First Congregational Church in Auburn (UCC), June 9, 2024
2 Corinthians 4:13‒5:1 13 But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and therefore we also speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us with you in his presence. 15 Indeed, everything is for your sake, so that grace, when it has extended to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
There is an old story about a disciple and his teacher, a story [the apostle] Paul might have liked. “Where shall I find God?” a disciple once asked. “Here,” the teacher said. “Then why can’t I see God?” “Because you do not look.” “But what should I look for?” the disciple continued. “Nothing. Just look,” the teacher said.
“But at what?” “At anything your eyes alight upon,” the teacher said. “But must I look in a special kind of way?” “No, the ordinary way will do.” “But don’t I always look the ordinary way?” “No, you don’t,” the teacher said. “But why ever not?” the disciple pressed. “Because to look, you must be here. You’re mostly somewhere else,” the teacher said…[1]
The prophet Jeremiah once said: 21 Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear. 22 Do you not fear me? says the Lord; Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it. 23 But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.
They are people who go to Sturbridge Village and see the pretty houses, the lovely green, and look at the Freeman Farm and admire the proportions of the Salem Towne House, but they do not see the reality of the lives portrayed there. They don’t see the hard work required to grow crops, or prepare food, or make cloth. They don’t see the satisfaction of a day’s work done, or the sorrow of a child’s life cut short by diphtheria. They look at the fields and watch the demonstrations but never have a moment’s wonder about the people.
I’ve spent the last week doing my yearly continuing education, taking a 5 day course in the Gospel of John, led by Professor Harold Attridge of the Yale Divinity School. I tell you his name because I’m so impressed by him, and kinda in awe of the idea that I can study with one of the most important, most highly respected scholars of the Bible into English in the entire world. It was a hard week, but a good one, and I hope to do it again.
All throughout the week, he kept emphasizing something that led me to this sermon, something I want to share with you, and it’s this:
There’s more to life than what we see on the surface. When John the Baptist calls people to repentance, he’s really calling them to dedicate themselves to paying attention. When Jesus steps up, in John’s Gospel, he’s taking that call and doubling down on it.
We are called to pay attention. We are called to notice what’s deeply going on. And the biggest reason we don’t, is that it’s really hard to see all the pain and stress in the world.
We don’t want to see it because it’s hard to imagine we can do anything about it. We do not see, or turn our eyes and ears away from things, because it’s so frustrating to feel useless. So, sure there are poor people. What can we do? And, yes, Black people are not treated fairly, but we have no power. And it’s so hard to believe that they put that (oh, let’s say a) dump for worthless tires over there because no one who lives there has the power to complain, and the land was cheap.
Or, maybe we don’t want to recognize the fissures which divide us as a people, or acknowledge that our side has problems…. because it feels like giving up.
You know, better than I, probably, how meanly people can think. And we all know how hard it is to talk about things right now, for fear of a terrible argument.
Here’s the thing, though. It’s right at those points where the greatest pain is, the greatest anger bubbles up, the hardest problems to acknowledge – it’s right there that God is. And it is when we focus on God’s way, when we take up God’s humility, that we are able to see what really is there.
With God, when we focus, what we see is the humanity of the other.
Back when I lived down in Putnam, I was often visited by a Jehovah’s Witness missionary. Well, I’ve been visited by them most everywhere I’ve lived, but this woman was different. We grew to be friends because somehow we were able to recognize in each other common concerns about our world. We had different answers to those problems, of course, but the more we talked, the more we also began to realize that even those answers were not so different. They weren’t the same, either, but most of all they didn’t need to be barriers.
In today’s lesson, the apostle Paul writes that because he believes, he speaks… speaks up, speaks out, engages in conversation, talks with others. And he believes, according to the Gospel of John, because, he now sees the world differently. It’s no meaningless detail that Paul is blinded on the road to Damascus, and his vision is restored by faith in Jesus.
Jesus says God is love.
Love is lived out when we take one another seriously, really see each other.
When we see one another, we care about one another.
And when we care about one another, we are driven to action,
It is when we mind, pay attention to, the light of God in our lives, in the lives of those we meet, that we truly are saved, saved to the work of redeeming the world in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
© 2024, Virginia H. Child
[1] Mark Barger Elliott, “Homiletical Perspective on 2 Corinthians 4:13‒5:1,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 115.
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 