The End

Matthew 25:31-46
 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
 and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 

All the nations will be gathered before him, 

and he will separate people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 

and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 

‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 

for I was hungry and you gave me food, 

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 

I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him,
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food,
or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 

And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you,
or naked and gave you clothing?

And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 

And the king will answer them,
‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these
who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 

Then he will say to those at his left hand,
‘You that are accursed,
depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 

for I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 

I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,
naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Then they also will answer,
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger
or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 

Then he will answer them,
‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these,
you did not do it to me.’ 

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

If I asked you what is special about this particular Sunday, what kind of answers might you give?  Maybe you would say, “It’s almost Thanksgiving.”
             

I’m guessing one of the first answers you might give is not that it is the end of the year.  Especially since we are only at the end of November.  But, it is the end of the year, at least in the liturgical calendar.  See, for Christians, the beginning of Advent is really the beginning of the new year.  It is the beginning of the cycle of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection that we celebrate every year.  So in a way, this is the last day of the Christian year.

The other defining characteristic of this day is that it is called Christ the King Sunday, or Reign of Christ Sunday.  We celebrate the status of Christ as Lord and as King.  We celebrate Christ’s final identity after resurrection, the King of creation, the Lord of all.

One of the behind-the-scenes things that happens every week here at First Presbyterian involves the marquee board outside.  Each week, or almost each week, Elizabeth or I – whoever is preaching – picks out a sermon title.  On Tuesday our maintenance man, John, puts that sermon title up on the marquee board, at the corner.  We get extra points if we keep our titles to three words or less.
             

This week, John came to me and asked if I was going to be preaching about the apocalypse and I was pretty confused because, if I’m honest, I don’t always remember what title I choose.  He and I had very different reactions to my sermon title this week: The End.  While I wrote the end because of the end of the liturgical year, John went much more broad and heard the end of all things.  Hopefully this sermon will just indicate the end of the former and not the latter.

I don’t think John’s understanding of the words, “the end” is a unique one.  Our culture is fascinated with the end.  We are fascinated by the end of cycles – liturgical or calendar years.  We are fascinated with our own individual ends, our deaths.  We are particularly fascinated with our communal end, with the end of the world.

The is objectively the best movie ever.
No, don't argue.  It is.

If you doubt this, think of the number of apocalypse stories in popular culture of late: Hunger Games, Divergent – government sponsored apocalypse; The Day the Earth Stood Still, Independence Day – alien apocalypse, World War Z, The Walking Dead, Dawn of the Dead, I Am Legend – zombie apocalypse; 2012, Contagion, The Day After Tomorrow – miscellaneous apocalypse; and my favorite lately: Interstellar – space apocalypse.  Religious groups have even gotten into the mix – a new version of Left Behind has just come out.  We are fascinate with the end.  And our passage today uses the method of talking about the end as a way to talk about who God is.

There is a blending of imagery here in our passage: the imagery of the king and the shepherd.  This would not have been an unfamiliar blend for the ancient readers.  Kings were often thought of as shepherds who tended to their flocks.  Scripture uses this image to talk about the bad human kings of the past.  But God is the good shepherd, the good king.  We see this imagery in our Matthew passage.

In Matthew’s passage Jesus takes on the role of the shepherd-king.  He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  There is something about that image that is meaningful for us, but what is it?

In this passage Jesus the shepherd-king divides the people there are some at his right hand and some at his left.  Those at his right hand have done something right and those at his left have not.  What is it that causes Christ to separate these two groups?

It is the way the two different groups treated Jesus.  But the groups are confused: "When did we care for you, when did we feed you, clothe you, visit you?"  Or "When did we ignore you, when were we not attentive to you?  We don’t remember this Jesus."

Jesus responds: "Whenever you did these things or did not do these things for the least among you - for the least important, the least wealthy, the least beautiful, the most vulnerable - you did them for me.

I think the last part of this passage, the least of these, gives us some idea of why Matthew wrote this.  Our minds immediately go the apocalypse/end of the world route.  We may think, this is the Christ-ultimatum.  When the kingdom of heaven comes, this is what Christ is saying we will be judged on.  Our tendency is to look at this as a do-or-die thing.

But perhaps Jesus gives us this set of instructions not as a precursor to some apocalyptic judgment, but as a way of conveying the kind of living that a life of faith demands.  

