These Illustrations are based on John 9:1-41
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Sermon Opener - Jesus and the Man Born Blind - John 9:1-41

I came across a “fascinating list” that carried this intriguing title: “Great Truths About Life That Little Children Have Learned.” Let me share a few of these “great truths” with you.

1. “ No matter how hard you try you cannot baptize a cat.”
2. “When your mom is mad at your dad, don’t let her brush your hair.”
3. “Never ask your 3-year-old brother to hold a tomato… or an egg.”
4. “You can’t trust dogs to watch your food for you.”
5. “Don’t sneeze when somebody is cutting your hair.”
6. “School lunches stick to the wall.”
7. “You can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.”
8. “Never wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts… no matter how cute the underwear is.”

Now, it is virtually certain that the children learned these “great truths” and came to these bold new insights after some dramatic eye-opening experience in their own personal lives. Can’t you just see in your mind’s eye…some children trying to baptize a cat…and learning full well from that experience that this is just not a good thing to do. The point is clear: A dramatic personal eye-opening experience can give us new insight, new perception, new vision.

On a much deeper level and on a much more positive level, that’s precisely what we discover in this amazing story in John 9. A man blind from birth has a dramatic eye-opening experience with Jesus… and talk about new vision, talk about new insight… he is completely and totally healed. He is made whole and he comes back from the pool of Siloam with 20/20 vision,… able to see perfectly for the first time in his life. His transformation is so complete and so dramatic that he even looks a little different. The townspeople see him and say: “Hey, isn’t that the blind beggar? He can see now. Is that him? No, it’s just someone who looks like him. Couldn’t be him,” And the formerly blind man says: “It’s me alright. I am the man.”

Remember the story with me…

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Why Did God Allow That to Happen? - John 9:1-41

Tragedy can strike so quickly and capriciously. While going about our every day lives, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, the world can be changed. As a nation we've been living with that awful reality since 9-11. Thousands killed for no reason by complete strangers, who assumed, somehow in their mind, they were doing some good for this world. Then there are natural disasters: tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes...If you have avoided tragedy at this point in your life thank God that you have been spared, but consider yourself lucky as well. And now as a world we are dealing with the COVID-19 virus and the uncertain nature it has brought to our every day lives. Recognize it is only a matter of time.

Haven't we all asked this question at one time or another in one form or another: why did god allow that to happen? Most of us know that God does not CAUSE tragedy. The Bible states clearly that God does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men (Lamentations 3:33) .The greater problem for most believers is this: Why does God ALLOW such awful things to happen?

Jesus' disciples asked our Lord this thorny question 2000 years ago. They met a man one day who had been born blind. In the first century, most people believed that all suffering was the result of sin. So the disciples asked Jesus, "Who sinned in this case, this blind man or his parents?"

There was even one school of thought that believed that a person could sin prior to birth, while still in the mother's womb. Imagine that! "Tell us, Jesus," they begged, "why was this man born blind?" Jesus did not respond with a neat, simple answer to the problem of human suffering. And I am not going to serve you a simplistic batch of biblical stew that will cause you to declare, "Aha, finally I have solved the mystery of evil and suffering in this world."

I am suspicious of anyone who talks too glibly about this age-old mystery. I recall a humbling episode from a British movie entitled, "Whistle in the Wind." A group of kids had experienced the death of their pet kitten. They had prayed fervently that the cat would get well, but instead it died. They couldn't understand this. So, they went in search of the local vicar or pastor. They found him in a tea shop, taking a morning break, enjoying his tea and newspaper. They asked him, "Why did God let our cat die?" The good pastor was not delighted to be interrupted with the matter of a deceased cat. But out of duty he laid aside his paper and launched into a long, complex, theological response to this question. The children stood and listened intently. When he finished he wished them well and went back to his newspaper. The children walked away somewhat bewildered. One little boy, holding his older sister's hand, looked up at her and said, "He doesn't know, does he?" How perceptive children can be. Never in this world will we understand all the mystery surrounding suffering. But with God's help we can gain some helpful insights. That is my purpose this morning.

1. Notice first that Jesus does not answer the first question: Why was this man born blind?
2. Notice second that he answers this question: What good can this tragedy produce?

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Christlike Sight

Anybody here have selective hearing or seeing? Sure, we all do. Every second, our brain is bombarded with sensory data from all five senses. You just sat down, but already your brain has probably stopped consciously focusing on the feel of the seat. You're probably not thinking about the temperature of the room, although you probably did at one point this morning. There are all kinds of sounds that you're not focusing on right now - the faint hum of lights, somebody shifting beside you. Our brains would go crazy if they had to process every piece of data that our bodies sensed.

We think we're seeing everything, but we're all being selective all the time. Today, you've probably noticed who's not here, who's sitting in a different spot, who's sitting with whom. You may have wondered what it means that so-and-so is sitting with that person. Years ago, before I dated my wife, I brought a date to a function that my wife also attended. She could tell you exactly what my date was wearing. I don't have a clue. I never did, not even that night. It's the same with cars. You get interested in a car, and all of a sudden you notice them everywhere. They were there before, but you never noticed them.

The part of the brain that filters all this information is called the Reticular Activating System. It's continually at work, even though we never think about it. Today's story is about our spiritual Reticular Activating System. The goal for all of us, if we're followers of Jesus Christ, is to see the same things that he sees. We want to notice what's important to him.

Darryl Dash, Spiritual Eyesight

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Distract the Christians!

All too often we miss what God is doing because we are either too busy doing something else or we have a better idea of what God would do. Someone sent me the following in an email this week:

Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his evil angels, he said:

"We can't keep the Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can't even keep them from forming an intimate, abiding relationship experience in Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can't gain that experience in Jesus Christ. This is what I want you to do, angels. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!"

"How shall we do this?" shouted his angels. "Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds, "he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade them to work for long hours, to work 6 - 7 days a week, 10 - 12 hours a day, so they can afford their lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their family fragments, soon, their home will offer no escape from the pressures of work."

"Over stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still small voice. Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, iPads, CDs and their computers going constantly in their homes. And see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."

"Fill the coffee table with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards.

Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogues, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services, and false hopes."

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted, and unprepared for the coming week.

Don't let them go out in nature to reflect on God's wonders. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead."

And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotion."

"Let them be involved in soul-winning. But crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause."

It was quite a convention in the end. And the evil angels went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busy, busy, busy and rush here and there.

Has the devil been successful at his scheme? You be the JUDGE.

Ray Osborne, Here's Mud in Your Eye!

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I Once Was Blind

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I'm found;
Was blind, but now I see.

This plaintive spiritual song is a favorite among the elderly and nursing home residents at chapel time, those for whom physical eyesight is waning and for whom spiritual sight is increasingly significant. I think many believe it is a Negro spiritual, maybe because of its haunting melody.

Actually it was written by John Newton, who was part of the revival of the Church of England in the late eighteenth century. He was a self-educated man, who had gone to sea and at one time had been the captain of a ship in the African slave trade. After his conversion, he became an ordained minister of the Church of England, finally serving as rector of a church in London. It could well be that this personal testimony referred to his time of blindness to the awful exploitation and forced transport of the wretched slaves. He was indeed a spiritual wretch, just as the slaves were physical wretches in the stinking hold of his ship. Through an amazing grace his eyes were opened and he could see clearly God's will for his life, and it was not to haul slaves.

David Belgum, A Clearer Vision, "Seeing the Unseeing," CSS Publishing Company.

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Another Perspective

There is a story of a beggar who was sitting across the street from an artist's studio. The artist saw him and thought he would make an interesting portrait study so from a distance he painted the defeated man whose shoulders drooped, and whose eyes were downcast and sad. When he was finished, he took the portrait over to the beggar so he could look at it.

"Who is that?" the beggar questioned. The painting bore a slight resemblance to himself, but in the painting before him he saw a person of dignity, with squared shoulders and bright uplifted eyes, almost handsome! He asked the artist, "Is that me? I don't look like that." But the artist replied, "but that is the person I see in you."

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com Adapted from New Vision in Christ, by Rev. Michael J. Fish

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What God Sees

In the midst of our Lenten journey, God doesn't see us as everyone else sees us. People around us may see us as cool, successful, unattractive, popular, old, whatever. It doesn't matter at all how others may see us. God sees our hearts, sees us as we really are. Perhaps we wish we had him fooled, like those we've led to believe that we're less frightened, more confident, happier than we really are. Or perhaps we're deeply grateful that God sees through all the shallow, negative judgments which so many people have placed on us. Probably it's both.

Our Lord, to our joy and to our sorrow, looks into our hearts and sees us as we really are. In Lent, that's a call for introspection: to confess that we have not loved our Lord with our whole hearts, nor loved our neighbors as ourselves.

In Lent, it's especially important that we confess our sinfulness as specifically as we're able. In what ways have we failed God and ourselves? Because we can't hide from God, we dare not use all our usual ways to avoid our sinfulness. We're used to denying our sins, minimizing them, excusing them, blaming them on others. This Lent, let's examine ourselves, asking God to search our hearts. We benefit from naming our sins, our needs, and losses, and failings. And we admit to God that only by his grace and guidance can we find healing and help.

G. Edward Whetstone, Caught in the Acts, CSS Publishing

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How Do You Know It's A Bad Thing?

There is an ancient Chinese legend of an old man and his only son. One night the old man's horse escaped, and the neighbors came to comfort him in his loss. "How do you know this is a bad thing?" he asked them.

Several days later his horse returned with a herd of wild horses. Now his friends came to congratulate the farmer for his good fortune. But the old man said, "How do you know this is a good thing?"

While his son was trying taming one of the wild horses, he is thrown and breaks his leg. Again his friends gathered to bemoan his new misfortune. But the old man asked, "How do you know this is a bad thing?"

Soon a warlord came to recruit able-bodied youth for his army, and the farmer's son escaped conscription because of his broken leg. In true fashion, the farmer's neighbors came and expressed their pleasure over the man's good luck. "How do you know it's a good thing?" he asked. The story can go on forever. Good fortune can quickly turn on you and bad fortune may be a blessing in disguise.

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com

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What a Happy Soul

The prolific Christian hymn writer, Fanny Crosby, lost her sight as a young child. But it is obvious through her hymns that she was a person who could see wonderfully with the spiritual eyes of her heart. We see a touch of her insight in the following poem:

"Oh, what a happy soul am I! Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world, content I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't,
To weep and sigh because I'm blind, I cannot and I won't."

Staff, www.Sermons.com

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Humor: It's The Blind Man

Mrs. Smith was stark-naked and just about to step into the shower when the doorbell rang. She hollered, "Who is it?" He shouted back, "It's the blind man." She figured it was safe, so she opened the door. He looked at her in shock and asked, "Where do you want me to hang these blinds, lady?"

Ann Landers, The Washington Post, October 13, 1998.

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The Creation of Braille

It was 1818 in France, and Louis, a boy of 9, was sitting in his father’s workshop. The father was a harness-maker and the boy loved to watch his father work the leather. "Someday Father," said Louis, "I want to be a harness-maker, just like you." "Why not start now?" said the father. He took a piece of leather and drew a design on it. "Now, my son," he said, "take the hole-puncher and a hammer and follow this design, but be careful that you don’t hit your hand." Excited, the boy began to work, but when he hit the hole-puncher, it flew out of his hand and pierced his eye! He lost the sight of that eye immediately. Later, sight in the other eye failed. Louis was now totally blind.

A few years later, Louis was sitting in the family garden when a friend handed him a pinecone. As he ran his sensitive fingers over the cone, an idea came to him. He became enthusiastic and began to create an alphabet of raised dots on paper so that the blind could feel and interpret what was written. Thus, Louis Braille opened up a whole new world for the blind--all because of an accident!

Bits and Pieces, June, 1990, p. 23-4

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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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Sermon Opener – Get Down and Dirty for Lent by Leonard Sweet – John 9:1-41

[For this sermon, you will need aprons. Invite the matriarchs and patriarchs of your church to let you use their well-used aprons as props. Or better yet, conduct a fashion show of the aprons used by people in your church.]

Unless you have lived in a rural area, you might not know the joys of keeping that most unruly, unpredictable, but absolutely crucial-to-life “pet” known as . . . a septic tank.

There are some unbendable rules for septic tanks.

1) They will always back up the day your daughter’s wedding reception is being held in your back yard.
2) They will overflow and need to be re-dug immediately after you’ve just completed re-landscaping.
3) The septic tank alarm always goes off between 1-5 a.m.
4) Your neighbor’s septic tank alarm goes off when they have gone on vacation.

But the most important thing about a septic tank? Like any living thing, you must “feed” them regularly. Every month or so you must flush down a new packet of lovely little bacteria, a new infusion of the little critters that digest waste and keep the septic tank an organic, living system. Without a fresh batch of “germs,” your “system” is doomed to fail. For a septic tank “germs” are good.

We live in an increasingly “sealed” set of systems. How many of you work in a building where the windows do not open? We have to install carbon monoxide monitors in our homes because there is no way for fresh air to enter unless we intentionally invite it in by opening a door or window. A furnace malfunction can mean death.

And as we seal out wind and weather we stamp out germs. I dare you to find a soap that is NOT marketed as “anti-bacterial.” We keep hand sanitizers in our cars, on our desks, in our pockets. Ten years ago “Mr. Monk’s” fussy demands for a “wipe, wipe” after shaking hands with someone was totally funny. Today it is SOP, “standard operating procedure.”

Germs ARE scary: AIDS, Avian Flu, Cholera, TB. Yet with the very huge exception of AIDS/HIV, there are fewer incidents of immune system diseases — illnesses that attack and compromise or destroy our body’s immune defense system--in the so-called “third world” countries than in the most technologically advanced countries. In other words, people who live in the cleanest, most sanitized conditions bear a greater risk of developing a condition that makes them MORE susceptible to “bad bugs” than those who live in what we would call “filth.”

Maybe, like a septic tank system, we need to encourage a few good germs to keep us healthy and alive.

It is not just the twenty-first century that has been obsessed with “dirt” and “uncleanness.” In Judaism the laws for “ritual purity” were developed over centuries, rooted in Torah prohibitions and expanded by countless midrashes. There were rules “for” and rules “against” every aspect of life. All cultures have social fences that make some things “acceptable” or “clean” while other things are “unacceptable” or “dirty.”

Blow your nose in a tissue — perfectly acceptable.
Blow your nose on your sleeve — unbelievably gross!
Spit in the sink — with the water running please! — while brushing your teeth, acceptable.
Spit on the sidewalk — it used to be you could get arrested!
Spit in someone’s face, and that ultimate sign of contempt will almost certainly get you punched!

