Wellspring UMC; Fifth
Sunday in Easter; April 20, 2008: “Believing is Seeing”:
-Luke
11: 17-44
There
are some nights when Teresa and I love to tune into the TV land station, and
watch reruns of MASH. For those who may
not know the television show MASH, it is a satirical comedy which recounts the
life of a
The
other night we were watching the episode where a lantern blows up in Hawkeye’s
face. Hawkeye is an excellent surgeon
but a cynical and frustrated soldier.
The force of the explosion blinds Hawkeye, and for a week he has to have
his eyes bandaged shut. He can’t see a
thing, and yet he continues to try and care for the wounded, including another
soldier who has had a grenade explode in his face and completely lost his
sight.
As
the episode evolves Hawkeye begins to learn much from his blind companion but
also the situation in which he finds himself.
Though he hates not being able to see, he is fascinated by how his other
senses begin to take over. He is amazed at what he ‘sees’ with no eyes. So much so that as they take the bandage off
he’s anxious, not because he is fearful that he will never see, as much as not
being sure if he wants so quickly to give up this new way of seeing the world.
In
the end, he does regain his sight, but he says to the others, “This is the best
day and the worst day of my life,” referring to the joy of being able to see
but the fear and sorrow of losing what he gained while his other senses took
over.
When
his sight was gone, Hawkeye was forced to see the world from a different
perspective, which meant he had to take his cues from other stimuli. He had to live in the here and now, and he
had to slow down. That which was the
norm for most people was gone, so he was thrown into a situation where his
perspective and view of life was turned upside down. He could no longer see as everyone else did,
but what he realized was that because of this change, he actually saw life far
more clearly. He saw how things really
were. He heard things that normally went
unheard, he thought of things others dismissed, and he relied upon others,
believing that what was before him was something to learn from, and in fact,
that maybe that other perspective was really the way everyone should see the
world.
We’ve all heard the phrase “Seeing
is believing,” and for the most part, that’s describes well how we often live
our lives. We look for evidence and seek
confirmation. We want to be able to make
sure that what we see is what we get, and how something looks is the real
deal. We talk of seeing the real us or
looking for answers, and we find that one of the most dominant senses is sight,
not wanting to live in darkness but preferring to see fully.
And yet, like Hawkeye discovered,
our sight can get in the way of seeing the real value of something or
someone. We see someone who is different
than we are, and we begin to judge them.
The man on the street becomes the reason we look for a crosswalk. The person decked out in jewels becomes the
symbol of all that’s wrong with the world.
We see a bumper sticker and immediately we pigeon hole the occupants of
the car.
On a more personal level, we see
what is before us and can find ourselves paralyzed. I used to work for United Methodist Family
Services, and I became certified as a ropes course instructor. A ropes course is a challenge course that can
only be accomplished when a team works together to solve a problem and when
individuals gain the courage to face their fears. Such courses include, not just tasks on the
ground, but also moving across a series of guy wires suspended 25 feet up in
the air, and while up there, the only thing assuring one will not fall, is a
harness and climbing strap.
More than once I had adults and kids
get to the bottom of the climbing ladder and freeze. Their hearts might have told them to go, but
their eyes tried to deny them the chance to do something new. Because they saw the wire above and thought
of the possibility of falling off that wire, they didn’t believe they could do
it and were frozen by fear.
Such seeing and believing is not,
however, isolated to physical risk, but we face such things every day. We see the ad in the classifieds, but we
can’t see ourselves changing jobs. We see
that the environment is a concern but we can’t change our ways. We see that he or she loves us, but we can’t
believe they really do, so we spend a lifetime waiting for the other shoe to
drop, never receiving the fullness of love.
What we see and how we see affect
how we live, what we do, and who we are, and one of the most affected areas of our lives is in
the area of our faith. For so often we
want to...no, let me rephrase that, “demand to”...see, in order to
believe. We want proof, whether it’s physical
change or a miracle or evidence in the lives of those around us, we want to see
that God can do what God says God can do, before we believe. And yet, that’s not faith, for, as the writer
of Hebrews says, “faith is believing in things unseen.” When it comes to faith, when it comes to
life, in order to receive the fullness of what we are given, nine times out of
ten, believing is seeing, not vice versa.
I
was fascinated with this story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. As with many stories in John’s Gospel, one
can preach hundreds of sermons on this text, and still have more to say! But what jumped out at me was the role that
“belief” plays in revealing the glory of God, in revealing the Truth of life.
In
going back through these 28 verses, between Mary, Martha, and Jesus there are
10 statements of faith. Whether it’s
Martha and Mary stating their belief in Christ’s power, or Jesus placing faith
in God’s ability to use Him in powerful ways, this passage is steeped in
faithfulness, and indeed almost slaps us in the face with the urgency to
believe.
