At the Risk of Our Own Life

Today's gospel is a rather messy episode with all sorts of uncomfortable questions and answers. Why would someone be born blind? That was much more of a tragedy in Jesus' day than ours, with few employment options beyond begging. Surely there must be some way to explain the situation, prompting the disciples' question.

Jesus' answer at least refuses to assign blame, but it isn't entirely satisfactory either. He was born this way "so that God’s works might be revealed in him?" Really? This man suffered all his life just so he could be a prop for Jesus? Based on everything I know about Jesus, I'm going to say that Jesus didn't mean it that way. Here merely shifts the emphasis from one of blame to one of opportunity to minister and share God's love.

Yet when Jesus does just that, it stirs up more problems. Jesus had done "work" on the Sabbath when he made a little mud. Granted, this obsession with exacting requirements of Sabbath keeping is baffling to us, but if a homeless person shows up at our churches on Sunday morning, we generally tell him that we deal with such problems at other times. As I said, this is a messy gospel passage.

I wonder how many people in America today view the church in much the same way church congregations tend to view the Pharisees in today's gospel. Does the church look as baffling to outsiders as the Pharisees' behavior sometimes seems to look to us insiders?

Given that most of the opposition to Jesus seems to have come from religious circles, it would seem incumbent on church denominations and congregations to examine themselves carefully, to ascertain the ways in which we model Jesus' behaviors and the ways in which we model those of his religious, and no doubt well-intended, opponents. And surely we would want to guard against acting like Jesus' religious opponents, people of faith who seemed to think that their religious traditions and practices were so sacrosanct as to need defending and preserving at all costs.

One of the fundamental claims of the church is that we are called to be the body of Christ in the world. I won't for a moment minimize the difficulty of figuring out exactly what this call looks like, what particular ministries it calls us to undertake. However, it seems highly likely that any such calling will create tension and even conflict with our institutional, religious sensibilities.

The Presbyterian (USA) Book of Order, in its opening pages, says this about the church. "The Church is the body of Christ. Christ gives to the Church all the gifts necessary to be his body. The Church strives to demonstrate these gifts in its life as a community in the world: The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the the risk of losing its life." (F-1.0301)

I wonder if the tension I am talking about doesn't reside within this line about faith and risking our own life. Jesus was willing to risk ridicule, suffering, and death for the sake of others, for the sake of the world. As Christ's body in the world, we are called to do the same. So what does that look like for the congregations where you and I are?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.