Jesus had a strange sense of what was “dirty” and what was ‘clean.” He did not accept the boundaries that had been drawn by tradition and authority…

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Sermon Opener - Do You Have It? Ephesians 5:8-14 by Leonard Sweet

Lent is one of the primary seasons of the Christian calendar. But this year that phrase "primary season" has a different meaning. Lent may be a primary season of prayer and fasting, repentance and introspection in a theological context. But this is "primary season," which means something very different in a political context.

No matter how apolitical you may be, it has been impossible to avoid the "primary season." The pious pronouncements of the endless parade of political pundits can become like fingernails on a blackboard. But the close numbers within both parties have made the "primary season" more like an old-fashioned horse race, and we can't wait for the next "There's off!"

The great thing about a close race is that suddenly everyone is important. When else do Iowans get to be trendsetters? Who cares about Arizona, besides Arizonians, except in a close primary year? How else could Alabama, Kansas, and Washington find common ground but on a primary vote counting day? Suddenly our sprawling country takes on the face of a small town. Everyone is important. Everyone has a say. Anyone could tip the scales.

Anyone here grow up in a small town? You know that the blessing of living in a small community is that everyone knows the secrets of everyone else. Anyone who grew up in a small town knows that the curse of living in a small community is that everyone knows the secrets of everyone else. Everyone keeps an eye out FOR one another. Everyone also keeps an eye ON one another. Familiarity breeds both contentment and contempt.

The same way our political primary season has seemed to shrink the contours of our country to one "small town," so Information Technology, known as IT, have shrunk our whole planet to a small town culture. Internet and instant messaging, twenty-four hour international news feeds, text messages from anywhere to anywhere, have managed to create a real (if uncomfortable) "global village."

Thomas Friedman is right: the world is flat. Everybody knows everybody else's business. And we seem to think that we have a RIGHT to know everybody else's business. Look at the swarm of speculation that flew about when the young Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead. The media formed a feeding frenzy around every aspect of Ledger's life and family, making his tragic death the lead story on every newscast. Eventually the news stories focused on how many news stories were being done about Ledger. Any veil of privacy was immediately torn down as we demanded we had the "right" to know everything about the young man's life and death.

True small towns--not unlike the Cold War era---operate under the MAD law of "mutually assured destruction." Small towns manage to function and thrive because its residents know the law of the land--"if you tell my secrets, I'll tell your secrets." And there is also another law of the land: even though I know your secrets, there is such a thing as "none of my business."

What the global small town seems to have abandoned is the sense that darkness and light are part of the essential human condition. Wherever you find a human being, you find a potential "child of light," but you also find a "child of darkness."

To be human is to have secrets. We all have secrets.

The Ephesian author in today's epistle text is not trying to "out" all the deep, dark secrets that make up scar tissue on our souls. Christians are not called to be tabloid tattletales or some sort of pure-hearted paparazzi. Calling out shortcomings, catching others in sinful situations -- definitely NOT the business of the "children of light."

Our business, the business of those who have been graced by the "light," is to "find out what is pleasing to the Lord." And we don't have to wonder what that means: "pleasing to the Lord." For Ephesians makes "what is pleasing" simple and straight-forward: "what is pleasing to the Lord" is "all that is good, and right, and true" (v.10).

"Good, and right, and true." Lives of goodness, righteousness, and truth: that is what it means to live as children of the light…

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Religious People

Recently, a team of sociologists surveyed a representative group of several hundred "Baby Boomers" who had been raised in a serious and committed church environment. In fact, every person in the sample group had been confirmed in the church as an adolescent. When the research team tracked these people, it found that they still consider themselves "religious" -- over 90 percent of these young adults describe themselves that way -- but they do not bother much to express that religiosity in church -- less than half of them regularly attend worship.

And, not unexpectedly, those who were not raised in a religious environment participate in church even less actively than the sample group, but that doesn't mean they aren't "religious," too; indeed, they are nearly unanimous in their willingness to affirm their devout belief.

Thomas G. Long, Whispering the Lyrics, CSS Publishing Company.

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Great Truths about Life

Recently, I ran across a "fascinating list" that carried this intriguing title: "Great Truths About Life That Little Children Have Learned." Let me share a few of these "great truths" with you.

(1) " No matter how hard you try you cannot baptize a cat."
(2) "When your mom is mad at your dad, don’t let her brush your hair."
(3) "Never ask your 3-year-old brother to hold a tomato… or an egg."
(4) "You can’t trust dogs to watch your food for you."
(5) "Don’t sneeze when somebody is cutting your hair."
(6) "School lunches stick to the wall."
(7) "You can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk."
(8) "Never wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts… no matter how cute the underwear is."

