Whose Fault? Sermon, March 26, 2017

John 9:1-41

Whose Fault?

There was a lot of drama in the news this week on health care.  And, as someone who was heavily involved in the push for the Affordable Care Act, as you might expect, it is something I have a lot of opinions about.  But the first thing I will admit to anyone is the ACA is not perfect.  It definitely needs tweaks and improvements.  The mantra, however, has not been ‘tweak and improve’ – it’s been ‘repeal and replace’.  And I was thinking about this as I was considering this scripture today – because, like in our scripture, there seems to be more concern about who passes a health care bill, and how, and when, then there is concern for the people who need healing.  And this is what doomed it. The faction of conservative congresspersons unhappy that the new bill wasn’t a full repeal demanded more.  And, as the Speaker and the President offered more, it began to lose the support of more moderate representatives because it wasn’t going to offer enough coverage.  Just like in our scripture – no one is focused on the actual healing that has happened to this man.  Everyone is talking about the process. If we weren’t so worried about who gets credit, maybe we could focus on the miracle of actually healing people and less on the process.

Today our gospel, the book of John, continues with stories that explore witnessing to Jesus’ divine acts, and the reluctance of the religious establishment to accept these as signs. A man receives his sight, and everyone else loses theirs.  Just like with Nicodemus, the observers and the religious authority fail to see because they are so sure they already know Godliness. 

A man is born blind. At some point in his life, he was left to fend for himself by begging.  The man was a social outcast because his physical condition was assumed to be the consequence of his or his parents’ sin. He was put in this position by a culture that did not give him enough opportunities to support himself in a dignified manner. When Jesus finds him, no one is particularly concerned about his condition or his comfort.  He is more of an object lesson.  “Who sinned – this man or his parents?”, they ask.

Jesus rejects any interpretation that connects the man’s blindness to any sin. Instead, Jesus is focused not on the cause of the blindness, but on the healing. And in that moment, transforms the blind man’s life.

Or, should have transformed it.  The result of the blindness is rejection from the community.  And so, the result of the healing should be acceptance back into community.  Except the community doesn’t recognize him!  This is so odd. Why does the community fail to recognize man after he is healed? The man has lived in their midst all his life; his neighbors have interacted with him, perhaps helped him cross the street or draw water; they have worshipped with him. Why do they fail to recognize him after he is healed?  Is it because the only marker of his identity was his blindness?  Has the fact that he was differently abled been they only thing they could ever see in him?

Or was it because a cure that simple meant they had to look him in the eye and face the fact that they had rejected him and left him to beg outside the city his entire life? 

Luckily, we no longer believe that someone’s health is an indicator of sin.  Medicine and science has helped us to understand the causes, treatments, and sometimes utter randomness of health and illness.  Sin is not an explanation of why my friend Kath got breast cancer as a healthy 36 year old and it keeps coming back, while my Aunt Sandi had it once, more than 20 years ago, and it’s never reappeared.  We know that health conditions can happen to anyone – and it should not be something that holds them back in life.  At least, that’s what we profess.  As individuals, our focus is often on getting sick people access to life-saving treatment.  Legislatively, as a society… I guess we’re still working on it.

But when I read the phrase, ‘born blind’, for me it brings up thoughts of being ‘born poor’.  While we have released our tendency to look at health as punishment for sin, how do we place blame when it comes to other facts of life?  Do we still tend to look at poverty as, ‘whose sin is this’?

In a recent newspaper article reported that we do often see poverty as a result of people’s choices.  According to a March 14^th article in the Lincoln Journal Star entitled, "Low Motivation is Top Perceived Cause of Poverty in Nebraska", 60% of Nebraskans regard low motivation is the top perceived cause of poverty in Nebraska. Now, that opinion was more widely held by people with higher incomes – 73% of those who make more than $60,000 a year – but even those under $16,000 believed that, in part, is the cause. People making less than $16,000 also placed significant blame on lack of education or being a single parent, but they were much more likely than other income groups to cite factors such as job shortages, disability or lack of housing.    

