Open Your Eyes

             When Christianity enters our politics, often it is for reasons of judgement.  The county clerk in Kentucky who refused to give marriage licenses to same sex partners created a great fuss and got lots of publicity.  What is really remarkable is that the Westboro Baptist Church, that team of judges who picket veteran’s funerals professing God’s judgement on all of us, have decided that the clerk is someone whom they also despise.  That puts me in a bind.  Whose side am I on here?  I don’t like either of these sides so I have to simply laugh at the silliness of it all and go on my way, or be astonished at the way that hypocrisy seems to find a way to spring up on multiple sites. 

            But this isn’t the only way that Christians in politics judge.  Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have talked about how their Christian faith motivates their politics and how sternly they would deal with people who are outside of the biblical limits.  They come off sounding very much like Pharisees who were often hostile to people on the margins; people who struggle with their sexuality and their economics.  I often wonder where these guys get their religion, or what bible they are reading.. 

            In Mark’s gospel, Jesus enters Jericho and encounters a blind beggar.  This is the second time that Jesus has been confronted with a man who is blind.  The first time, he healed the man only partially and then needed to do it again so that he could really see.  This time, Jesus calls the blind man to him over the objections of the crowd and asks him simply, “What do you want me to do for you?”  The man replies, “My teacher, let me see again!”  Jesus tells him, “Go, your faith has made you well.”  The formerly blind man continues to follow Jesus as he goes on his way to Jerusalem.

            What strikes me about this story is the simplicity of it.  There is no judgement at all here.  Jesus simply takes what he finds and deals with it.  The only judgement comes from the crowd in the street.  Jesus ignores this and heals.  He doesn’t know very much about the blind man; he has no idea about who is worthy of his care and who isn’t.  He just deals with what he finds.

            The lessons that Jesus taught to those who followed him are very helpful if we want to live lives as Christians.  His commandments are few and easy to remember.  He told us to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind, and to love our neighbors as people like ourselves.  Along the way he also reminded us not to judge, lest we be judged; and with his parables he taught us wonderful lessons like the Good Samaritan who, although he was an outcast according to the Jews, still stopped and took care of a man beaten by robbers who was laying at the side of the road, and who had been passed by a scribe and a Pharisee who didn’t want to get their hands dirty because they had other work to do.

            The disciples of Jesus also asked Jesus to help them.  James and John wanted him to let them sit on his right and left when he came into his kingdom.  Jesus told them that was not his to grant; but was something that only God could grant.  Essentially, he was telling James and John to do the same thing that he told the blind man by the side of the road:  open your eyes!  That is also, I think, Jesus’ word for you and me in the church.  Open your eyes and see the people at the side of the road who need your help.  Open your eyes to see the misery that is all around you.  Do whatever you can to help those who have no ability to help themselves.      . 

            Those of us who like to think of ourselves as grown-ups, need to understand that being grown up brings with it responsibility for those who are on the fringes of society.  That is perhaps the prime reason that the church is here.  We are God’s social agency created for the health of the people who can’t always take care of themselves.  Our faith and our worship are important, but so is our mission.  To reach out to those who are hurting and who have very little is what we are here for.  May God help us to open our eyes to see more than our own desires and to do whatever we can for the need that is all around us.