COVID19: March 22, 2020 - Driving While Blind

Sermon for March 22, 2020. The text is John 9.

A friend rode in the passenger seat while I was driving on the highway. As we were gabbing away, I veered off the road a bit, and drove over those rumble strips they put on the shoulder of the road to keep you from doing that. “Are you driving by braille?” my friend asked. 

Driving by braille. Of course, it’s an ironic concept because, even with the presence of rumble strips, we all know that blind people can’t drive. At least, not until driverless cars become more of a thing.

These days, we’re making our way through what very well may be the greatest crisis of our generation, and in many ways, it feels like we’re driving while blind. COVID-19 is a new virus. We don’t know exactly what it will do. For as much as we’ve been learning about it, there remains so much that we won’t be able to see until later.

Scientists are doing their best to figure this out. But people have blind spots that aren’t helping. Many are getting information from sources other than science. They’re believing whatever narrative reinforces what they want to hear. And there are those who continue to close their eyes to the facts.

I read a stern letter from the director of one of our area retirement communities to its residents this week. As with all such communities these days, visitors aren’t allowed to come in.

The letter read: “I cannot stress enough the importance of your actions. I continue to be dismayed at the choices people make to leave the property, visit with family on the street or outside the door, or go to non-essential outings, knowing full well that the visit could result in a COVID-19 outbreak inside the property that will kill an estimated 20%+ of your friends and neighbors, 80+ people.”

And then there is a statement about cause for eviction because their behavior constitutes a substantial threat to other residents.

The author continues, “I am receiving numerous calls throughout the day from residents and family members asking how I’m going to stop (the collective) ‘you’ from doing things that put the whole community at risk.”

It’s hard to believe that such a letter is necessary, but evidently it is. It’s scary when the refusal to see puts us all in danger.

There are so many levels of blindness all around us, just as there are in today’s story from John’s gospel. 

There’s the blindness of the man who was physically born blind. But there’s also the blindness of the disciples who assumed that the man’s blindness had to be somebody’s fault, either the man himself or his parents.

And then there was the blindness of the people who couldn’t decide, once the blind man received his sight, if it was the same man they’d seen begging in their neighborhood. Apparently, they’d never really looked at the man before, much less taken the time to know him or offer him the dignity and respect every person deserves.

In a story filled with blindness, Jesus makes it clear who’s truly the blindest of all. “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The Pharisees suspect he’s talking about them, although they can’t imagine why. And therein lies their blindness.

A man who was born blind can see. You’d think that would be cause for celebration, wouldn’t you? But that’s not at all the way it went down. Instead, this miracle became a source of anger, scorn, and hatred. And why?

Well, basically because they couldn’t believe this miracle had anything to do with God. And why didn’t they believe it had anything to do with God? Because they had a clear idea of how God worked, and this wasn’t it. God’s miracles were limited to certain times. And the Sabbath wasn’t one of them. They were limited to certain people. And a rabbi who breaks the law of Moses wasn’t one of them.

This miracle didn’t fit within the narrow frame they had drawn around the works of God, so it didn’t happen. It was a hoax. It was illegitimate. It wasn’t to be given any credence whatsoever.

The thing is, God’s work isn’t limited to the narrow frames we expect it to fit into. To the things that we can understand. Or people we feel comfortable with. Or the times and places that make sense to us.

Are we open to the possibility that God may not always fit our understanding of who God is? Do we keep God in that tiny little frame we use to contain God, or are we open to expanding our view?

Is it possible God could be visible among people who disagree with us on some pretty fundamental principles? Is it possible that people who don’t look like us, aren’t educated like us, don’t speak our language, may have a closer relationship with God than we do? Is it possible that people who don’t even believe in God at all are able to do God’s work in the world? When God does the unexpected in unexpected times, with unlikely people, in strange places… can we see it?

In these days when our eyes are darting from one thing to another, as we wait for the latest news to fill us in, when everything seems to be changing by the minute, it’s easy for us to become blinded by it all. And we can lose sight of God at work in our midst.

In the health care workers who are serving tirelessly to care for us, at great personal risk to themselves. And the people who continue to work in grocery stores, and pharmacies, and so many places that are necessary for the rest of us. Can you see God at work?

I continue to see God in those who are volunteering in soup kitchens and food pantries, serving those who struggle every day, knowing poverty doesn’t take a break during a pandemic, it just becomes more pronounced.

I see God in the people of Ascension who are watching out for one another through phone calls, and cards, gathering for online support groups. Some are offering prayer on the phone for anyone who calls in, others are gathering food for ACTC, or delivering groceries to the doorsteps of those who have no other way of getting them. Can you see God in them?

Can you see God in the neighbor you realize you’ve never spoken with who waves to you from across the street, knowing that because you are both living through this time, you share a bond?

Can you see God working overtime in these anxious days we’re in? As much as we may feel a little like we’re driving while blind right now, there’s so much of God all around us. I pray that we can open our eyes and see it. I pray that we ourselves can become God made visible for others to see.

---