Just One Question

Lent 4A; John 9:1-41; St. Paul’s, Smithfield 3/26/2017

Jim Melnyk: “Just One Question”

Listening to the radio the other day I heard an oldie from the mid-90s – whoever thought we’d call something from that time period an oldie?  Singer Joan Osborne sang the hit song, “One of Us” (Written by Eric Bazilian). I remember being intrigued by it back then, and even using it in some youth classes – even lately.  The refrain is enough to bring us up short.  “What if God was one of us?  Just a slob like one of us?  Just a stranger on the bus, tryin’ to make his way home?”  I heard the song and it made me think about today’s gospel lesson from John – because isn’t that the very essence of John’s Gospel?  “And the Word became flesh and lived among us,” the author tells us.

We are here this morning because on at least some level we believe that God has come among us as one of us – that in the mystery of the Incarnation, God has entered into the everydayness of our human lives, and knows and understands our human-ness. It also means that in some way, God has made Godself known to us in and through the person of Jesus.  As we say in today's Eucharistic Prayer: "In your infinite love you made us for yourself...[and] sent...your...Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us... (BCP, 362).

Osborne’s song has a haunting reality for those of us who claim the name Christian – for those of us who are Jesus followers.  The song calls us to examine the struggles we have with our faith – what it means to be faithful in this life – in this place – day after day after day.  What if God was one of us?

To begin with, sometimes that’s just something hard to accept with the amount of anger and violence we see around us in the world every day.  Some days it just doesn’t seem to make much sense – or to have made much of a difference to humanity.  And yet, the foundation of our Christian faith is the Incarnation and the willingness of God to befriend us, and to suffer with us, in the midst of our own brokenness – and not as some kind of superhuman – not as some kind of superhero – but rather like, as Osborne puts it, the poor person we see on the street corner, or the stranger we might meet on a bus, or outside Walmart, or even our grocery store.

There are other questions in Osborne’s song – questions that seem appropriate as we read about a man born blind who suddenly receives his sight.  “If God had a name, what would it be – and would you call it to his face, if you were faced with him and all his glory, what would you ask him if you had just one question?”

Presented with the reality of a man who is blind the disciples have just one question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”  Obviously for them, as for so many in ancient – and not so ancient – times, blindness, illness, or other forms of misfortune were understood as punishment from God.  The disciples, in asking this one particular question, seek to justify the man’s blindness.  It’s got to be somebody’s fault, they figure.  Somebody had to have messed up big time. 

The Pharisees and some of the Judeans involved in the story have a question as well.  Actually, they have several questions, all coming after the man has been healed.  Now, this healing took place on a Sabbath day, and so we know immediately that those who seek strict Sabbath observance are going to be angry.  So their questions come out of their anger at a miraculous healing being done on the Sabbath; but I suspect also out of their mistrust and possibly their fear of Jesus.  “Who is this man?” they ask, trying to debunk the reality staring them right in the face.  And to the man’s parents, “Is this your son who you say was born blind?  How then does he now see?”  They simply couldn’t see the Good News as real.

In Christ, God has broken through the barriers of isolation, fear, recrimination, and prejudice, for one of God’s people, and there is no joy – no celebration – no praise for God from anyone but the one who has just been healed. 

Everyone seems to have questions, and no one seems to want to see the answer right before their very eyes.  As singer Joan Osborne croons, “God is great!” but the disciples, the parents, and the Pharisees seem to miss the point.  And that’s where the final lines from Osborne’s song say so much for me.  “If God had a face, what would it look like?  And would you want to see, if seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like heaven, and in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?”  Would we want to see, if seeing meant we would have to believe – and then live as we believe – with no crossed fingers?

These particular Pharisees, not wanting to believe the power of God in Jesus, ask him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”  The answer Jesus offers brings them up short – and it should bring us up short, each time we hear it.  “If you were blind,” says Jesus, “you would not have sin.  But now that you say, ‘we see,’ your sin remains.”  Here we have men and women who have had the chance to look God right in the face, and I have to wonder if they really want to see at all.  Do they really want to see, if seeing means they would have to believe something new and life-changing about their God, and about how God can and does act in the lives of men and women – in the lives of children and youth?  Do they really want to see, if seeing means having to let go of staunch beliefs – many of which separate them from others and from God?

Asking questions of God – and seeking to look into the face of God – is a dangerous thing, my friends!  It’s dangerous because it just might mean we have to change our minds about a few things.  It’s dangerous because we might just realize how much more compassionate and caring than us the Creator of heaven and earth is – and how much more compassionate and caring God calls us to be than we might feel comfortable being!

It might mean seeing Christ in the unkempt beggar or the iffy-looking stranger on the bus…in the batterer as well as the battered…in the high school dropout or the gang member defending his or her turf…in the migrant workers who help put food on our tables while barely living hand-to-mouth, or the refugee fleeing persecution and possible death from halfway across the globe. 

Asking questions of God, and seeking to look into the face of God, is dangerous because if we actually begin to see Christ in people we would rather avoid, we might just feel called to do something about their plight – and that would mean giving up something of who we are, and what we have.  It would mean our Christianity would have to be more than worship on Sunday mornings.  It would mean a commitment to live out our baptismal promises to proclaim Christ, and to be Christ, in and for this world.

Asking our questions and seeking the face of God can open us to the dream of God if we let it. 

And seeking the face of God might open us up to the important questions of this life and faith: “How, in this world of anger, pain, and death can we show one another the love of God in Christ?  How can we truly come to respect the dignity of every human being?  How can we better seek and serve Christ in all people, loving our neighbor as ourselves?  How can I find the grace to understand that someone else’s different faith in God is not an attack on my faith in God?”  Or perhaps we might simply ask, “God, will you help me to love?”

In response to all this – to the Gospel story and to Osborne’s song – there is a Jewish Midrash – or interpretation of scripture – many of you have heard me mention before.  The writer suggests that before every human being a legion of angels goes forth proclaiming, “Make way! Make way for the Image of God!”  Such an understanding would have allowed the disciples, the Pharisees, and the others in today’s gospel lesson to put away their suspicions, their fears, and their anger; and then allowed them to each rejoice in the wonder of God’s healing and saving love.  Their questions would have been transformed from questions of anger and suspicion to questions of awe and wonder.

How would each of our lives change, if each one of us could see, hear, and believe the cry of those legions of angels that go before each of us – the cry of those legions of angels that go before every person we meet?  Make way!  Make way for the Image of God!

One of Us

If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with Him in all His glory
What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great
Yeah, yeah, God is good
And yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?

If God had a face what would it look like?
And would you want to see if, seeing meant
That you would have to believe in things like heaven
And in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?

And yeah, yeah, God is great
Yeah, yeah, God is good
And yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?

Just tryin' to make his way home
Like back up to heaven all alone…

(Performed by Joan Osborne, written by Eric Bazilian)