Now, it is virtually certain that the children learned these "great truths" and came to these bold new insights after some dramatic eye-opening experience in their own personal lives. Can’t you just see in your mind’s eye,… some children trying to baptize a cat… and leaning full well from that experience that this is just not a good thing to do. The point is clear: A dramatic personal eye-opening experience can give us new insight, new perception, new vision.

On a much deeper level and on a much more positive level, that’s precisely what we discover in this amazing story in John 9.

James W. Moore, Encounters with Christ, www.Sermons.com

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Beyond Darkness

"People are prepared for everything except for the fact that beyond the darkness of their blindness there is a great light. They are prepared to go on breaking their backs plowing the same old field until the cows come home without seeing, until they stub their toes on it, that there is a treasure buried in that field rich enough to buy Texas. They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour’s work as for a day’s. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the Lamb."

Fredrick Buechner

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Issues that Divide Us

How denominations came into being:

The story concerns two blind men who had been healed by Jesus, who happened to meet one day, and they were so excited to meet someone else who had been healed. They talked about the wonder of sight, the color of flowers, the beauty of butterflies, the glory of sunrises, the faces of children and grandchildren.

They talked about the wonder of having seen the face of Jesus. They were laughing and having a great time together, when one of them said, "And do you remember how Jesus took that mud, spit on it, and put it into your eye?"

The other fellow looked kind of stunned, and answered, "Why no, he simply said, 'Receive your sight,' and I could see."

The first fellow said, "Wait a minute - now just wait a minute here. You mean he didn't use any mud?"

"No."

"Well, did he at least have you wash in the pool of Siloam?"

"No - of course not - who ever heard of anything so ridiculous as mud in your eye?!"

"Well," said the first man, "if he didn't put mud in your eyes and have you wash in the pool of Siloam, you are still blind! Blind - do your hear me?

Because that's the way Jesus healed me; that's the way he does it!"

Then the second man began to get angry. He shouted, "Mud, mud, mud! Who ever heard of using mud?! That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard! You still have mud in your eyes. You're the one who's still blind!"

They got into a big argument - their relationship was destroyed, and right then and there, they formed the first two denominations: the Mudites and the Antimudites!

Since then, of course, the church has been fighting and splitting over issues not a whole lot more significant than that!

Dale Cockrum, Why Denominations?

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Humor: Having To Wait

Three persons arrived at the Pearly Gates at the same time. St. Peter came but said he had some pressing business and would they please wait? He was gone a long time, but finally he came back and called one of the new arrivals in and asked if she had minded waiting.

"No," she said, "I've looked forward to this for so long. I love God and I can't wait to meet Jesus. I don't mind at all."

St. Peter then said, "Well, I have one more question. How do you spell 'God'?"
She said, "Capital-G-o-d."
St. Peter said, "Go right on in."

He went outside and met another new arrival, told him to come on inside, and said, "Did you mind waiting?"

The man said, "Oh, no. I have been a Christian for fifty years, and I'll spend eternity here. I didn't mind at all."

So St. Peter said, "Just one more thing. How do you spell 'God'?"
He said, "G-o-d. No, I mean capital-G."
St. Peter said that was good and sent him into heaven.

St. Peter went back out and invited the third person in and asked her if she had minded waiting.

"As a matter of fact, I did," she replied. "I've had to stand in line all my life - at the supermarket, when I went to school, when I registered my children for school, when I went to the movies - everywhere - and I resent having to wait in line for heaven now!"

St. Peter said, "Well, that's all right for you to feel that way. It won't be held against you, but there is just one more question. How do you spell 'Czechoslovakia'?"

Tie in: The relationship between this joke and the text is the element of irritation that we often feel towards complainers. Those who rarely see the good in circumstances and events. The Pharisees were not able to enjoy the blinds man's new found sight. The church is full of these individuals that we must bare.

Traditional

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God Glorified in Weakness

I have a dear friend, Bill Mann, who has one of the great singing voices in the Christian church in this nation. I remember some years ago he told me about the most special concert in his life. It was after the concert was over and he returned to his dressing room. Waiting for him there was a woman who was blind, deaf, and mute. Through the lady who was with her, she asked if it he would sing for her the last song he sang in the concert, "Surely, he said. And standing only five inches from his face . . . and placing her fingers on his lip and on his vocal cords, he sang again, "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" As he finished singing, a tear trickled down the face of Helen Keller. Indistinctly, she said, as the words were repeated by the lady with her: "I was there!"

"Deaf, blind, mute from birth?’ you say. "Isn’t that too much for one individual to bear?’ No, as a matter of fact, of all the women in this nation there was probably no contemporary who gave others more insight into the meaning of suffering than Helen Keller . . . or more insight into the love of God.

James Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, Tyndale, 1988, p. 277

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The Elephant

Once there was a village where all the inhabitants were blind. When a man passed one day riding an elephant, a group of the village men cried out asking the rider to let them touch the great beast, for though they had heard about elephants, they had never been close to one.

About six of them were allowed to approach the animal, each being led to touch a different part of the body. After a time, the rider left, and the blind men hurried back to the people to share their experience. "So what is an elephant like?" the people in the crowd asked their six friends.