But there may be other factors.  In the article, majorities of both income groups said they had problems with affordable medical, dental or eye care for their entire family. Sixty-two percent said they had delayed medical care due to cost. Before the ACA, 62% of bankruptcies were because of medical bills.  Even with insurance, my friend Kath accumulated over $7000 in co-pays in just a few months. Early research says bankruptcies have declined by 20%, but that’s still over 40% of our population that find themselves financially ostracized for being sick. 

  

And truly, there’s an abundance of research that shows circumstances you are born into have a greater effect on your income as an adult.  Whether your parents have good health insurance, for one thing.  But also whether your parents finish school, own a home, or a car; these are all factors that can predict where you will end up in life. A 2015 book called A Path Appears, written by two journalists that cover efforts to reduce inequality all over the world, featured even more surprising indicators.  Looking at research over the past few decades regarding the cycle of poverty, they reported that, for babies born to teenage, low-income mothers, there is a strong correlation between how much the child is held and given eye contact in the first year of life, and whether that child graduates high school.  The project noted that social workers who visit young mothers who may themselves be struggling financially, or with addiction, or unprepared for the challenges of motherhood have shown results in interrupting the cycle of poverty over the last several decades.  Further, there is abundant new research on how trauma in one’s childhood has a much stronger impact on their future health and well-being, and ability to achieve.  Both of these suggest that who we are born to, and the community we have in our early years, have a much stronger impact on our choices and status later in life than ever thought previously.  Our inclusion, or exclusion, from the benefits of society, even our sense of love and belonging as infants, greatly impacts our life potential and our life choices. But the way we respond to poverty often has as much to do with placing blame on something other than community factors – so that we don’t have to face the fact that we are part of that community.

Scripture shows us that over and over again, Jesus recognizes the value in community.  While the community is not focused on the miracle of healing, the actions of Jesus repeatedly cure the ailments that are acting as barriers to inclusion in dignified community.  Time and again, Jesus works his miracles amongst those existing on the margins of society, restoring them to an existence of that is worthy of belonging, as he does here with the blind man. 

Almost everybody has failed the man born blind.  His family has left him to beg outside the city.  Once he’s healed, his community doesn’t recognize him.  And even when he insists, “It is I!”, they don’t believe him.  It doesn’t fit with their worldview.  The neighbors can’t imagine they’ve been wrong about him all this time. They call his parents to get a different explanation.  But instead of celebrating with him, and proclaiming the miracle, his family backs away from him, putting their safety first.  They said this for they were afraid of the Jews – afraid to be excommunicated from the Synagogue, afraid to live the life of isolation that their son had been living for years. Their fear overwhelms their joy and they abandon him to the authorities. 

Jesus sees this man separated from community, living in social isolation. Jesus sees potential that even the blind man doesn’t see in himself.  The blind man never asks to be healed.  He never considers the possibility of being healed. But when the promise is presented, he takes the risk to change and goes to wash in the pool of Siloam.  He is sent, literally, by Jesus, to a pool that means ‘sent’, to wash.  This was an act of courage for a man who couldn’t see his way.

The only trustworthy figures in this story are the man born blind and Jesus. The man can only testify to what he has experienced.  “All I can tell you is I was blind, and now I can see.” The man tells the truth, and even in the face of threats, the abandonment of his community and family, and expulsion from the Synagogue.  And as his faith grows – as his understanding of Jesus grows from ‘a man’ to ‘a prophet’ to worship, the Pharisees do just that.  They excommunicate him.  Because his existence poses a threat to the Pharisees’ certainty, he’s cast out of the community. It is easier to remove him from their lives than to adjust to a new truth.  But the meeting with Jesus promises the blind man new life.