If we try to think of the kind of person that Jesus might identify with, who do we think of?  What kind of person would Christ say he is like?  Jesus identifies himself with the least of these.  The life that faith requires, is one where we see Christ in those around us, especially in the most vulnerable, and treat them accordingly.

So much of what we read or hear in the news every day is about the bad things that happen in the world.  War, disease, chaos, hunger.  While these things are a reality, and we should never ignore the world, I find myself leaping at the chance to read about something good happening in the world.

I heard a story this week from a program called StoryCorps about an assisted living home in California called Valley Springs Manor.[1]  The facility was closed down last fall, I’m guessing for financial reasons.  After the staff stopped getting paid, they all left.  Well, almost all of them left.

See when the facility closed down, the residents fell through the cracks: 16 residents were left behind to fend for themselves.  Some of these residents were dementia patients, and they went from receiving care 24 hours a day, to being left to prepare their own meals and care for themselves.  Two members of the staff, a cook named Maurice Rowland and a janitor named Miguel Alvarez, decided to stay on with the residents.

So these two young men - both in their mid 30’s - decided that they would care for the residents.  They spent all of their time at the assisted living home, cooking, handing out medication, bathing and cleaning for these left-behind people.  Miguel says that he was abandoned by his parents when he was a child, and he could not do the same thing to these people.  Maurice said that even though these people weren’t their family, they were kind of like their family for this short period of time.

Miguel and Maurice spent several days caring for the residents until the fire department and sheriff took over.  As a result of this incident, the Residential Care for the Elderly Reform Act of 2014 was passed.  This is a story of caring for the least of these, of shepherding for weak sheep.

As we look at the world around us, we see a world full of the “least of these” people.  People who are hungry and thirsty, who need food for today and food for tomorrow.  People who are strangers in this land, who need a place to live, a refuge and a welcome.  People who have no shelter or no clothes, no way to stay warm, who need a roof, or a coat, or money to pay their power bill.  People who make up our overwhelmingly large prison population, who need to be visited, and reminded that they are cared for and not forgotten.

The people and organizations that care for the least of these are struggling organizations like Stanly Community Christian Ministries, Homes of Hope, the Community Inn.  These avenues by which we care for the least these struggle to keep their doors open.

In the faces of the least of these, we see the face of Christ.  As we come to the end of the liturgical year, and as we look to the beginning of Advent, we hear the renewed call.  The call of the king who has the power to care for all people.  The call of the shepherd who is willing to sacrifice all for another.  Let us see the need in the world, and not stand idly by.  Let us care for the least of these.

Amen.

---

[1] Alvarez, Miguel and Rowland, Maurice. (2014, November 21) “If We Left, They Wouldn’t Have Nobody.” Jud Esty-Kendall (Producer), StoryCorps. Hayward, CA: National Public Radio.  Retrieved from http://www.npr.org 

The Struggle

Jacob struggles by the riverside.

A group of members and friends of First Presbyterian, Albemarle went white water rafting yesterday on the Nantahala River in western North Carolina.  We had an incredible time, and I recommend such a trip to everyone.  I have to confess, however, that the trip was not without incident: one of the boats flipped at the very end, and it took us some time to find all of our group members.  Let’s just say I have a new appreciation for struggling by the river…

I also couldn't get this piece of Scripture out of my head, partially because I am preaching on it, but mostly because of the way the river looked.  As we floated down the river, there was a thick layer of haze that hung over the river like a thick blanket.  When we rode through the haze, you could smell and taste the fresh air.

Even though it was the middle of the day I could picture a figure emerging out of the night-time haze to grapple with Jacob by the rushing river.  I could picture Jacob and this figure wrestling in the pre-dawn fog, sometimes visible in the mist, sometimes disappearing from view.

Jacob has led a somewhat troubled life.  From the time he was born, he was marked as a trickster.  IN fact, that is what his name means: trickster.
He tricked his brother, Esau, into giving up his birthright out of desperate thirst, he tricked his father into giving him the birthright by disguising himself as Esau.  He tricked his uncle, Laban, into giving him many sheep and goats.

Now Jacob finds himself perched on a ledge, preparing to return to the land of his birth, preparing to face those whom he has wronged, preparing to meet them face to face.  And a face-to-face meeting is what he gets - just not the one he expects.

It went pretty much like this.

Jacob stands alone on the edge of the Jabbok, when he is attacked by a man.  The man wrestles with Jacob and they struggle through the entire night.  They go back and forth, pushing and pulling, struggling and shoving and scraping.  The two seem evenly matched until the climax of the action at the break of day.

