
two) can readily recognize each other as Anglican. We have diverging
traditions with strong commitments to diverging social practices.
Whatever forms of unity we seek cannot be found in the past. What
held the Anglican Communion together historically was colonialism and
we have yet to forge a post-colonial Anglicanism that can survive
these tensions.
For my part, I would rather have my children grow up outside the
Church than learn the Christian faith as it is being taught by some
of these folks." Where there is no vision, the people perish.
God sees not as human beings see, for human beings tend to look only
at outward appearances. But the divine way is to look at the heart,
into the intent.
GRANT GALLUP
Apartado RP-10
CASA AVE MARIA
Managua, Nicaragua C.A.
Tel. 011-505-2662165
gallup@tmx.com.ni
GRITS 4th series now on-line:
http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits
*"The Pebble," by Elinor Wylie. From "Collected Poems"copyright 1932,
Alfred A. Knopf Inc., renewed 1960 by Edwina C. Rubenstein.
**The Gospel in Solentiname, 4 volumes, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press,
1978. By Ernesto Cardenal, translated by Donald Walsh..
***personal e-mail letter from Joseph Meinhart, February 10, 2002.
Quoted with his permission.
© Copyright 2002m 2005 by Grant Gallup