But Jesus has said, I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.  Life, abundantly.  Abundant life has got to consist of the things that make our lives rich – like friendship.  Relationship. Love.  Joy.  But most importantly, abundant life means life within community. Jesus’s response to the question about the blind man does not assign blame for the blindness, but rather he acts to include the blind man within the realm of God’s blessing by taking away the curse that has compromised his life. What this healing means is abundant life for this man, a life that he’s never had before as the blind man who begs on the margins of society.  The result of his healing should have been reconnection with community. 

And this – this – is the most impressive part of the story, in my opinion.  When Jesus hears that he’s been cast out, he goes in search of him.  The man is no longer blind, he should be able to fend for himself. He’s no longer cursed.  And Jesus must have had plenty to do.  But Jesus goes and FINDS him, the man who used to be blind.  Jesus asks him if he believes.  And then Jesus enfolds him into the community of his disciples.  This is how Jesus fulfills the blessing of the realm of God, this is how Jesus gives him new life; by bringing him into a community.

When we abandon our ideas about who is to blame, who is deserving, and who should get credit, and just focus on healing the barriers for people in society, sometimes the impossible happens.  The State of Utah took this approach over 10 years ago.  They started a radical program to end chronic homelessness; they simply gave people homes. It is called “Housing First.”

A2015 Washington Post article entitled, "The surprisingly simple way Utah solved chronic homelessness and saved millions" explained, 

“the state [of Utah] identified the homeless that experts would consider chronically homeless. That designation means they have a disabling condition and have been homeless for longer than a year, or four different times in the last three years. Among the many subgroups of the homeless community — such as homeless families or homeless children — the chronically homeless are both the most difficult to reabsorb into society and use the most public resources. They wind up in jail more often. They’re hospitalized more often. And they frequent shelters the most. In all, before instituting Housing First, Utah was spending on average $20,000 on each chronically homeless person.” 

By focusing on healing and removing the barrier to belonging, Utah did the miraculous.  They actually saved taxpayers’ money.  Giving the chronically homeless homes to live in, without regard to why they were homeless, actually resulted in $8,000 savings per person.  As it turns out, the opportunity to participate in normal life had implications for how much medical care, mental health, shelters, jail time and other resources they needed.  But most importantly, it gave people a dignified chance to rejoin community.  The article details one such person;

“One woman had been on the street for a long time, until we finally convinced her to come into our housing,” Walker said. “She didn’t trust it, and she put her collection of stuff on the bed. Then for the next two weeks, she slept on the floor. … But once she realized that we weren’t going to take this from her, that she had a lock, she had a mailbox, she started to reacclimate.”  

Like the blind man, she started to reclaim her position in society, her right to speak and to belong to the community.  She started to enter into having life, abundantly, as God intends for us all. 

Amen.

To Be Fully Known; Sermon, March 19, 2017

John 4:5-42

To Be Fully Known

Have you ever had that experience of talking to a stranger on a plane, or a train or a bus on a long trip, and when you get to talking about where you’re going and why, end up telling your whole life story?  Maybe even revealing personal details or some of your deepest secrets, things you don’t really talk about much in every day life?  What is it about talking to a stranger that sometimes provides that blank slate that quietly encourages us to really give people the whole picture of who we are?

I know I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately with strangers, or people who maybe were strangers but aren’t anymore.  But plenty of times in my life I was the talker, sometimes to a stranger, sometimes to a friend – where I ended up telling someone way more than I had intended.  The details just come tumbling out to round-out the story, or to explain my motivations.  Often, I need a conversation to put my thoughts or feelings into words. Sometimes those unexpected conversations leave me with newfound understanding of things I felt deep down, but hadn’t said out loud, and so hadn’t really recognized them fully. Maybe you’ve had the experience like this… where processing thoughts out loud, in the process of telling a stranger, has helped you understand yourself better.

In today’s scripture, Jesus meets a woman at a well.  Now, there are two very interesting symbolic things happening here that I want to make sure you know. First off, John makes a point of telling us that this is Jacob’s well, on Jacob’s land, which – to the person who knows their Hebrew Bible like John’s audience does – it is a very important well.  This is where Jacob first met and fell in love with Rachel.  If this was a romantic comedy, this would be setting the scene – a significant place where you first learn the two protagonists in the story.