This text is just as notable for its ambiguity as it is for its powerful imagery.  There are many unanswered questions, many issues that seem to be intentionally left vague.  One of the most significant questions is, "Who is the man with whom Jacob wrestles?"  The text simply says a man, and the reader is left to decide who the man is.  There have been a number of ideas posed, and each understanding of who the man is has a different impact upon the way the story is read.

Some interpreters have claimed that the man is Jacob’s brother Esau.  When Jacob left Canaan to flee from his family, the last we heard of Esau was that he intended to kill Jacob.  The man who attacks Jacob could be his brother, coming to follow through on his intentions.

If this is Esau, the story reflects a difficult truth of life: we seem prone to struggle the most with the people with whom we are the closest - with our family members, with our loved ones, with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
            

Some people believe that the story is about Jacob's struggles with himself.  As Jacob prepares to return to his homeland he must come to terms with his own nature.

This may also be something we can relate to.  Perhaps we have noticed that we can be our own undoing.  Perhaps we have been troubled and distracted and we realize that our fears and our hesitations are the things which trouble and distract us.  Perhaps our own desires or addictions have been that which undoes us.  Maybe we, too, must struggle with ourselves, must meet ourselves in a vulnerable place, must confront our inner demons.

The most compelling interpretation of the man is that it is God who comes and wrestles with Jacob by the stream.  If this is true, the most surprising thing is that it seems to be an even match.  God wrestles with Jacob all night until day break and comes out unable to prevail.  Even when God injures Jacob, Jacob refuses to let God go.

Unfortunately, this explanation raises as many questions as it answers.  Why does God choose to wrestle with Jacob? Why is the sovereign God unable to defeat a human?  What does this say about God's power?  

One of my favorite books when I was young was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.  If you are not familiar with the book, four children find themselves transported to a magical land called Narnia covered in snow and ice, where animals talk and even the trees are listening.  There is a character in the story named Aslan.  He is believed by the talking animals of Narnia to be a savior capable of defeating the white witch who cloaks their land in cold and makes it always winter but never Christmas.  It is no surprise that there are many parallels drawn between Aslan and God, even overt connections within the story.  There is a particular scene in which the children are discussing with some kind beavers what sort of person Aslan is.

Mrs. Beaver tells the children: "Aslan is a lion - The Lion, the Great lion."
Susan exclaims, "Ohh, I'd thought he was a man.  Is he quite safe?"
Mr. Beaver replies, "Safe?  Who said anything about safe?  Course he isn't safe.  But he is good."

God is like Aslan in this way, and Jacob can attest to this truth, or rather Jacob's hip can.  This story reminds us that God is very, very good, but being a child of God, being in relationship with God, does not mean absolute safety.  Does not mean that we will never experience pain or lose, or heartache.  But knowing that God is good means that though we've struggled through the dark of night when the day breaks, God has a blessing to give us.

After his struggle is over, after he is given a new name and blessed, Jacob gives the place a name.  He names it Peniel - the face of God.  Jacob met God face to face and lived to tell the story.  This encounter that changed him physically, changed his identity by giving him a new name, and changed him by creating a relationship with God.

Such may be true for us as well.  When in your life, have you encountered God?  Was it like Jacob's encounter? How?  How was it different?  Where are the Peniel moments, the meeting God face-to-face moments in your life?

Jacob lives through the encounter with a name change - he is now Israel.  You can be sure that every name has significance.  This passage describes the name Israel as meaning, "One who strives or struggles with God."

And, as you know, this is the name that comes to be given to Jacob's descendants: God's people.  This may seem a strange name to give God's chosen people, but it reflects a powerful truth.

In order for God to wrestle with a human, neither party can be passive in the relationship.  God must play an active role.  While Jacob pushed back and forth with God, he felt the very breath of God.  In fact, God seems to set aside some power to engage in the relationship.  God seems to accept some level of human weakness for the sake of even the possibility of creating a relationships with Jacob.  God is willing to risk a real struggle - not just a play fight - with a human being.

This is a God we know.  A God who became incarnate, who became human in Christ.  A God who suffered and died on a cross.  A God willing to play an active role in the relationship.

Humans must also play an active role.  Our participation in the relationship with God is required.

This is the story of God's people - those who are in a relationship with God,

            those who praise God,
            those who thank God,
            those who struggle with God,
            those who pray to God, who laugh with God, who cry with God,
            and those who live with God.
This is the story of God's people,
and it is our story.

