John 13:1-17, 31b-35
What
can be seen
I have a speck in my left eye. Really.
It got there sometime last Friday.
I noticed it as we were entering one of the museums in Germany. It disturbed me; it interferes with my
vision; and I am beginning to think it is causing constant motion-sickness. Or, it might just be that I am just obsessing
about it to the point that my stomach and heart are in knots.
The speck was verified by another
person. They told, “Yeah, you have a
blood clot. It is right there, I can see
it.” They told me. “Even if you can’t.”
It is called Posterior Vitreous
Detachment. And it has had a profound
impact on me, as I navigate my way through this Holy Week.
We are bringing the season of Lent
to an end. Lent is the season when we
try extra hard to see the specks in our eyes.
Not the ones caused by Posterior Vitreous Detachment, but the
metaphorical ones. Jesus said in one of
his sermons that we often see the speck in someone’s eye. In someone else’s eye. We notice those specks, he said, while
ignoring or overlooking the log in our own eye.
I thought about this. When I wasn’t sure if I had a speck or
not. And I did find it comforting when
the doctor pointed out to me that I do actually have one. Knowing about it makes it possible for me to
do something about it. If I ignored it
or failed to notice it, there is possibility it could get worse and bring total
blindness.
Jesus preached how readily we see
the speck in the eye of another. Jesus
said that we often don’t acknowledge the log in our own eye. His words seem to be an invitation to notice
the log – his instructions might include asking for help in seeing the log – or
the speck.
It has been thirty-seven days since
Ash Wednesday. Maybe you remember the list
of suggestions for where one might look for specks. It is in the ELW, page 253. If you want to look it over. That confession has been carefully crafted to
help us see specks we might otherwise overlook, or we might think
unimportant.
I can remember as a child thinking,
“So long as I avoid the big three – don’t murder anyone, don’t steal anything,
don’t commit adultery – I will be fine.”
What a shock to then begin to read and memorize Luther’s Catechism on
the 10 commandments. Or what of the Ash
Wednesday liturgy’s insistence that I also be aware of my “neglect of human
need…. Indifference to injustice…. Uncharitable thoughts toward neighbor… waste and pollution of God’s creation.?
There are many, many specks in my
eye. Some might even be categorized as logs.
As this Lenten season comes to an
end and I prepare for the Great Three Days, I am grateful to the liturgies of
the Church and the members of its congregations who have helped me to see the
specks I would otherwise overlook or ignore.
Without their aid, I may have continued in patterns of behavior which
are destructive; without their intervention, I might have failed to turn my
life in the direction spoken of by God.
The big transgressions are easier
to see. Those of which we are more likely
to be guilty are the ones which need to be brought to our attention.
I heard a woman on the radio
today. The interviewer gave her every
opportunity blast those who were not joining her in aiding victims of
addition. She didn’t go there. She said, “People don’t mean to be cruel,
they are just indifferent.” “Indifference,”
can be a cruel response.
Indifference can be the speck on
its way to becoming a log.
The Maundy Thursday Gospel lesson
is sweet and seemingly gentle. Jesus
gives us a command, a new commandment, and it is really a very simple
thing. He commands us “Love one another.” What a great thing! What a wonderfully simple statement of what it
means to be Jesus’ follower. And surely,
loving one another is something that we would all willingly do. Right?
But he goes on to say that we need
to love, “as he has loved us.” And this
is where those specks start to accumulate in our eyes. I will love you as much as humanly possible,
but does Jesus really mean that I need to love as deeply as he loved?
Jesus died for those whom he
loves. We squirm out of tithing or find
every excuse for not spending one day a month helping the families in Family Promise.
Here is where the whole speck in my
eye thing comes back. I intentionally
asked the doctor if there was a speck in my eye and if it was anything I needed
to be worried about. Have we done the
same thing – spiritually? Have we
intentionally asked a fellow Christian, our pastor, a spiritual mentor to look
closely and see if there any specks in our spiritual eye?
Sometimes we preachers take it on
ourselves to tell you when we see specks.
Sometimes we preachers relish the one-way dialogue to warn you about the
specks and how they are obstructing your vision. Sometimes we do….. but mostly we see, and we
hope that someday there will come the invitation to speak of the sins, the
transgressions, the omissions, and the distorted vision which results in an
unwillingness to have someone honestly tell us if we have a blood clot floating
around in there.
Jesus means it when he tells us to love
one another. And Jesus did mean to say
that we are to love as deeply as he has loved us. And loving that deeply does mean setting
aside our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other
people.
This speck in my eye is worrying
me. And I do think it is creating
vertigo. I want it gone.
But here is another thing the
doctor in Germany told me. He said it
may never go away. He said that over
time my brain will simply stop registering that it is there. This already happens in every eye in this place. We have the blood vessels that run over the
back of our eye, but we never notice them.
Our brains fill in the gaps of information where nothing is registered
by the retina.
God forbid that I allow my brain to
allow me to forget the speck in my eye which blinds me to the call to follow
Jesus and to love all of you with the love which he has expressed to me.
Amen.
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