The Fourth Sunday in Lent

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

John 9:1-41

The man Jesus healed said “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

Three centuries ago in the village of Olney, England, a new parish priest came to town. The townsfolk flocked to hear him, fascinated with his vibrant, personal style of preaching and his checkered past as a slave trader.

In those days learned clergy frequently wrote original verses for congregational singing, and the priest at Olney wrote in a personal, plainspoken style, often referring to his own sordid story and remarkable conversion. Each week, he would present some new verses.

One of his was a plain and plaintive little poem, humble and heartfelt, and for its earliest audiences, it didn't stand out and was soon forgotten. But the verses survived the priest, whose name was John Henry Newton. "Amazing Grace" crossed the Atlantic and became perhaps the most beloved hymn in the English-speaking world. Hymn 671 in our hymnal.

“I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

My wife says that I am blind. I go through life not seeing what is around me, much less what is right in front of me. I spend so much time in my head that my head does not acknowledge what my eyes have to show me. Examples range from not noticing a new hairdo, or a room having been painted or the photograph on the hall wall of an ancient yellow Tuscan country house that she had bought and hung there.

To prove her point she cut out a small photo of my head and taped it in an upper window on that photo of a yellow Tuscan country house. And she said nothing. After several weeks I mentioned to her that I liked the brand new photo of the yellow Tuscan house. She smiled and said that she was glad.  Several weeks after that I was walking down the hall and stopped to look at the photo and there I saw my face in an upper window peeking out. (She told me yesterday that it took 2 years for me to see it!)

How often, O God, have I gone through this life and missed what you have put in front of me for me to see and I have walked on by?

Is that a problem of the human condition, that we are born blind, we don’t see, we don’t notice, we don’t look? Is it that we don’t expect, don’t expect that there is anything or anyone God has put before us for us to see?

“As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.”

When all the others in the story had seen just another blind beggar by the side of the road, as they crossed to walk on the other side of the road, Jesus saw a man, just a man. He saw a man born blind who had been forced to beg by the side of the road in order to live. A person in desperate straits. A human being in need. A man. And Jesus saw him and he was moved to act and he healed him.

I want to tell you about my good friend, Bud Holland who worked for many years at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City. Every day he passed this man sitting on the street, propped up against a building. He told me this…

“I met Richard on my way to the Church Center. Over the years we became good friends and prayer partners. When I met him he said that he was "special". He had two first names: Richard Jeffrey. He and I laughed. Initially I said my name was Bud; Bud as in Budweiser. He laughed

“I often wondered what he was about on that corner of 38th and 3rd Avenue. He did have a cup to receive money but it was such a passive way of asking for money. He never verbally asked for money. Then over time I realized that he was bartering love and he became for me a prayer partner. He always remembered the people I asked him to pray for. When people passed him on the street they would greet him by saying "hello, Richard". So many others knew him. Knowing folks who work on the street by name is unusual to say the least. It bears witness to his witness and friendship over the years.

“When I told him that I was not going to be working in the city and would not be seeing him very often, he rose from where he was sitting, tears filled his eyes, and he uttered these words: ‘It will be all right. God closes the distance between us.’”

Many of us who have routinely passed by homeless and hungry folks on our own city block have, often with some anxiety, offered to help feed and shelter some of these folks on Thursday nights these last cold months. At first they may have seemed like just a group of unfortunate people, but after a while we came to recognize Ernest and Jack, and Bill, and Walter and so on, finally seeing each one as a unique child of God. Our blindness to their humanity healed.

Last Thursday the clergy of the diocese met with our new bishop, Sean Rowe. We were at St. Stephen’s in Wilkes-Barre, which has a courtyard where one enters the parish. As we went in I noted that there were some homeless men there. I did not really “see” them, I just hurried on in. After lunch we celebrated the Eucharist together. The last person in line to come forward to the bishop for the bread and wine of Holy Communion was one of the men from the courtyard. He had “seen” us, and he knew what we would be doing in there, so he came and sat with us and then came forward with us to receive the bread and wine of Holy Communion, too. I saw him clearly as he walked back outside, saying, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.” I made my prayer, too, Thank you, Jesus.

“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

When we truly see a person we could easily pass by, when we see them as a neighbor, as a man, as a woman, as a brother or sister in Christ, as a person, with a name and a face which bears the light of Christ’s presence in our meeting, we will truly see with the eyes of Jesus. And then perhaps we will be moved to act. Today, Jesus shows us the way.