Amen.

A Faith Story

In the chaos following the events of Easter morning
            we find the continuation of a story from earlier in Matthew’s gospel.
We pick up on a story from the end of chapter 27.
            The Pharisees requested that guards be placed at the entrance of the tomb,
                        for fear that someone might steal away Christ’s body
                        and claim that he had been resurrected.

So the Pharisees were given soldiers to guard the tomb,
            and these are the men who were scared and appeared as though dead
                        when the angel rolled the stone away.

Now these guards return to the Pharisees reporting everything that had happened.
            The Pharisees create a story based upon their initial fears
                      that the disciples of Jesus came in the night and stole the body of Christ.
            This plays into the plot they had from the beginning.

The interesting thing about this story concocted by the Pharisees,
            is that Scripture gives us no proof that their version of the story is incorrect.
                        Scripture gives us no proof that their story is a false one.

One who reads all of Scripture would certainly say that the story is untrue,
            based on the story of Jesus,
            and the account by the disciples.
But not one of the gospel accounts describes the entire event.
            None of the gospels describes the actual resurrection
                        the exact moment when Christ was raised from the dead.
            They tell of the earthquake, the stone rolled aside,
                        the fear and joy of those who were there,
            They tell the story of the empty tomb.
The gospels tell about the results of the resurrection.

And this leaves the story open to attack.
Because that moment is ambiguous,
            Because there are unanswered questions,
                        the story is open to attack by those who are threatened by it.
                        the Christian story is vulnerable to contradicting stories,
                                    like the one paid for by the Pharisees.

The Pharisees take advantage of the situation
            to create their own interpretation of the empty tomb,
                        one that does not reconfigure the world.
One that makes sense in the system that already exists.

And using just the evidence – the empty tomb – there is no way to say
            definitively and based on the facts...  
You are wrong.

In 1543, Prussian astronomer and Renaissance man Copernicus died,
            and his works were finally made public.
Copernicus argued that the Earth and other planets go around the sun
            This was in contradiction to the commonly held understanding
            that the Sun and other planets revolved around the Earth.

After his findings were published,
            it took another century of research
                        from people like Kepler, Galileo, and Newton,
            before Copernicus’ ideas became widely accepted.

Throughout this time frame,
       some scientists – many of whom were Christian – argued against this new theory.
            They tried to refute Copernicus’ claims and ideas.
They even incorporated some of the observable facts that he documented
            into the heliocentric, or earth-centered, view that they already held.
            Faced with evidence they could not explain,
                        they struggled to maintain the view that they had about the world
            by sticking to their understanding of how the world worked.
                        By aligning these new observations with the system they understood.

Those who held beliefs about an Earth-centered universe
            felt they had much to lose with these changes.
                        The transition of everything that they understood
                        to that which they did not understand was overwhelming.

This was a similar fear faced by the Pharisees
            who manufactured their own empty-tomb story.
They took the evidence placed before them – the story of the empty tomb,
            and fit it into the world-view which they understood.
            they created an explanation for something unknown
                        that conformed with something known.

This is something that we are prone to do.
            It is something we do on a fairly regular basis.
            We take the things that we observe in the world
and the things that we understand about the world
            and place them in the same framework.

There’s good reason for us to do this.
            With the way the world works
                        and the way we work,
            it makes sense that we would try to conform
                        our observations to our understandings.
            And it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
But it may not always be the way things work,
            especially not when we look at the resurrection story
            or when we bring a troubling word into the conversation: faith.

I was talking to someone recently about a TV show
            called Biblical Mysteries Explained.
            The premise of the show is that scientists look at mysteries from the Bible
            and they attempt to describe the science behind how these things might have happened, like the great flood, or the parting of the Red Sea.
I think the idea of the show is fascinating
            I love that people are so drawn to these stories
                        that they are willing to invest time and energy in exploring them,
                        I love the idea that God created us with such curious minds.
                        I love the idea of a world where miracles could be observed logically.

Part of the reason I think this appeals to me so much
            is that I am drawn to the idea of a world in which science and religion
                        do not conflict with each other
                        but in which they complement, inform, and support one another.
For the most part, I believe this is the kind of world in which we live.
I believe this is the world that God created
            and the world in which people like Copernicus explored and discovered.

I think that Christians are perfectly able to be scientists,
            and vice versa.

