The City of Vision

The City of Vision

A Sermon on John 12:20-33 and Luke 18:35-43

By Griff Martin

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

On the Fifth Sunday of Lent

March 18, 2018

Incarnate God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

“And their eyes were opened and they saw….”

“So he went away and washed in Siloam and came back seeing…”

“Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight…”

“Now it came about that when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see…”

“Now Eli was 98 years old and his eyes were set so that he could not see….”

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God…”

“Blessed are your eyes for they see…”

“Jesus said, ‘Come and see….’”

“We want to see Jesus…”

Throughout our text over and over again we find Scriptures about sight, seeing, vision… and for most of us here sight is something that we have learned to take for granted. 

The writer and preacher Nora Gallagher went through a few traumatic years where she was slowly loosing her sight with an inflamed right optic nerve and an unknown cause that if continued would cause her to lose her sight, she would not be able to see to read or write. She shares this journey in her latest book, where she uses these words to explain loosing sight:

“Dr. Lowe looked at my right eye. He said, ‘Darn.’ And I dropped out of the world I lived in, where I thought I knew about disease and vulnerability and death and all that, and entered another country. It was a spookily familiar world, same streets, same buildings, same people- a sci-fi version of my streets, my buildings, my people- but it was as if the furniture was rearranged, the people not quite right. It was not like another place, it was another country. It was like falling into Oz….. I had no morning newspaper, no novel to take to bed, nothing to read while eating lunch. That whole world was suddenly gone. I had no characters living inside me.”

To me this would be the worst. You know those conversational card games with questions meant to stir up conversation…. One of the cards I have seen ask if you had to lose one of your senses, which one would you surrender? I don’t know which one I would surrender. First instinct says smell but then I remember the patchouli smell of my parents home (which for some of you is enough to surrender smell, but I am one of those who likes that scent) or I think about the smell of rain or Mountain Laurel in bloom. I can go back and forth with hearing and taste debating loosing the taste of Abby’s perfect chocolate chip cookies with sea salt on top or the sound of  Jude’s laughter or the Dixie Chicks and Swan Lake. To be honest I usually forget touch is a sense but once reminded I think about how I love the feel of the sand and ocean or when Blake let’s me braid her hair. It’s a hard choice, which would I surrender, but vision is never an option. If you reversed the question and asked which sense would you keep if you could only keep one… vision, sight,  no question…. novels, poetry, art, movies, spring skies, flowers, the faces of those I love, your faces and smiles…. I need these things to be alive. I would keep my vision and I would surrender any of the others to keep my vision.

So I have bee quite surprised to learn the complexity of regaining sight, the narratives of those who have had their vision restored. 

Mike May had been blind for 43 years, as a 3 year old child he went blind because of a chemical explosion. At 46 years of age, he had regained his sight in an amazing surgery that gave him new cornea. Suddenly he could see. But seeing was so much more difficult than he thought it would. In a book chronicling his experience, he writes the difficulty he had with people walking away from him, he literally believed they were shrinking and disappearing and this was most difficult to comprehend. He had no grasp of depth perception, everything seemed both way too close and too far away. He did not understand how to tell a male face from a female face. He did not understand how to read emotions on the human face. 

Annie Dillard recounts this most strange phenomenon that occurred with patients who were once blind but had their vision returned in her book, A Pilgrim on Tinker Creek. She accounts for several patients who had cataract operations allowing them to be able to see. Those who could not see were now able to see, but the result was far different than one would anticipate.

She reports that most of these patients hated their new vision. Most of these patients could not identify objects that had previously known by touch. Most of these patients did not have a vocabulary for the seeing world. Most of these patients spent the majority of the time post operation still with their eyes tightly shut.

One patient, a young 15 year old man who had previously lived in an asylum for the blind, said this of his new vision: “No, really, I can’t stand it any more; I want to be sent back to the asylum again. If things are not altered, I’ll tear my eyes out again.”

