Nicole A.M. Collins: Faith Illuminations: "Reconstructive Surgery," Sermon for Sunday March 30th, 2014 By: Nicole A.M. Collins

Did anyone own the game ‘Operation?’ I never had one but remember the myriad of commercials for the game when I was younger. Today’s texts come in a long series of “surgeries” you could say. Starting with Ash Wednesday we are brought to bear the future reality of our fleshy selves as well as its implications from death to New life through Christ Jesus. Last week’s Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well had Jesus doing spiritual, unrelenting surgery on the young woman’s heart—appealing to her reception of the living water of life—His Word!

Today’s Gospel has a similar ‘spiritual surgery’ taking place with Jesus appealing to the window of the soul—a blind man’s eyes. As we know the eyes are receptive but in context to Jesus miracle and rebuke to the Pharisees, Jesus is doing spiritual surgery on what the eyes of the heart perceive. The whole of the Lenten walk could be considered an ongoing reconstructive surgery of the entire person to be resurrected alongside with Jesus into the New Creature to live into the lifestyle of GRACE—the discipline of the Kingdom of God!

The unrelenting tension in today’s Gospel text examples the reality of death (the Law) in the graceless indifference and cruelty the Pharisees inflict upon the poor blind man as well as what they try to inflict upon Jesus! Here is an innocent man blind from birth healed without even a thought by Jesus. The man felt Jesus love, compassion, mercy and hope flow from his fingers gently swiping the mud upon his eyes.

My favorite portrayal of this miracle is in the Franco Zefferelli Jesus of Nazareth movie where we see the blind man clinging to Jesus in thanksgiving and true joy. Like a nurturing parent Jesus gently has his hand upon his shoulder as the Pharisees begin their campaign to try to squelch both the man’s joy and discipline Jesus for enacting a healing upon the Sabbath. They are unrelenting in grilling the poor blind man denouncing and condemning him with an old belief that sin was the cause of his blindness in the first place. Excommunicating him from the synagogue as if God was in their control to begin with!

While sheltering the former blind man, Jesus begins his spiritual, unrelenting surgery upon the Pharisees with this very loaded statement: “³⁹Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” ⁴⁰Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” ⁴¹Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

Let us look deeply upon these last few surgical Words: ^41b... “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” The Pharisees blindness can relate to us as well when we fight and resist dying to the Old Nature & the Law and rising to New Life—the New Creation with Christ. As Pastor D would say, got to go the full 180 into the do’s of the Gospel in order to be truthfully and most completely living into the lifestyle of GRACE.

We are once again on that road to Easter as disciples of Jesus—the seasons of our lives living into GRACE. GRACE by the way is an “all-caps, Hollywood Sign-sized reality” lived in the heart of one submissive through faith. That’s another loaded Word which could be easily twisted towards the Law and its bondage upon the discerning, transforming heart of the believer. This past week in my Bible class, there was a debate about the context of the Greek word for submission to the Will of God... Submission meaning lower than or Submission actually and TRUTHFULLY meaning intentionally obedient to one’s calling to be accountable to love God and neighbor?

Just like the latest Lutheran magazine dodge of the reality of Christus Victor being that Christ Jesus was indeed victorious over sin, death and the devil... The author chose to leave Satan out of the picture... “out of sight and out of mind”—what perceptions does that truthfully lead us to in regards to reconciling our hearts to the full Gospel of GRACE of Christ Jesus?! It’s a huge, intentional blind spot to speak to keeping “control” over the wildly, uncontrollable, “full-monty” of the Gospel.

But then the purveyors of this theological perspective consider themselves to be “progressive” advocates for the full or “pure” gospel of grace over those who are truthfully “Evangelical, Confessional and Biblically” Orthodox.

Well there was a big bunch of theological doctrine I just relayed in example to illumine the Pharisees’ perspective on what was just so awful and problematic with this man being healed, having the audacity to share joy in proclaiming and Jesus, a rabbi daring to impart “spiritual surgery” upon the hardened hearts of the very legally righteous Pharisees! An ugly and graceless encounter with a group of “holy men” with no intention in hearing, seeing or transforming themselves spiritually to the reality of the New Covenant.

We must remember that a graceless reality is the realm of empty promises, idolatry and evil—the true reality of Hell. The true reality of hell is certainly not a “nice, little theological metaphor,” for self-contained, moral disciplines(!) It is INDEED real, caused and causal.

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend in my theology class and we talked about the Malaysian airplane crash... The question we pondered for a time was what does the (truthfully, invisible) face of Satan look like? Well I said we most certainly got a good glimpse of his work with the horrible photos and history of the Holocaust. We saw another glimpse of him visibly at work with the recent Christian persecutions in the East with the beheadings of Coptic Priests and the burning of their churches.

Even though, the media, investigators and scientists have yet to decipher the motives of the pilots or what exactly happened on flight 370... The thought that ran in my mind for yet another glimpse, was wondering about the horror of small children, mothers and infants who were violently crashed into the Indian Ocean to most literally die a death of drowning, asphyxiation and perhaps dismemberment from the impact of crashing.... Did the pilots “see” this or perceive this to be a diabolical political statement of some kind? Here is the invisible face of evil—Satan’s work—temptation upon us to curve inward and die—NOT to rise!

Isaiah’s strained, near hollering voice rumbles God’s frustration in trying to get through to the people of Israel to wake up: “¹⁸Listen, you that are deaf; and you that are blind, look up and see! ¹⁹Who is blind but my servant, or deaf like my messenger whom I send? Who is blind like my dedicated one, or blind like the servant of the Lord? ²⁰He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear.” Obviously the perception at the time with the Israelites Isaiah was proclaiming to, was that they were deeply entrenched with being in exile—(actually and spiritually that is.)

Who’s to say that we are not still there as well? We are in an exile of our own making... circumventing the cross with merely sin and death... cheap grace feeding the soul with fast food theology... NOT costly GRACE. What was Christ’s victory then I ask? Are we in denial of the bondage that is still and ever so real: Sin, Death and the Devil!?

St. Paul imparts timeless, kairotic hope to us in his efforts to clear the eyes of the Ephesians away from idolatry: “⁸For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— ⁹for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. ¹⁰Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. ¹¹Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. ¹²For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; ¹³but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Like Laser surgery—the light is our teacher, reconstructive artist and builder to our New foundation—the lifestyle of GRACE—the New Nature. God’s surgery within us is invisible in one sense but MADE manifest through our transformed hearts to bear the fruits of faith: compassion, mercy, kindness, healing and LOVE. Love towards our font of living water, the surgeon to our lives through His Word and GRACE—The Lord Jesus Christ and towards our neighbor!

When you say outside of the “sanctuary of the self,” Jesus is Lord, it is a confessional, New creed as well as a commitment to BE-live (& believe) into your commission, calling as a disciple of GRACE freed from the bondage of Sin, Death and the Devil eternally. Let the Gospel realize a miracle in your lives by living into it!

AMEN

March 30^th, 2014; 4th Sunday in Lent; Year A; SOLA Lectionary Nicole Collins

Isaiah 42:14-21 Psalm 142 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41