The Blind Man

Many of us have trouble with our eyes. I decided to get my eyes checked 15 years ago, and after a battery of tests, the eye doctor told me to go to a drug store and get a pair of "readers" -- and to come back and see him in 5 years. I've gone back three times, once every five years, but each time he tells me to keep getting the "readers" at the drug store. Of course, a dysfunction or disease of the eye is nothing I aspire to, but I do confess to wondering why I don't qualify for prescription eye wear.
Thankfully, most of us never will be rendered blind. We can imagine it by blind-folding ourselves and stumbling around our own houses for a short period of time, or we can think about it as we try to find light switches when the power suddenly goes out, but few of us will ever experience the reality of blindness. Or will we?
I don't have to tell you that physical blindness is an apt metaphor for being spiritually blind. Scripture tells us several stories of blindness and limited sight. There's the one about the man Nicodemus who was blind to the basic teachings of the kingdom. There's Paul -- or was it still Saul(?) -- who experienced his sight being restored as scales fell from his eyes. And of course, the blind man, who called out to Jesus and who Jesus healed.

The disciples saw that man, and were curious about why such a thing would happen. They assumed that his blindness was a punishment for a particular sin. But they weren't sure whether he himself, or his parents were to blame. When Jesus says, “it was not this man who sinned or his parents” he doesn't mean to suggest that the blind man or his parents were perfect and holy. Jesus is trying to correct their reasoning that bad things happen to bad people (and therefore since I am relatively healthy, I must be relatively good). Baloney. My good eyesight has little to do with how "good" I am, and much to do with my genes. Throughout the New Testament Jesus repudiates this kind of “you must have deserved that” gloating from pride-filled observers.
Perhaps the disciples were blind to their own blindness. Perhaps they were so focused on this man and wondering what his sin was that they couldn't recall their own. Indeed, Jesus tells us to watch out for logs in our eyes. Time and again, Jesus points to the Pharisees, urging us to notice our own shortcomings.

What is it we might be missing as we complain about what others aren't doing for us? What do we NOT SEE when we wallow in self-pity or react to the imperfections we see in our neighbors?

Help me, Lord, to see you more clearly in the faces of those who I find irritating, insensitive, inept, and idiotic! Make me aware of your presence in them and in myself so that I will not be blind to their needs, anxieties, and hopes. Amen.

Water Miracles

I picked my friend up at O’Hare International Airport and brought her back to my house. She came for a month, taking respite from her mission work in the south of Sudan. When we got to my house, I filled the tea kettle with water and put it on the stove to boil. She looked at me with a look of shock and joyful surprise, and ran to the sink and exclaimed, “Running water!”

One billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water. In Sudan, young girls must walk an average of 4 miles a day to collect water for their families’ daily needs, thus making school attendance nearly impossible. Water scarcity affects 60% of the world’s people. Yet, here we sit, water taps at the ready to wash our cars, water our lawns, flush our toilets, and take our daily showers.

Imagine, for just a moment. Imagine no running water in your home: no kitchen faucet, no shower, no flush toilet. And now imagine being thirsty – very thirsty – and having to walk 3 or 4 miles in the noonday heat to collect a pan of water.

So it was for our Lord as he arrived in the heat of the midday sun at Jacob’s well. “Give me a drink,” he said to the Samaritan woman who happened by. The well was far from the village. She had walked a long distance, and the water was difficult to draw. She sounded almost affronted by his request, until Jesus spoke to her of “Living Water.”

Lent invites us to consider the gift of the Living Waters of our baptism and to be grateful for the abundance of water that we have for our daily living. Lent challenges us to ask what we might do, with God’s help -- as individuals, as Christians, and as citizens of the world – to ensure that all of God's children have access to clean water, without which there is no life.

This year, Bishop Lee challenged the people of the Diocese of Chicago to dig 50 wells in villages that have no access to safe drinking water. If we meet his challenge, we will transform the lives of countless people in fifty villages around the world; we will offer them water for living in the name of the Living Water who sends us from the font into the world.

Please accept the Bishop’s Challenge by getting your entire community involved and by raising funds to dig fifty wells. Remember: water is necessary for life, and water scarcity affects 60% of the world’s people.

ASHES TO GO

It was Ash Wednesday in Chicagoland. It fell this year on March 9th, so it came as no surprise that it was rainy and cold that morning. We arrived at the Geneva Metra train station at 6:15 AM dressed in black cassocks, white surplices, and rubber boots. We carried sandwich board signs which read "Ash Wednesday Ashes Here."

We didn't know what the response would be. A colleague had cautioned us about "delivering empty symbols" to a disinterested world, but we felt strongly, my colleague and I. Where better to meet people than where they live and work and play? Why wait for them to come into church? A few people walked past, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Most people smiled. Some people stopped and asked for ashes, and so we imposed ashes on their foreheads, and said a short prayer with them, and offered them a small meditation card to take on the train with them. They climbed onto their trains, and some waved as their trains pulled out. Many smiled. There was no contempt that showed. People seemed to like the idea of "church in the marketplace."

The best surprise of all? People on trains called home on their cell phones. They told them to come to the Metra station so their kids could see church people giving out Ash Wednesday ashes. So they came. Curious. Interested. Smiling.
On their way to something else, but they came. Because word got out.

The Word has a way of getting out.