One distraught father reported that his 21 year old daughter, “carefully shuts her eyes when ever she wishes to go about the house, especially when she comes to a stair case, and she is never happier or more at ease then when, by closing her eyelids, she relapses into her former state of total blindness.”

The problem is having been blind, sight was suddenly too much for them. Studies show that those who are blind  have different brain patterns than those who can see. The visual cortex cells become quite weak, where those who are blind develop quite strong tactile abilities. They see with their hands and ears. So when this new dimension of sight is regained, suddenly they lose the very center of how they understood things. It’s very difficult.

In one study scholars found that those who regained sight had no understanding of form, distance, or space. They see the world as patches of color and they find it beautiful, but learning it is quite demanding and hard. Some of those who have regained sight talk about going throughout their days with their eyes closed so they can understand the world once again and others openly talk about desiring to be blind again, to go back to a world they understood. 

And all this works just as well for spiritual vision as it does physical vision. Just look at both of our Scripture text today.

Luke starts us with Jesus in Jericho, the final stop on his journey to Jerusalem. As he gets closer and closer to the city, a crowd surrounds him. I can see the people pushing in on both sides, trying to get close to this Jesus.

Luke tells us there is a blind beggar sitting by the side of the road. Tradition tells us that this is Bartimeus the Blind Beggar. This man is sitting by the road, as he must do every day. He hears a crowd approaching and this too is common. This is what this blind man does, he sits outside the city gates and he begs and he listens…. Those are his verbs: sit, beg, listen.

The crowd would know him. This is old Blind Bartimeus, he’s always here begging. They pay him special attention around the religious holidays and give him a few coins, but most of the year they just pass by as he sits there begging and listening. As the crowd approaches the city, Blind Bartimeus asks what is happening.  As with every other scene of his life, someone will have to narrate the scene to him. Someone responds, I imagine quickly and hastily, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

And with this, Bartimeus discovers a strength he did not even know he had. In all his days of sitting outside listening to people’s conversations as they walk by, he has heard about this Jesus fellow. There are even reports that this Jesus has given sight to blind people. This is his chance, so with everything that he has, he cries out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

The crowd is shocked. Jesus does not have time for this blind man. Someone from the crowd quickly orders Bartimeus to be quiet. There is no time for someone like him, they think. How wrong they are. Bartimeus shouts even louder, Son of David have mercy on me. 

And Jesus stops. In a crowd that is pushing him forward, in a noisy mob, in a group ready to welcome him to the city of Jericho, in the midst of all this noise, commotion, and movement. Jesus stood still. Jesus heard this man.

Jesus orders that the man be brought to him. We know the rest of the story. Jesus asks Blind Bartimeus what he wants. Bartimeus, revealing a bit more of his story, responds, “I want to see again.” Which means that at one point, he had seen and that somehow seems to make this story even more tragic. He had at one point been able to see, he could no longer.

“Lord let me see again.” And Jesus tells him to receive his sight, his faith has saved him. The text does not say his faith healed him, but that his faith saved him.

And then this verse: “Immediately he regained his sight and followed him (Jesus).”

This is one of those times I want to be able to  step into Scripture and change the Bible story. Sure I love certain elements of the story: I love Jesus standing still in the crowd to heal this man on the margin, I love that it’s the blind beggar who has been simply listening who seems to know the very most about who Jesus is, and I love the healing, salvation, that takes place.

But I don’t love the conclusion. I want to step into the story and help the formerly Blind Bartimeus on his next step.

I want to take him to see the famous trees that are found in the city of Jericho. The trees that were incredibly fragrant and productive. They were one of the world’s wonders at that time. They were so coveted that Antony would steal them to win Cleopatra’s heart. Bartimeus, Go see the beautiful trees. Walk around the garden.

I want to take him to the ocean. Everyone needs to see the ocean. I want him to see the waves, to see the vastness of water, to see the edge of the world where it appears that water and sky marry. Bartimeus, let’s go to the beaches.

