[Sermon delivered for St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church’s online Mass for Laetare Sunday (Lent IV), March 22, 2020, telecast on YouTube at 10:00 a.m. MST at https://stmarysphoenix.org/online ]
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Those of you who know me may already know I have a grave distaste for bending sermons around current events. Now, some preachers are very talented at this and can give us teaching full of the grace of the Holy Spirit with that method, and we have heard them. However, we have all heard those who should be locked into a small room with no electronic communications until the fit passes. Therefore, I distrust the inclination.
However today, we have a question from today’s Gospel that gives us pause. To recap, Jesus and His disciples are walking along, and they happen across a man who was blind from birth. Truth be told, that was not an uncommon thing, prenatal care in the early Roman Empire being what it was and everything! Still, the sight prompted the disciples to ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”[1] Again, this was not an uncommon thing, popular opinion of the day being that personal misfortunate was divine retribution for sin or hubris (or perhaps a curse, but that’s another discussion for another day!).
If you have been paying attention to the Gospel readings at Mass, you may remember Our Lord is not a big proponent of that theory. For instance, here He states in this passage that, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”[2] This isn’t the only time that he debunks the “Something bad happened because you were scum” argument. We hear in the Gospel according to St. Luke, for example, that when some mentioned that Pilate had slaughtered some Galileans at sacrifice,[3]Jesus probably rolled His eyes and then asked the rhetorical question, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus?”[4] He goes on to answer that they didn’t, then went on to ask the same about those who died in a tower collapse in Jerusalem’s Siloam district, again answering for them in the negative.[5] He also states in the Sermon on the Mount that God sends rain and sun equally on the unjust as He does the just.[6] The simple fact of the matter which Jesus teaches us is that in this imperfect and fallen world stuff just happens.
Indeed, the physical and life sciences have taught us that many of the processes that kill us are related to or the same as those that make life here on earth possible. Volcanism, the air and sea currents, the water cycle, cellular reproduction, all these miracles of daily life can kill us as well if we are badly placed or some little thing goes wrong. Remember, our Lord came to redeem all His creation, meaning all His creation is under the sentence of sin, decay, and death. And that is Jesus’ point. Just because it’s bad does not mean we did anything bad to cause it (although Jesus does remind us in Luke we can bring stuff upon ourselves because of our sins, we’re not off the hook[7]), nor necessarily will living a life of virtue necessarily shield us. It just is.
That puts our current crisis into perspective, doesn’t it? Or those crises before.
“So now what?” we ask. “If it doesn’t matter, then what is the point?” Brothers and Sisters, the point is that we have an opportunity here to glorify God and shine that light he has given us in our Baptism. Remember, in our Gospel today Jesus stated that this happened that, “The works of God might be made manifest in him.” Think about this. Immediately after this, Jesus makes the works of God decidedly manifest by healing the blindness. Either way, if there had been sin, it was definitely forgiven, we saw that with the healing of the paralytic,[8]but not here. Jesus definitely stated this was not the result of sin but would manifest the works of God.
Indeed, in these dark times, either of crisis or just the regular grind of this dreary existence with rampant evil, this vale of tears, we are called upon to make manifest the works of God. I call to mind the Sermon on the Mount again, where God’s honour is bestowed upon those who mourn, the poor in spirit, the meek, the ones who seek (but maybe haven’t quite yet gotten, but are still seeking) righteousness, the pure in heart, those who engage in acts of mercy, the peacemakers, those persecuted for the sake of God.[9] We who are made in God’s image, who share in Our Lord’s Death and Resurrection in Baptism, we are called to make God’s works manifest in the dark spots of this world. Some of you provide the grace and gift of healing, some of you bear words of encouragement, some of you call out sin and call us all to just do better, some of you comfort the dying who are beyond healing but not beyond grace, some of you feed the hungry, provide clothing for the poor, contribute for shelter for the homeless. All these acts are necessary because if we have a living faith that living faith drives us to do these things. St. James put it well when he writes, “I by my works will show you my faith!”[10] So it is in time of crisis; how we respond should be governed by the overriding principle to make the works of God manifest.
“But how can we do so? We are under lockdown!” you may counter. Indeed, you may be on lockdown, but you are not without means of communicating. A phone call of encouragement, a donation to a service agency if you have the means, letters or posts online, all of these are still acts of mercy. Some of us still can and must report for work, and these we can make opportunities for acts of mercy. All it takes is a little imagination, or failing that, asking for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
There is a downside, sad to say. You’ve heard the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” That is true. There are those who misconstrue our motives, belittle our motives, hold us to ridicule, or even try to stop us. After healing the man blind from birth, Jesus kicked up a firestorm among the religious authorities. Not willing to accept that the man’s blindness was to be an example of God’s mercy, they maligned Jesus and then kicked the blind man out of the community.[11] The truth of the matter is that some people just cannot, or will not, see good when it stares them in the face. Our Lord said, “For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”[12] After all, “men persecuted the prophets who were before [us].”[13]
So, Brothers and Sisters, take this with you…none of this really is God’s judgement for one sin or another but is just another manifestation of fallen creation that periodically rears its ugly head. Real judgement comes in how we respond to it. Do we persecute, fight, blame, or do we take this as an opportunity to share God’s love with heroic (at whatever level of heroic you can manage) acts of mercy? We have a long tradition of providing mercy during dark times, ranging from St. Cyprian’s flock in third century Carthage to the martyrs of Memphis, Episcopal priests and nuns who gave their lives caring for victims of Memphis’ 1878 yellow fever outbreak.[14] Mark my words, we shall see arise from this disaster stories of the mercy of God visited upon victims. There will be martyrs for the love of God arising from this. This happened that, “the works of God might be made manifest.”[15]
Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Saviour save us. Amen.
[1] Jn. 9.2
[2] Jn. 9.3
[3] Lk. 13.1
[4] Lk. 13.2
[5] Lk. 13.3-5
[6] Mt. 5.45
[7] Lk. 13.3, 13.5
[8] Mt. 9.2
[9] Mt. 5.1-10
[10] Jas. 2.18
[11] Jn. 9.13-34
[12] Jn. 9.39
[13] Mt. 5.12
[14] See Finger, Michael, “The Martyrs of Memphis,” https://memphismagazine.com/features/the-martyrs-of-memphis/ , 2019; this gives the story of Episcopal saints Sr. Constance, Sr. Ruth, Sr. Thecla, Sr. Frances, Fr. Louis Schuyler, and Fr. Charles Parsons.
[15] Jn. 3.2