Secondly, this story comes immediately after the story of Nicodemus, who we talked about last week.  Who remembers anything about Nicodemus?  I know, from experience, that sermons are hard to remember even one day later – that is, unless you are writing them – but tell me, what do you remember about Nicodemus last week?

-       Rabbi, teacher, judge, member of the ruling council

-       He came to Jesus under the cover of darkness

-       Couldn’t really wrap his head around what Jesus was saying… or couldn’t let go of his religious rules to know what to do for Jesus’ message…

Immediately after that conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus starts his travel to the Galilee by way of Sychar, a town in Samaria.  The Samaritans were not just a marginalized group – they were a hated people.  They were the sworn enemies of Israel.  Samaria and Israel had been at war for years over the right place to worship God.  The Samaritans believed it was right to worship God on the Mount of Gorazim, and Israel insisted God must be worshipped in Jerusalem.  

So these two stories are set side by side as a contrast of belief.  After speaking with Nicodemus – a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, a teacher of Israel, who can only visit Jesus under the cover of darkness, Jesus meets this woman, this unknown woman, this un-named woman, this foreigner, this sworn enemy of Israel, in the light of day at the well. 

And has a conversation.

It seems minor, just a conversation, but we see from the Disciples reaction that it is, indeed, scandalous.  Not only is she a foreigner from a hated enemy.  Not only was Jesus crossing the boundary from ‘chosen people’ – the Israelites – to ‘rejected people’ – the Samaritans.  But Jesus was also crossing the male-female boundary.  Jesus was a Rabbi.  Under Jewish law, Rabbis don’t speak to women in public. You can see the disciples, once they show up, won’t stoop to actually speak to her, even though they have a lot to say.  But Jesus initiates the conversation – and then asks for a drink!  From her cup!  Even the Samaritan woman knows enough about Jewish purity codes to call this out as unfathomable.

And then we come to the thick of the story.  I know, as a kid, what always stood out to me was not Jacob’s well, or the comparison to Nicodemus, but – what?  The 5 husbands, right?  This is usually what people remember about this scripture is the woman’s 5 husbands – and that the one she’s currently with is not her husband. 

5 husbands.  When we hear that through 21^st century ears, that conjures up some impressions, right?  Some caricatures of women referenced movies or TV shows, like a son might roll his eyes about getting in touch with his mother, who’s on husband #5....  We end up making some presumptions about the woman.  Some judgment about her life and her character.  Truly, this story has often been used as an example of a sinful, ‘loose’ woman.  Someone who has made bad choices in their life, and yet still Jesus, Our Savior, will extend a compassionate hand to someone so far out of his circle of respectability, the lowest of the low, that we are moved by his generosity.

But is she really?  Who really is this un-named, unknown woman?  If we hear this story with 1^st century ears instead of 21^st century ears, there are some discrepancies. 

The first thing we need to acknowledge is that in the 1^st century, women were not in control of their marriage or their divorce.  The customs of the time might suggest that women were like property.  A groom, or a father of the groom, would provide a dowry to the father of the bride in exchange for his daughter.  The word ‘dowry’ puts a nice name on it, but another take on that might be, ‘purchase price.’  For instance, look at Jacob.  The ancient story of the well tells us that Jacob sees Rachel at the well, who was very beautiful, and falls in love with her.  He goes to her father to ask for her in marriage, and pledges to work for 7 years to earn her from her father.  Yet, at the last minute, her father gives Jacob Rachel’s older sister Leah to marry – because it was not right to let the younger daughter marry before the older daughter. So, Jacob, still in love with Rachel, agrees to work for another 7 years in order that he might also have Rachel as his wife. 

At no point in the story of Jacob do we hear of the women being consulted.