I want him to see faces. He needs to see the faces of some certain kind souls who have regularly offered him assistance. I want him to look into their eyes with gratitude and see the kindness that is their core. I want him to see the faces of those who have so often passed him by without notice, to see the hardness that is their core. 

What I don’t want him to do is follow Jesus. Not at this point.  Because I know where the journey is headed and I know what he is going to have to see as Jesus heads into Jerusalem for the final week. 

But Jesus’ call: “Follow me… Come see the Cross.”

Our second text comes from John and it’s an odd exchange, one that seems almost against everything Jesus typically says or does. This text finds Jesus with his disciples, those who know him best and he is preparing them for his death. They are in already in Jerusalem at this point and Jesus has gained quite a name for himself, everyone is talking about him. So it’s no surprise when a couple of Greeks come up to ask if they can see Jesus. And it’s no surprise they go to Phillip, who is the disciple who grew up in a town that is 1/2 Greek and 1/2 Jewish, it’s their best chance. We don’t know much about them except that they want to see Jesus, that is their desire. 

And Jesus’s response… “Nope, not today…. If they want to see me, if they want to see Jesus then tell them to come back on Friday and look up at the Cross and see me… for then they will truly see me.” 

And once again I find myself wanting to step in… oh he is just having a bad day… come back and ask again later, ask if he can repeat the story about the brother who wanders off and the dad who loves him and the older jealous brother, ask if you can see the water to wine trick once again, see if he wants to talk about fishing or help you better understand the Torah, ask him about his baptism. But don’t start with the Cross.

Jesus’ call once again: “Follow me…. Come see the Cross.” 

And that is Jesus’ command of us this day as well: “Follow me…Come see the Cross.”

And let’s be honest, it’s not exactly our favorite past time. Say what you want about the Catholic Church and their crucifixes, we can try to say it is about theology and a resurrected Jesus, but the truth is we don’t want to have to contemplate our God dying a horrible death for us for too long. We want our Cross a little bit tamer, a little less violent, a little more feel good.

It’s why I already know that Palm Sunday and Easter will be packed, but I won’t see most of you on Good Friday. 

Because we don’t really want to see the Cross. 

Because the more we look the more we understand and the less we understand. Because the more we look at the Cross the less it looks like a divine equation, it ceases to look like a bad math problem, it stops looking like a one time event….

And the more it starts to look like a calling, the more it looks like the Way, the more it looks like Salvation and not just in accepting it but in actually living it. 

You see the problem with the Cross is the more we look at it the more we suddenly see and we experience the pain of regaining our vision.

Just like Bartimeus, just like the Greeks, just like Mike May and the individuals from Annie Dillard’s book, suddenly we see and everything changes. We are disrupted and our spiritual vision is restored. 

And with this new dimension of seeing, we lost the center of how we understand things and we have a new center…. The first shall be last and the last shall be first… love your enemies…. Die to self…. Death is victory… Surrender that which means the most. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

And with this new sight, we have a new understanding of form, distance and space… the universe lines itself upon a new way… The first shall be last and the last shall be first… love your enemies…. Dies to self…. Death is victory… Surrender that which means the most. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

And suddenly we want to close our yes and go back to our old way of seeing, or is it not seeing?

Back to the patients who were regaining their sight, the surgeons eventually discovered that regaining one’s sight took time and would counsel the patient to only open their eyes a bit each day and to close them whenever they felt overwhelmed. One doctor reports that this had much success telling this story:

“Finally, a 21 year old girl was dazzled by the world’s brightness and kept her eyes shut for two weeks. When at the end of that time she opened her eyes again, she did not recognize any objects, but the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features; she repeatedly exclaimed: Oh God! How beautiful!”

Follow Me.

Come and see.

This Easter our calling is to look at the Cross, to direct our gaze there until we can reflect and with authenticity utter, “Oh God! How beautiful!” 

Because then and only then, we will live have seen what Christ has commanded… and until we see that nothing matters.

Amen and Amen. 

*artwork: Gethsemane, by Julia Stankova, juliastankova.com