This sermon was preached for Sunday, March 19, 2023 for the fourth Sunday in Lent at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon are: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, John 9:1-41, and Psalm 23. The sermon retells the children's book "The Rabbit Listened" by Cori Doerrfeld which was shared as the children's message for the day.
 |
| The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld |
Through it all the rabbit never left. And when the time was right, the rabbit listened to Taylor's plan to build again.
Jesus is walking along with his disciples when they encounter a man who was born blind. The disciples’ reaction is to see the man as an opportunity to discuss a complex theological issue. They want to know from Jesus: What's the connection between sin and illness? Why has someone who has clearly done nothing wrong - a tiny little baby - been punished with a difficult physical condition?
Jesus rejects the notion that the man’s condition is because he deserves any sort of punishment for either his sins or the sins of his parents. And as Professor Joy J. Moore puts it, where the disciples see a scandal, Jesus sees a person. Jesus doesn't just stand back and debate about the man’s condition and what it says about God and the state of the world. He steps forward and heals. And it's a deeply visceral healing - with spit and mud and touch. Jesus gets all up in there. The man is healed.
But even after his healing, the man becomes a scandal once again. A whole other theological debate for another set of religious folks. He gets stuck in the middle of the religious leaders’ arguments about who Jesus is and what he is doing.
The religious leaders call the man forward to tell his story - but they don't really listen to his answers. They don't just let him know what he knows: that he was blind but now he can see. Then they drag out his parents, who say, rightly I think, let him tell his own story in his own words. Actually listen to him.
So they call him forward again. And the healed man has the courage to say to these religious experts, “I have told you already and you would not listen.”
Now I love many things about Jesus. What I love most about Jesus’ healing stories are how particular and individual they are. Jesus sees, truly sees the person in front of him for who they are and what they need right then at that moment. As the Samaritan woman at the well proclaimed joyfully in our Gospel last week, Jesus knew her, knew everything about her. She was heard and she was loved, and she was known more fully than ever before. And here, too, Jesus listens and attends to the whole person before him, better and more fully than any of the other folks in the story.
When Taylor, the child in the storybook “The Rabbit Listened,” is upset and curled up in the ruins of the something amazing that had all come crashing down, many different animals come along and immediately jump into help. They think they know what Taylor needs to fix it, to feel better, to move on. But they don’t really see Taylor. They don’t really know Taylor’s story. They only see what they would need or what they can offer. And they are all in a huge rush.
This story is so real to both adults and kids because we still do this to each other. We religious leaders. We church. We parents and we spouses and we friends. We want to draw big conclusions about What Should Be Done Here. We want to help but only on our timeline. We want to fit the person in front of us into the solutions we know best.
But the rabbit, the rabbit inched closer, the rabbit sat in silence, the rabbit listened. Of course, Taylor did need to do all of those things the animals had suggested: talking and shouting, remembering and laughing, hiding and cleaning and plotting. But Taylor had to do them on Taylor’s timeline, no one else’s. In Taylor’s own words, no one else’s. What Taylor needed most of all was the rabbit’s patience and the rabbit’s presence. Only then could Taylor see again. See a new vision of hope.
There are many kinds of griefs that you and I have known that need time. And patience. And presence. And listening. Griefs that don’t fit into the solutions and timelines and stories everyone else wants to tell.
There is, too, a particular sort of pain when you see someone you love sad and frustrated, lost and alone, and you think you might know what should be done. I have known this pain. I see it so often, too, in folks around church. I know many parents who worry for their adult children, who hope that their son or daughter can find a church to join or that they learn how to reach for God throughout their life. I have sat with spouses who yearn for the day that their partner will finally be able to walk through the doors of a church and find it a place of peace and comfort, once again, or for the first time. Perhaps you have felt this, too, a longing that someone you love could find healing and strength from the same deep source that you have. That longing is love.
We love best, we love the way Jesus loves, when we trust in the person before us. When we hear their story in their own words, at their own pace. When we listen deeply and patiently. When we stay through it all.
The rabbit never left. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.
Another thing about Jesus’ healing. It doesn’t just happen instantly when Jesus rubs mud in the man’s eyes. The man born blind must participate in his own healing. In order to gain his sight, the man must take his own journey down to the well of Siloam and wash his face. He takes steps toward his own wholeness. And later, when Jesus hears that the healed man is kicked out of his own community for not fitting into the story they want to tell, Jesus finds him again. Jesus goes out and finds him and reminds him that what the man knew and experienced was true and was real and so is the man’s new hope and faith.
He’s got a whole new life ahead of him. It’s going to be amazing.
Perhaps you are here because someone you love sat with you, waited with you, and listened until it was the right time for you to find your way to God. Perhaps you are listening to me now because you realized that God was there, all along, seeing you and knowing you and loving you into hope once again. Perhaps you are still talking and shouting, remembering and laughing, hiding and cleaning and plotting, and you aren’t ready yet to rebuild.
Perhaps you are here because you want to learn to be more like the rabbit and it is so hard.
Can we trust that God can be our rabbit, in whatever moment we are in? Can we trust our loved ones to heal in their own way, in their own time? Can we trust ourselves?
Trusting love, faithful love, does not feel like distance or absence. It does not look like rushing in and demanding a solution, it does not look like staying away because things are awkward and we do not know to do or say. Trusting love, faithful love is the continuous and abiding offer of a gentle, warm presence.
We do not offer that presence alone. God is in it with us.
Together, we wait. We listen. We love.
And finally, we see. It’s going to be amazing. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment