March 6, 2005
Ephesians 5:9-14, John 9:1-41
Sleepers Awake!
1. Psychologists have never fully resolved in their minds what exactly the relationship is between the mind and the body. Philosophers have long pondered the relationship between the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. And theologians continue to debate the relationship between the soul, the body, and God. But, here this morning – we – we have the answer! Are you with me?
Well, today is communion Sunday when we celebrate the interconnectedness of the mind, the body, and the soul. It’s as simple as that! And so today we partake of the physical …the material…that which we can taste and see with our eyes. In other words - the bread and the grape juice. And yet at the same time we say that we are also partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ … in remembrance of Him. In short, we are asking the non-physical Christ to come into our life through the physical, so to speak… that we might be healed, restored, renewed, awakened to the Presence of God – and the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. Mind, body, spirit – all in One. For to be healed is really to be made whole – all in one – “Holy”- as it were.
We proclaim, therefore, that while we eat and drink to nourish our bodies – we also thirst and hunger for the spiritual food in order to nourish our soul.
Yet, in this time of Lent, we also acknowledge that although we have eyes to see and minds to understand, we are often blind and ignorant of the spiritual truth of God which transcends ourselves and the world. And yet which is present in the Holy Spirit -- if only somehow, we could see, taste, and touch it.
2. This blindness, or lack of awareness, is lamented in the words of the poet, Denise Levertov:
The world is
Not with us enough.
O taste and see
The subway Bible poster said,
Meaning The Lord, meaning
If anything all that lives
To the imaginations tongue,
Grief, mercy, language,
Tangerine, weather, to
Breath them, bite,
Savor, chew, swallow, transform
Into our flesh our
Deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
Living in the orchard and being
Hungry, and plucking
The fruit.
REPEAT: “HUNGRY, AND PLUCKING THE FRUIT….”
3. One commentary on this poem describes how her “images are richly sensuous and invite us to breathe, bite, savor, chew, swallow, and to "transform / into our flesh our / deaths." To taste and "savor" the world is to know the pleasure and the pain, and the copious fruits are fitting images for the intensity of experience we are summoned to engage
An “intensity of experience” she calls it. A unity of body, mind, and spirit – the pain, the joy, the wonder, the amazement … the “whole thing.” … as in … the “Holy world, the Holy Body, the Holy Spirit, the one and Holy God.” THE WHOLE THING …!
IT’S KIND OF LIKE … LIKE … COMMUNION!! RIGHT??
4. Interestingly enough, the title and theme for Levertov’s poem is “Oh Taste and See” and it comes from Psalm 34:
I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,
And saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!
Happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Well, I suppose if you were Denise Levertov and your grandfather a hasidic Rabbi in Russia, and your father was a Hebrew scholar who converted to Christianity and became an Anglican Priest – you just might have some feel for the Holy Scriptures!
5. Well, I want you to keep that poem mind this morning – how did she put it?
“hungry and plucking the fruit”
For this morning I invite you - to “taste and see.” First to taste the bread and to pluck the fruit. And then to “see” and to experience the presence of God in the bread and the grapes. But also, then, to taste and see and experience the presence of God in your own life. Can we do that? Can we taste and then see?
How can this be? You might ask… a little hard to do maybe?
And yet, is that not why we have come here this morning – to taste and see? And yet the very thing – God’s spirit -- which we really wish to “taste” (with our “imagination”) – is something we really cannot see with our eyes. Are we then blind? How is it possible that we can taste one thing and yet expect to see another? How can we taste of the things of the earth – the bread from the earth – the grapes from the earth – and yet also see that which is from heaven?
Can God be truly here among us? Can God be present in the things of the earth? Can God be really present in the grapes and the bread? – As Jesus, himself, said?
How blind we are it seems – that we always seem to fail to see that which is in front of us?
Or, are we asleep? Is that it? Must we be awakened? Must we have our eyes opened? Have we merely closed our eyes to God – even though we see the physical world around us? Can that be it? Is that why we cannot see?
What does it mean to be “awakened?” What does it mean to be blind and unable to see?
6. Have any of you seen the movie, Awakening with Robin Williams? It was based on the true story of Dr. Oliver Sachs who discovered that by giving L - dopa -, which is used to treat Parkinson’s disease - to patients who suffering from encephalitis - they regained consciousness. The L-dopa restored the dopamine in the motor areas of the brain (it’s a bit more complicated than that). Following administration of the drug all of the patients "awakened". The results were dramatic with some patients who had been catatonic since the 1920s and 30s (in some cases) “came to” in the year 1969. One of the main characters was a patient (played by Robert De Niro) who appears in the movie’s beginning as a boy (briefly) just as the disease began to set in. Now here he is as an adult finally "waking up". Unfortunately, this movie had a sad ending because eventually the drug effects wore off and despite increased dosages, became ineffective and the patients eventually lapsed back into a kind of coma. Quite an amazing true story, don’t you think?
What would that be like? To be asleep most of your life … and suddenly wake up? Pretty shocking, to say the least! And yet there are many people who go through life spiritually unaware of the presence of God in their lives and in the world. What do you think? Are they asleep - as Paul seems to say?
7. Perhaps the greatest fictional story about being asleep and waking up is Rip Van Winkle. You remember the story of the guy who sets off with his gun and dog to go hunting in the Catskill Mountains in l776. Along the way he runs into a mysterious bearded man and some dwarves who are bowling. Pretty soon he gets drunk on their liquor and falls asleep. When he wakes up, they are all gone and so he goes back to the village only to find that no one knows him because twenty years have passed. A happy ending to that story, really. The moral of the story, of course, for all you hunters is that if you run into a strange guy in the woods with a bunch of dwarves – better watch out!
And of course, on the more serious side, we have all heard of numerous accounts of people with brain injuries from car accidents that live for years in comas only to suddenly “awake” for no apparent medical reason. And then there are many accounts of people nowadays who are affected by Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases whose ability to remember things is impaired and they seem to drift in and out of conscious awareness of things around them.
Seeing, too, can a problem. Sometime in her late 70’s my aunt began to lose
her vision due to diabetes. Shortly before she died, I visited her in California. That was twenty years ago, now. Luckily, she had a tape recorder in her home and so to pass the time, I bought some blank tapes and proceeded to interview her for three hours about the Hucke family history. Recently, I was informed by my cousins (with whom I shared the tape) that they are planning on making it into a book - which they hope to donate to the local library and historical society as a fund raiser. I am sure Aunt June would be very pleased.
And so this older woman – though almost blind – was able to recall from memory the entire history of her family from the time they came to America down to today. For, although she couldn’t actually see in the present moment, it was all there in her mind. Her visual memory was still very much alive and very real as she described in great detail the places she had been and the people she had known. In a way, although she was blind, yet she could still see!
8. “Sleepers, awake!” then, is our motto for today. It is from St. Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus. “Sleepers, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
St. Paul, of course, also knew what it was to be blind. For, as it is told in Acts Chapter 9, Saul was on the road to Damascus when a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Saul then got up from the ground and opened his eyes, but could not see a thing, for three days he was not able to see, and during that time he did not eat or drink. Then when Annanais came to him – something like fish scales fell from his eyes … and he could see again.”
Nowadays, we may find it a bit strange for Paul to talk about being in darkness and then finding the light. But Paul, as a result of having been spiritually “enlightened” and “awakened” -- could easily see how those around him – especially those who lived in the pagan world of Greece and Rome – even as sophisticated as some of them were … were still blind to the truth about Jesus Christ. For, it was obvious to Paul, that they were not awake to the spiritual reality of God’s presence in their midst. They were, in short, asleep.
9. Nowadays, in what is a generally considered to be our largely Christian country … this kind of black and white dichotomy between believers and non-believers is not so obvious. Although there are those today who today who would very much like the draw the line in the sand – and say who is and who is not a Christian. Although, I think it sounds sometimes more as if they themselves are the ones who are still in darkness. Especially when they are filled with judgment and anger and self-righteousness -- as we see from time to time. Not exactly the spirit of Christ, as I would understand it – I think.
But, on the other hand, we should not be deceived by the fact that just because there are so many churches in America … that there are not many who are spiritually sound asleep. Or, that today many are blinded by the many material things which compete for our attention in this country.
10. And, so now we come to the story of the man born blind whom Jesus
healed … by rubbing mud and spit on his eyes.
Like last weeks story of the Samaritan woman at the well, this story, like many in John’s Gospel, is layered with many meanings and interpretations. And so I am not going to get into the whole sin and guilt question – as to who sinned to cause the blindness in the first place.
That is for another sermon, some other time.
Rather I want to focus on the “blindness” itself and how John is always able to link together the physical and the spiritual. For this is just one of a number of similar stories in the first part of John’s Gospel.
For instance, there is the story of the feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus tells the people afterward that he is “the bread of life” and man “cannot live on bread alone.”