In
addition to these 10 statements of faith, the word “believe” is used 6 times,
some by Jesus and some by the sisters, and right in the middle of this series
of using the word “believe” Jesus says, “Did I not tell you that if you
believed, you would see the glory of God?”
“If you believe,” he says, “You will see.” What happens when we rely more upon the eyes
of faith, rather than eyes that seek proof?
Digging deeper into the passage, we
see that Jesus is at a totally different level than the rest of the characters
in the narrative. Jesus’ bottom line is
that Lazarus is going to live again, and that they/we need to believe, and if
we do, we’ll see.
Martha and the others, however,
don’t dare risk letting a belief of actual change...belief in a miracle...be a
part of their response. Instead, they
answer on a more general level. After
all, that’s much safer in case they don’t get their wish. “Yes Jesus, I believe that Lazarus will rise
on the resurrection day...I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was
to come into the world.” She stays, they
stay, even we stay, on the level of placing the power in God’s hand, which
translates into a “wait and see” attitude, rather than responding to Christ’s
“believe and see” invitation.
Martha
is thinking of heaven. She’s thinking of
the end of time. She’s moving forward to
that mysterious time when God will make all things new, and right before her,
in the situation in which she finds herself, she cannot see the Truth. Of course, I don’t fault her too much,
because I’m not sure any of us would have responded differently. But heaven is not Jesus’ focus. Today is.
Jesus
is focused on the here and now. He is
there with them fully, and He invites God to be fully with them as well. He brings life to them in that time and
space, and invites them to take hold of Christ, God, faith, belief at that
moment and time. He invites them to
bring all that they have to the fore, not look beyond. He says as clearly as He can, “believe, and
you will see.” In other words, let the
eyes of your heart be the lens through which you see and receive life. Believe and see.
It’s a stark contrast, and yet
aren’t we often like the Martha’s, Mary’s, and mourners of the world? How often to do we look only with our
eyes? How often do we look to heaven and
the future, when right before us is life, hope, and love? How often does our seeing get in the way of
believing, so that we don’t see the Truth, which is what God sees? Instead, we see what we believe and we expect
that God sees what we want God to see.
And yet Jesus says, “heaven can
wait. If you just open yourself up and
believe in me...if you just let my eyes be your eyes...if you just believe,
right here, right now, that I am here, right here, right now, then you WILL see
the glory of God!”...right here, right now.
We
live in a society that is filled with avoidance, skepticism, and proof-seekers,
and whether we want to see it or not, we are affected by such influences. As such, it would be easy to simply read this
story as an amazing miracle which makes little sense, but boy is it
wonderful. But if we read it this way,
then we miss the point, for as with all scripture, this is a word for us
today.
It is an invitation for us to believe and trust, knowing that when we
do, we begin to see the glory of God.
What
in your life seems so overwhelming that you don’t know where to turn or how it
will turn out? Believe, trust, and look
for the glory of God. What are the
struggles and unanswered questions which that you often avoid, whether personal
or otherwise? Believe, look to God,
trust and look for God in the midst of the struggle. What thing or things in your life need to die
and be buried? What thing or things in
your life are dead but NOT buried?
Believe, trust, and hand them over to God, so that Christ might
transform them, so that you might see the glory of God.
As
a congregation during this time of transition, what do we see? What do we feel? What do we believe? For all of us, one of the biggest factors is
the fear of the unknown. What will the
church look like come July or August?
What can you expect with a new pastor?
Will you be able to accept the change and this new family? What are my family and I entering into? How will folks receive us? What does God have in store?
When
I moved here 5 years ago, I moved to a wonderfully loving and Spirit-filled
congregation. It was also a congregation
which placed the pastor at the hub of everything. The tendency of the congregation was to get
most things approved by the pastor before doing it. What I saw was a situation where I would get
in the way, and what I believed was that God wanted us to be in partnership
ministry together.
Over
these 5 years, God has developed such a partnership, and what I believed then
is what I see now. As you move into the
future, I believe that God has poised Wellspring to be a church that does work
side by side with the pastor and in doing so will move Wellspring to where God
needs you to be, and the key to the future is that we have to believe that God
will lead us, and in doing so, we’ll see the glory of God.
The
truth of the matter is that we see what we think we see, and we believe what we
hope to see. No matter what, it is vital
to believe, see, and look for the positive, for in doing so, the results will
be positive. Far too often we try to see
something, and that which we see is not what we need. But what changes everything is when we listen
to Christ who says, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God...right
here, right now, where you are, in exactly the way you need it. And when you
do, life will come.”
Seeing is believing? Perhaps, but when it comes to faith, more often than not, “believing is seeing.” Amen.