"Oh, I know all about elephants," boasted the man who had touched the animal's side. "He is long and narrow, built like a thick wall."

"Nonsense!" shouted the man who had touched the elephant's tusk. "He is rather short, round, and smooth, but very sharp. I would compare an elephant to . . . well, let's say a spear."

A third man, who had touched the ear, chimed in. "It is nothing like a wall or spear. An elephant is like a gigantic leaf, made of thick wool carpet, that moves when you touch it."

"I disagree," said the fourth man who had handled the trunk. "An elephant is much like a large snake."

The fifth man shouted his disapproval. He had touched a leg of the great beast. "It is plain to me than none of you knows what an elephant looks like. It is round and reaches toward the heavens like a tree."

The sixth man, who had been placed on the elephant's back, cried out, "Can none of you accurately describe an elephant? He is like a gigantic moving mountain."

To this day, the argument has not been resolved, and the people of that village still have no idea what an elephant looks like.

Adapted from "The Blind Men and the Elephant" in Speaking in Stories by William White, p. 78.

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Humor: To Jesus from the Pharisaic Management Consultants

With all the knowledge the Pharisees possessed that was handed down to them from the prophets I often find myself wondering how they could have missed the fact that quite often God chose to use the most unqualified person or the most ordinary individual to do the most ordinary things. I came across a letter once that went something like this:

"TO: Jesus, Son of Joseph, Woodcrafter's Carpenter Shop
"FROM: Pharisaic Management Consultants

"Dear Sir:

"Thank you for submitting the resumes of the twelve men you have picked for managerial positions in your new organization. All of them have now taken our battery of tests, and we have not only run the results through our computer, but also arranged personal interviews for each one of them with our psychologist and vocational aptitude consultant. It is the staff's opinion that most of your nominees are lacking in background, education and vocational aptitude for the type of enterprise you are undertaking. They do not have the team concept. We would recommend that you continue your search for persons of proven experience in managerial ability and proven capacity.

"Simon Peter is emotionally unstable and given to fits of anger. Andrew has absolutely no qualities of leadership. The two brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee place personal interests above company loyalty. Thomas demonstrates a questioning attitude that would tend to undermine morale. We also feel that it is our duty to tell you that Matthew has been blacklisted by the Greater Jerusalem Better Business Bureau. James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus definitely have radical leanings and they both registered a high score on the manic depressive scale.

"One of the candidates, however, shows great potential. He is a man of ability and resourcefulness, meets people well, has a keen business mind and contacts in high places. He is highly motivated, ambitious and responsible. We recommend Judas Iscariot as your comptroller and right-hand man. All of the other profiles are self-explanatory.

"We wish you every success in your new venture,

Sincerely yours,
James, son of John"

Ray Osborne, Here's Mud in Your Eye!

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God Cries with Us

C.S. Lewis, once wrote a story about how God suffers with us in silence by telling a story of World War II. C.S. Lewis talked about his time as a medical aid during the air war over London, with the bombing raids and dogfights. A little girl, perhaps four or five years old, was brought into the makeshift first-aid station badly hurt, in the arms of her father who was crying with the daughter. The doctor on duty quickly knew the problem, he knew that to save the child’s life she would have to lose her leg through amputation. The doctor insisted that the man place the girl onto the table so they could saw it off before she died from her bleeding wound. Lewis told of the excruciating pain in the father’s eyes as he laid his daughter onto that bloody table and pried her little hands off, one finger at a time off of his coat sleeve, about how that father with all love and tears flowing held her down to this table, this torture while she screamed in pain and agony as the doctor cut away at muscles and bones and flesh, so that she might have life.

God loves us, Christ has shown, just as a father loves his own children. Sometimes, sometimes, God grieves with us, and our screams of pain and fear and hatred pierce right into his heart. God understands when in pain we cry out ‘Why, oh why, God?’ God instead calls back to trust and know that we are still loved. And that even in the pains of this world we live through it with God beside us so that we might have life eternal.

Kirk Griffin, Why, Why, Why?

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Lift Up to God the Glory

Several Novembers ago I found myself, just before midnight, in the deep silence of London's Westminster Abbey. I had been attending a dinner in the Jerusalem Chamber adjoining the Abbey, the room where Henry IV was taken to die, and where our Westminster Confession was born. As the evening wore on I slipped from the table and entering by a narrow doorway found myself alone in that soaring nave, the tallest nave in all of Europe. All around me were the emblems of mortality, the tombs of the great and the good, poets and generals, statesmen, explorers, inventors, healers, reformers, with their fascinating inscriptions, their glowing tributes.

I walked the length of that long aisle, along which kings and queens had made their way to coronation, to marriage, to interment. I stood a while before the great high altar. And it seemed to me that all that I had seen there, yes the deaths and lives, the achievement and insight, sheer courage, true faith, that all of this was brought together here, embraced and lifted up to God, lifted up in one great hymn of thanks and praise and glory. And I saw that that's what we are called to do.