The second thing to acknowledge is the unwavering expectation of offspring.  Producing an heir was central to the tribal structure of the ancient Israelites.  Remember, Abraham’s offspring were going to number ‘like the stars’.  Reproduction – and its challenges – are a reoccuring theme of blessedness and redemption in scripture.  The Hebrew Bible has several stories of miraculous conceptions – not just the Virgin Mary, but also Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah and Isaac, and Elizabeth and Zacchariah – who birthed John the Baptist.  In scripture, all of these women are described as struggling with childlessness.  In each case, the man is painted as described very warmly - perhaps because under Jewish law, barrenness was grounds for divorce.

In ancient Israel, divorce was easy for a man but impossible for a woman.  And childlessness was the most common reason for divorce.

There are two ways that this woman, who is not in control of her own status of marriage, would have 5 husbands.  One is divorce, most likely for barrenness.  The other is to be widowed, in which case she may be ensnared in the custom of Levirate Marriage.

Levirate, deriving from the Latin word Levir that means brother, is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother's widow, and the widow is obliged to marry her deceased husband's brother.  Israel practiced the custom of Levirate marriage – which was common in tribal societies and still happens today in some places.  Levirate marriage can, at its most positive, serve as protection for the widow and her children, ensuring that they have a male provider and protector. It is most common in patriarchal societies where women are not self-sufficient and must rely on men to provide for them - especially if women are under the authority, or dependent on men, or regarded as possessions or servants of their husbands.  It also helps to ensure the survival of the clan. 

This unknown, un-named woman at the well is not someone who has been frivolous with her personal life.  That she has been married and widowed, or married and divorced, several times over is certainly more devastating to her than we can imagine.  The most likely scenario is that this is a woman who has been ABANDONED by 5 men, probably because of barrenness.  If she is with a man that is not her husband, then it is because the man chooses not to marry her – and still, given that her existence depends on being taken care of by a man, this may be a merciful arrangement for the woman, and she’s likely grateful for it.

In this moment at the well, Jesus names the most intimate, deepest, most painful truth of this woman’s life: that she is out of relationship, that she has never been loved. 

He doesn’t ask her about her husband to shame her or blame her.  If we take off our 21^st century ears and look closely in the text – there are no words of contempt, or redress, in this story.  He does not offer redemption or infer that she needs forgiveness.  Because, this is not a woman that needs forgiveness.  This is a woman that needs acceptance.  This is a woman that needs relationship.  This is a woman who needs belonging.  She needs to be known and to be loved.  Jesus knows this without being told, and tells her of a new day coming.

And in fact, it is this moment of truth, this deep secret-telling, this airing of the most painful fact in this woman’s life that makes her conversion possible.  It was the moment of vulnerability, of sharing what’s in her heart, that made it possible for her to see God’s presence in Jesus.  It was in the act of being fully known that she becomes open to God’s possibility.  It was in hearing her truth spoken so clearly that her eyes are open to see Jesus as the Messiah.

We can see this because she moves immediately to the critical theological question of her time – as a holy person, tell me where is the proper place to worship?  Some say she responds to an uncomfortable truth by changing the subject. But I think she’s gutsy!  If you met Jesus in the flesh – wouldn’t you have questions?  She’s not trying to deflect, or change the subject; she suddenly believes this man may hold the right answers about God.  

In fact, she grasps this truth faster than Nicodemus.  Where he, a teacher of Israel wise in the ways of God, wasn’t able to let go of his religious parameters to follow Jesus, this un-named woman, know known, becomes a perfect disciple.  She runs back to the village, witnessing to the story and testifying to the Messiah, inspiring others to go meet Jesus in person.

It all happens because of a conversation. This un-named woman becomes a witness because she is known to Jesus, and to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known. Rather than that moment becoming the moment that is her shame, that moment is the moment that makes everything possible.  How many vulnerable moments do we risk in our day to day lives?  How often do we allow ourselves to be known, truly known, and be truly loved?