Beyond Blindness
Dr. James Mayfield January 18, 2004 Text: John 9 (focus 9:25) Have you ever bit into a pecan shell? It is not only so hard it can crack a tooth, it has an awful taste. The pecan shell is not intended to be eaten -- only the delicious meat inside. It is the kernel that is of primary importance, not the outer shell in which it comes. More than 100 years ago, a scholar by the name of Adolf Harnack wrote a book titled: What Is Christianity? The central metaphor in the book is that the Gospel is like the kernel inside a nut. Just as the kernel always comes inside a husk or shell, the Gospel always, always comes in some sort of vessel. The Gospel always comes in some sort of container: a person, words and deeds. As the Apostle Paul once wrote: "We have this treasure in clay pots." The treasure of the Gospel -- the grace of God revealed in Christ -- always comes to us in some sort of vessel. But if we are not careful, without intending to do so, we can wind up paying more attention to the container carrying the Gospel than to the Gospel itself. As Harnack pointed out in his book, this has been a major challenge of the church and church people across the centuries. All too often, we end up paying more attention to the container (the outward form of religion) than to the Gospel, that is, the grace of God revealed in Christ. If we have never cracked open the shell that brings us the Gospel we are tempted to think the religious husk is all there is. It is like thinking the pecan shell is the pecan, because no one ever cracked open a pecan enabling us to see and taste the delicious meat inside, and so, we remain ignorant and blind to what a pecan really is. If our focus is only on the religious shell that contains the kernel of the Gospel, we will remain ignorant and blind to the grace of God. We may even reject the Gospel because we do not like the look of the container in which it comes. For example, the way the Gospel is presented may sound to us as being primitive and beneath our educated sophistication, and so we who take pride in our intelligence and our ability to analyze and understand may just write off the Gospel because the container in which it comes, does not appear to us to be up to our intellectual level. Others of us may reject the Gospel because the container in which it comes appears to be too mysterious, and not of the world as we see it. Others of us may reject the kernel of the Gospel because the people through whom it comes to us are so unattractive in appearance or personality; we cannot imagine anything of great value being carried and conveyed by them. All too often when do not like the outer appearance of the husk we reject it without ever discovering or experiencing the delicious reality inside. However, our problem is not only that sometimes we reject the Gospel because we do not like the container; sometimes we are so enamored with the container we ignore what is inside. We are like someone who focuses on a jewelry box and remains ignorant of the diamonds inside. One symptom of this is feeling threatened, and even becoming angry when our way of talking about the Gospel is called into question. This is when we are so attached to the words we use to talk about the Gospel, we confuse our words with the Gospel, confuse our way of speaking with the grace of God revealed in Christ. It is easy for us church going, religious folks, to confuse the container in which the Gospel comes with the Gospel itself. A sign this has happened is when we find ourselves treating statements of doctrine something like mathematic formulas; Rather than embracing them as metaphors of faith struggling to express the ineffable reality of God's grace, we latch onto these statements as if they were formulas to be memorized and then plugged into the various dilemmas of life so that problems are solved and mysteries explained. When our focus is on the husk of religion, the kernel of the Gospel is unable to mature within us, and we become something like one of those pecans that looks great on the outside, but what is inside is shriveled and lifeless. Yet because we are focused on the outward shell, we live in ignorance of what is missing inside. This is part of what the passage we read reveals. The story in the 9th chapter of John, is not merely a story about a man who had been born blind whom Jesus healed, it is also the story about some religious people who were so focused on the husk of religion they were unable to see or taste the grace inside that husk. As you remember, Jesus and his disciples were walking through Jerusalem, when they came upon a man who had been born blind. Jesus gave the man his eyesight. People who had known the man as a beggar were amazed and took him to the very religious people. These very religious people, the Pharisees, were unable to celebrate the marvelous gift the man had received. Their focus was not on the activity of God's grace, but on the fact that an important religious law had been broken. The man had been healed on the Sabbath, and the Ten Commandments declared the Sabbath was to be a day of rest and a day of worship, a day focused on remembering God's work in the past. Not only that, but the one who had done the healing was a man who had been giving these religious folks trouble. Jesus had upset things in the temple in more ways than turning over tables of the money changers. The religious people were focused on the husk, and they were unable to experience what was inside - the heart of the Gospel. Because they were focused on the husk of religion, these very religious people were unable to grasp the Gospel in action, right in front of their eyes. They could see; but tragically, they could not see. And as is the case when any of us obsess on the husk of religion, these folks were so consumed in using their energies to protect the husk, they were unaware of all they were rejecting. Spiritually blind, they stumbled on through their lives not even being aware they were stumbling rather than walking through life as God intended. They were unable to recognize, much less affirm and celebrate the grace of God at work among them. There was no joy about this blind man being given his eyesight so that he was no longer limited to the life of a beggar. There was only defensiveness and fear of what Jesus was saying and doing because what Jesus was saying and doing might do damage to their religion, the way a nut cracker shatters the shell when it breaks open a pecan. Having substituted the husk of religion for the grace of God, they believed it was their duty to defend and protect the husk. And so, the religious people who had been attacking Jesus, attacked this man who had been healed by Jesus and drove him from their presence. It is painful for me to face the fact that the only people who really caught hell from Jesus were the very religious folks -- those who had such a clear understanding of who God is and what God wants that they lived with untroubled and even arrogant certainty. We have a lot in common with the Pharisees, especially when we confidently presume to know just whom God will and will not allow in heaven. When we are focused on the husk of religion, it is not unusual for impatient anger to drive us as we go about setting other people straight about what they ought to believe and do. It is all too easy for many of us to be so focused on the husk in which the Gospel comes that we overlook or ignore that special kernel that is the Gospel -- the good news of amazing grace that has been revealed in Jesus, this same Jesus who upset the religious folks in Jerusalem by giving sight to a man who had been born blind. When I read this story and see myself as the blind man whose life was changed by Christ so that he was not only able to see but able to recognize the grace of God at work in his life, this story is one of great comfort and a stimulus for joy and gratitude. But when I read this story and notice how much I have in common with those who focused more intently on the husk of religion than on the kernel that is the Gospel, I am more than humbled; I feel called to repentance. God, give us that special sight that enables us to be aware of your grace at work in our lives and in life around us - whether it comes in ways we expect or in ways that surprise and even startle. Amen. Pastoral
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