J. Barrie Shepherd, Poirot or Corot: On Asking the Right Questions

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Trust: The Tiger

One night at a circus the tent was packed with thousands of people. It was time for the tiger trainer to come out and perform. He bowed to the audience then went inside the cage. A hush drifted over the audience as the door was locked behind him. The trainer skillfully put the tigers through their paces. Suddenly there was a huge pop, followed by a complete blackout of power. For several long minutes the trainer was trapped in the cage with the tigers in total darkness. The trainer knew the tigers could see him with their powerful vision, but he could not see them. All he had was a whip and small chair as a means of protection.

Finally, the lights came back on, and the trainer finished his performance. Everyone was amazed that he wasn’t attacked and feared for him in the darkness. After his performance the trainer was interviewed by a local television reporter. He admitted how scared he was. But during the blackout he realized that the tigers did not know that he could not see them. He just kept cracking his whip and talked to them until the lights came back on.

There are times when all of us are confronted with tigers in the dark. We don’t trust the oil companies because of escalating gas prices. It is getting more difficult to trust government officials because of all the perks and golf trips congressmen receive from lobbyists. Some don’t trust the Church. But trust is also a problem in relationships. Some don’t trust their spouses. Others don’t trust their children.

Like the trainer in the cage with no power, we live in the darkness, afraid that we will be attacked, hurt, rejected, abused or taken advantage of. Just as the trainer had to trust that he could survive the darkness while encaged with the tigers, God wants us to trust Him, when we are overcome with darkness and fear.

Keith Wagner, God Is With Us

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God’s Work of Art

Well-intentioned people often take on the role of God's defense attorney. Sometimes when bad things happen to us they "defend" God by telling us that the ways of God are mysterious, and we do not understand them. That which seems to be a bad thing - a child who is born blind - is really a beautiful thing. We should give thanks for the blindness or tragedy. It is all God's Will.

Perhaps our friends will use the famous illustration of Thorton Wilder from his book The Eighth Day, where he compares life to a beautiful tapestry:

"Looked at from the right side, it is an intricately woven work of art, drawing together threads of different lengths and colors to make up an inspiring picture. But turn the tapestry over, and you will see a hodgepodge of many threads, some short and some long, some smooth and some cut and knotted, going off in different directions. Wilder offers this as his explanation of why good people have to suffer in this life. God has a pattern into which all of our lives fit. His pattern requires that some lives be twisted, knotted, or cut short, while others extend to impressive lengths, not because one thread is more deserving than another, but simply because the pattern requires it. Looked at from underneath, from our vantage point in life, God's pattern of reward and punishment seems arbitrary and without design, like the underside of a tapestry. But looked at from outside this life, from God's vantage point, every twist and knot is seen to have its place in a great design that adds up to a work of art."

Telling someone that the tragedy that has just befallen them is “God’s will” is the worst possible thing you could say to them.

Mickey Anders, Asking the Wrong Questions

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The Right Questions

When a group of tourists saw a legless war veteran go to the Shrine of Lourdes, they whispered and laughed, "Does he suppose God will give him back his legs?" The veteran overheard this remark. Turning to the group, he said, "No, I don't expect God to give me back my legs. I expect him to show me how to live without them."

Perhaps if we just asked the right questions, we would discover that God is not in the business of bringing pain and suffering into our lives. Rather God gives strength to live even in the midst of the worst kinds of suffering.

Mickey Anders, Asking the Wrong Questions

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Humor: The One Minute Story

These Sundays leading up to Holy Week provide for us some of the longest scripture readings of the entire year. In considering how I might shorten these gospel texts, I was reminded of an internet site called “Book a Minute.” Their motto tells you all you need to know, for it says: “When even Cliff Notes are too long.” So I looked up a few of the edited books on their website, and this is what I found.

Remember Dr. Seuss’ story “Green Eggs and Ham”? This is how “Book a Minute” tells it:

Some Creature: I won’t eat green eggs and ham anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances.”
Sam I am: “Here, try it.”
Some Creature: “Yum. I like it!”
THE END

Or perhaps your children read the book “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing”? Here’s the short version:

Peter the 4th Grader: “I’m going to do something fun.”
Fudge, the Little Brother: “Can I come?”
Peter, the 4th Grader: “No.”
Fudge comes anyway and ruins everything.
THE END

And then there is “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens:

Ebenezer Scrooge: “Bah, humbug. I hate Christmas.”
The Ghost of Marley: “You’re mean.”
Ghost of Christmas Past: “You’re mean.”
Ebenezer Scrooge: “Now I have seen the light, let’s dance, here, have some money.”
THE END

So I got to wondering, how would “Book a Minute” tell this story of the man born blind who was healed by Jesus? It would probably sound something like this:

Blind Man: “Help, I can’t see!”
Jesus: “Here’s mud in your eye.”
Blind Man: “So this is what pizza looks like!”
THE END

Steven Molin, Sermon in a Minute

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Always Right

Several years ago I was preparing to preach a sermon on the rigidness of the Pharisees, and I had folded into each worship bulletin, adhesive labels which said either “I’M ALWAYS RIGHT!” or “I MIGHT BE WRONG.” I asked people to stick their labels on their lapels and wear them during the sharing of the peace, and as we shared the peace, the sanctuary was a-buzz with wonderful conversation and laughter. But on the way home that day, I forgot that I was still wearing my label which read I’M ALWAYS RIGHT! At the gas station I received a rather chilly response from the attendant. When I stopped at Roth’s grocery store, the clerk seemed almost afraid of me, and our conversation was brief and sterile. And it wasn’t until I got home, when Marsha blurted out “You’re not always right! In fact, you’re rarely right!” And then I remembered the gas station and the grocery store, and I realized the power of being absolutely right. It stifles conversation, it eliminates tolerance, and it erects walls of separation. So these days, I wear a different label: I might be wrong. I might not understand it all. Someone else might have something to offer.

Steven Molin, Sermon in a Minute

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Someone once said to Helen Keller, "What a pity you have no sight!" Helen Keller replied, "Yes, but what a pity so many have sight but cannot see!"

Staff

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You Have Not Tasted My Jesus

Bob Allred tells the story about a country preacher who was listening to a seminary professor cast doubt on the core issues of the faith. When the professor finished his lecture, the elderly pastor got up, took an apple from his lunch bag and started eating it as he said, "Mr. Professor, I haven't read many of them books you quoted." Then he took another bite of the apple.

"Mr. Professor, I don't know much about the great thinkers you mentioned," as he took still another bite of his apple.

"Mr. Professor, I admit I haven't studied the Bible like you have," as he finished his apple and dropped it back in the bag.

"I was just wondering, this apple that I just ate, was it sour or sweet?"

The Professor responded, "How could I know? I haven't tasted your apple."

To which the old preacher replied, "With all due respect, sir, I was just wondering if you had ever had a taste of my Jesus?"

The blind man says "Whether or not the cure was approved by the FDA, I once was blind, but now I see. You all argue and explain all you want, but that's enough for me."

J. Howard Olds, Faith Breaks, www.Sermons.com

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I Believe

Children in church school sing "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." To retain this simple belief all through life is the kernel of Christian faith. Jesus said "unless we have faith as a little child" we will not enter into the kingdom. In a sense we always remain "children" of the heavenly father. One time the world-renowned theologian Karl Barth was asked what he would consider the greatest truth he had discovered in all his reading and thinking. His astonishingly simple reply was, "The greatest truth I have ever learned is ‘Jesus loves me.’ "In childhood and in the wisdom of maturity this is the great essential of Christian faith. Like the man healed of blindness we must "see" that Jesus, who revealed the power of God, loves us, and say to Christ, "Lord, I believe.”

Jon L. Joyce, His Hands

Wrestling with God and Losing

Nikos Kazantzakis, that tortured Greek writer who was constantly haunted by God, once wrote of an experience he had when he went to visit a monk at Mt. Athos. "Father Macarius," he said to the old monk, "I remember that in your younger days you wrestled with the devil. Do you still do that?"

"No," Father Macarius replied, "the devil has grown old, and so have I. I no longer struggle with the devil. Now I wrestle with God."

"You wrestle with God?" said Kazantzakis. "You wrestle with God, and hope to win?"

"No," said Father Macarius. "I wrestle with God, and I hope to lose." So may we all.

Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, www.Sermons.com

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Blaming

"Who sinned, this man or his parents?" the disciples asked. And Jesus replied, "Neither." But the disciples wanted to place blame on someone for this man’s blindness. Why do so many people follow this practice? Often they hurt one another as they seek to find someone at whom they can point the finger of accusation. After all, none of us is blameless. Scriptures tell us "all have sinned." It is sometimes a case of self-righteousness when we try to lay blame on someone. By doing so we disrupt human relations. Even nations have been artful in this practice, going to war on the basis of first laying blame on the enemy. Colleges blame high schools for the defects of their students; high schools blame the grade schools, while grade schools blame the parents and homes. Rather than follow such a practice we need to look at ourselves, asking what God will find when he probes into our life. Also, it is time to stop passing the buck and to get at the work of making necessary improvements. Helping, not blaming, must be the order of the day.

Jon L. Joyce, His Hands

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Are We Blind Also?

What a question to ask ourselves. The answer might surprise us. How much of God do we see? He is all about us. A great scientist went home to lunch after spending the morning in his laboratory peering through a powerful microscope at the petals of a rose. When his wife asked him how he had been spending his time he replied, "I have spent the morning with God." It was Oliver St. John Gogarty who wrote:

What can we say but, "Glory be,"

When God bursts out in an apple tree?

Do we see God in nature, in humanity? Or are we blind also?

Jon L. Joyce, His Hands