March 19, 2023, 4th Sunday in Lent, Sermon preached by Rev. Carolyn H. Eklund at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Brunswick, Maine.

Year A; LentFB.4; 3.19.2023

Preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Brunswick, Maine.

John 9:1-41

Good morning! What a joy it is to be here with the good folks of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. In the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, some of our churches are led by Lutheran pastors. Pastor Amanda Gerken-Nelson leads St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Yarmouth. She is a friend and colleague. Our churches have a close bond of mission that was sealed by our leaders in the year 1999.

I was in seminary when our leaders affirmed “An Agreement of Full Commuion” between our churches. This is what the introduction of that agreement says: “Our churches have discovered afresh our unity in the gospel and our commitment to the mission to which God calls the church of Jesus Christ in every generation.” My friends, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Episcopal Church, you and me are joined in common mission. I am so excited by this!

Pastor Michael introduced himself to me last summer and we have had joyful conversations about our common mission of “unity in the gospel.” We said that we would share a “pulpit exchange” in Lent and see where the Spirit leads us.

One place the Spirit is leading us is certainly to preach the gospel. And that’s my privilege this morning. To share with you the good news of Jesus’ love and healing from the story in John’s gospel of the man born blind. It’s a healing with mud!

I moved to Maine 10 years ago. I grew up in Kansas and have lived in cold climates on the east coast for decades. So I know about the cold temperatures, snow and ice. But I wasn’t prepared those ten years ago for the LONG WINTERS. And certainly, I had never heard of “mud season!”

Now I know that “Mud Season” is the consequence of the thaw. I now own a pair of muck boots and wear them to walk my dog, Dory. I’ve already encountered lots of mud. Have you? Yesterday, as I walked my dog, I actually walked through the newly formed deep puddles just to clear off the mud from my boots before I went inside!

It might not occur to us as we fight the mud, that our Savior used it for healing. But he did! I love it that Jesus used his spit and mud effectively for healing. In the story from John’s gospel today, I love how much urgency Jesus had to heal the blind man. Even though the man had been blind all his life, Jesus acted right away. His urgency led him to use whatever he had at hand to do the healing. Here he had an opportunity to relieve a very poor begging blind man and to demonstrate God’s power of love in a healing act.

Jesus knew that the political pressure of the Pharisees was mounting against him. Indeed, by the end of this story, they flat out rejected the healing of the blind man even though they saw the evidence for themselves. They were preparing to get rid of him. So, Jesus knew that the pressure was on. That’s why he said, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”

He was indicating the urgency of his mission to share the light of God. “Light” is the constant motif throughout John’s gospel. Jesus is “the Light of the world.” “The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it” are familiar claims from John’s gospel.

In the story today, Jesus made his claim “I am the light of the world” just before he made mud! He said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” And then he proceeded to touch the man and spread the mud on his eyes. Jesus spread mud on the man’s eyes and then told him to go wash it off in the holy waters of Siloam. The man was healed. He could see. After the healing, the religious officials called Jesus a sinner. But the man called him a prophet. He said, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know is though I was blind, now I see.”

In Chapter 8, the chapter just prior to this story, Jesus protected a woman caught in adultery. Jesus was sitting outside the Temple when the woman was caught and a group of men from the Temple, religious men dragged her outside. They stood around her with stones in their hands in order to punish her by stoning.

Jesus saw this. He very calmly got their attention by saying, “Let any one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He revealed to them their own hyposcrisy and demonstrated God’s mercy for the woman. Jesus said to the woman, “Go, and sin no more.” His mission was to demonstrate God’s love and mercy, reveal the hypocrisy of the leaders and bring those who are suffering to God.

For those who are rejected and cast to the margins of their communities, Jesus is all they have. He LOVES those who are alone, vulnerable, forgotten, poor, unhoused, imprisoned, oppressed, hungry and naked.

And we can see that clearly the blind man was failed by his own community who cast him out to be a beggar. His parents failed him. They put their own safety instead of telling the truth of their son’s healing. They were afraid of being outcasts like their son.

The town failed him. They also failed to speak up about the truth of his healing. They failed to defend him against the interrogation of the religious officials. The religious community failed him. They asked him to bear witness to his healing. But then, they rejected the blind man’s truth by calling his healer, Jesus, “a sinner.”

The gospel story today unfolds so that we see that the blind man was able to see more and more clearly. And we also see that the rigid religious officials became more blind to the truth. They became hardened in their inability to see clearly. They were blind to God’s power and compassion. We see it on our lives today how easily God’s goodness and truth are turned upside-down and called something completely opposite and false.

The story draws us to Jesus, the Son of Man who heals, loves and shows God’s mercy. The blind man says, “Yes, I believe in the Son of Man. And who is he sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him…One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” I love that the choir will sing these same words in “Amazing Grace” this morning. “I once was blind, but now I see.”

The gospel story of the man born blind calls us all to see the healing, compassion and glory that Jesus brings to us and to the world. And I wonder if we might examine where we are blinded to his goodness in our lives. After all, that’s what Christians are called do in this Season of Lent.

Let me return to our Lutheran and Episcopaian commitment to Common Mission. In the Introduction of our Common Mission, this is what is written:

“Unity and mission are organically linked in the Body of Christ, the church. All baptized peole are called to lives of faithful witness and service in the name of Jesus. Indeed, the baptized are nourished and sustained by Christ as encountered in Word and Sacrament. Our search for a fuller expression of visible unity is for the sake of lving and sharing the gospel. Unity and mission are at the heart of the church’s life….”

The Lutherans and Episcopalians are in full communion, and our common path is to share the light of Christ with each other and the world.

And maybe, just maybe…our unity calls us to play together in the healing mud of Jesus!