And then there is the account of the Samaritan woman at the well where Jesus tells her that he is “living water” and “whoever drinks it will never be thirsty again.”
And now we have the story of physical blindness, which Jesus compares to spiritual blindness. A story which ends with the Pharisees listening to Jesus say, “I have come into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” To which the Pharisees say, “Surely we are not blind, are we?’ And Jesus replies, “If you were blind, you would not have sin, But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
The point being, as I mentioned a week or so ago, that the greatest of all “sin” is the sin of pride - which causes us to think that we are not sinful at all. This is really the ultimate in blindness.
11. Now, as I thought about this … I wondered, although I can still see myself, what would it be like to be blind? What would that be like? And how would that affect my relationship with God?
And I realized, in a way, that it would not affect me at all, really. For since God cannot be seen with the naked eye … then my eyes would not be of much help, would they? In other words if we are to see God it will have to be with something other than our eyes won’t it … but what? Now as true Methodist of course – the correct answer is what? -- with our hearts -- of course! Now, can you all say, “With Our Hearts?” Good! Very Good! You all will now pass confirmation for this year!
For, as he recounts it, Wesley himself was also spiritually blind to God’s grace until he “felt his heart strangely warmed” as he put it. Wesley himself, was asleep, so to speak, until he “awoke” to the light of Christ shining upon him. It was a tremendous and eventful moment from which he never looked back. And this is why, as Methodists, the concept of personal religious “experience” is one of the four pillars of Methodism – along with Scripture, Reason, and Tradition.
But still, I keep coming back to the question, “What would it be like to be physically blind?” How would that affect my relationship with God? Well, I can’t answer that because I haven’t been there. But, in your red hymnal if you look in the back you will find the name of Fanny Crosby as the author of seven different hymns. Born in the nineteenth century, she wrote literally hundreds of hymns, including “Blessed Assurance.” But actually she could never see the words on a page because she was blinded by an illness when still a baby. Yet her lack of sight never seemed to get her down. For, when she was only eight years old she wrote:
Oh, what a happy child I am,
Although I cannot see.
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don’t
To weep and sigh
Because I’m blind,
I cannot and I won’t.
Fanny Crosby lived to be over 90 years old.
12. Oh, how much we take for granted the things of this world … our eyes with which we can see the world, the food we eat, the water we drink, the bread, which appears, on our table, the wine and grape juice which we “hungrily pluck from the vine.” In fact – all of the things which God has created. And so the poet, Denise Levertov also laments the fact that not only are we blind to the spiritual realities, but often we are so busy and caught up with things and ourselves that we often don’t even “see” the very world around us as it really is … for she writes…
The world is
Not with us enough.
13. One literary critic writes:
The poem begins with an ironic reversal of Wordsworth’s lines: "The world is too much with us late and soon." The problem as Levertov sees it is the opposite -- that "The world is / not with us enough. / O taste and see." The poem calls sleepers to awaken to life.
Exactly the same words that Paul uses in his letter to the Ephesians.
“Sleepers, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Just as the Psalmist writes …
Oh taste and see - that the Lord is good!
14. But, how can we do this …? Does it all come in a flash like with St. Paul … or do we need to work at it?
Well, in some ways it is both. For all the great spiritual masters and mystics … including Wesley himself did not get there overnight. For to have a spiritual life is something we have to spend time at and pay attention to … for spiritual practice involves worship, and prayer, and serving others. And it also means learning about God through reading … and through sharing our faith. It really involves our whole life – including our minds, bodies, and our hearts. It involves prayer and being willing to risk being open to the world – and to God.
It really means being “Holy.” Not in some narrow, judgmental, pietistic way that stifles all our true feelings and turns us against the world. But in a way that is positive and open and loving. It means, in modern terms, being “whole.” Which is why it is called “Holy Communion.” It is “Holy” because we participate in order to be “made whole” with God and ourselves and our neighbors. Does that make sense? And we do it every month because to be “Holy” – to be whole – takes practice.
For, just as the artist does not become an artist overnight -- but must train his or her eye to see things in new ways (exactly like the poet) … so also the musician does not become accomplished by taking just one lesson … and consequently we as Christians grow in faith through practice …
This morning, then, is a time for practice. As we join together to partake of the bread from the wheat and the juice from the grapes … and learn again to “taste” and then to “see” God at work in our lives … and the lives of those around us … and to become “awakened” to his presence here among us … and within us … and to “see” that the Lord, indeed, is “good.”
Let us pray …