The story of Christ's resurrection affords us
            the perfect opportunity to explore this convergence.
Most modern scientists might observe that people do not rise
            out of their graves (except in zombie movies).
                        Scientists would say that it is something that is not
                                    scientifically possible.

Christians reading and speaking about the resurrection of Jesus would not disagree.
            Christians don't believe that people resurrect in body all the time.
            We do not say that is a scientifically observable fact
                        something that happened to people regularly,
                        and that Jesus happened to be one of them.
Christians recognize that the resurrection of Jesus was something that was entirely unique.
            And this is where the story of Christ's resurrection becomes a faith story.

In the eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews
       the first verse says
       "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

When we take this meaning of faith, that which is unobservable,
         we realize that the story we read of Christ's resurrection is definitely a faith story.
Even as the gospels tells it.
            The supernatural part, the part where Jesus is raised, is not described.
            It is not something that is seen,
                        it is not something that is observed.
            It exists in the realm of faith.

So when the Pharisees were faced with this story,
            and it was faith in Christ which was required for belief,
            There response was to incorporate the story
                        into their existing system of understanding.
                   To explain this phenomenon using the rules about the world that they had.

But when God conquered death,
            and raised Jesus from the dead,
            it was a new thing that was happening.
Something that defied all of the rules that people thought they understood.
            Something that made people reorient their understanding of God.

For some people, this was not something they could accept.
            they refused to accept that something could happen,
                        that didn't fit into their understanding of the world
            that didn't maintain their status quo.
But for the early Christians,
            Christ's resurrection from the dead didn't have to fit into their understanding
                        of the world
            It meant a new understanding of a changed world.

When we look at the world around us,
            when we think of the things that make sense,
            the things that are observable
We realize that faith is not something that is observable.
            The faith story is not one that fits into a system that makes sense,
                        that is why it's a faith story.

This doesn't mean that the world shouldn't make sense.
            This doesn't mean that science and religion are at odds,
It means that God,
            who created all things,
                        is able to do anything.

Yes the story is ambiguous.
            Yes there are unanswered questions.
            Yes the story is open to doubt by empirical observation.
This is because the one who performed the most important action in the story,
            the one who raised Christ from the dead
                        is God.
And it is pointless to try to force God into our understanding of how the world works

If we trust only in the ways of the world,
            we see around us a world in chaos,
                        world which seems to spin out of control.
But when we place our trust in faith,
            when we place our trust in a Lord that we can't observe,
                        but who brings us out of our own tombs of despair,
                        who raises us from the ways of death
                                    into the hope of life,
            we live in faith, we trust in faith.

Placing our faith in the story of Christ's resurrection
            means being assured of that for which we hope,
                        and believing in that which cannot be seen.

This is the essence of the faith story.
            This is the hope to which God calls us. Amen.

Who sinned?

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, 

"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.  We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva
and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent).

Then he went and washed and came back able to see.  The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 

Some were saying, “It is he.” 

Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.”
He kept saying, “I am the man.” 

But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 

He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’  Then I went and washed and received my sight.” 

The story you have just heard is a story about a miracle, or - as John's Gospel calls it - a sign.  The first eleven verses of this story do two things.  First they tell the reader about one of the identities of Jesus.  He is God's healer.  He is able to heal in a way no one has before: he is able to heal an affliction present from birth.  The implication is that Jesus is able to do that which only God is capable of doing.  This is the kind of relationship Jesus has with God.

The second thing these first 11 verses do is begin a theological conversation.  The subject of this conversation is sin, one of the things we focus on during Lent.

These verses, this story deserve the opportunity to speak for themselves.  So I am going to read you most of the rest of the story, but I am going to read this story as it can be found in the Message, an interpretation of scripture by Eugene Peterson.
We continue the story where we left off, as the man born blind is about to be led to the Pharisees.

They marched the man to the Pharisees.  This day when Jesus made the mud and healed his blindness was the Sabbath.  The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see.
He said, “He put a clay mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.”

Some of the Pharisees said, 

“Obviously, this man can’t be from God. He doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”

Others countered, “How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?” There was a split in their ranks.

They came back at the blind man,
“You’re the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?”

He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews didn’t believe it, didn’t believe the man was blind to begin with.  So they called the parents of the man.
They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind?  So how is it that he now sees?”

His parents said, “We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind.  But we don’t know how he came to see—haven’t a clue about who opened his eyes.  Why don’t you ask him? He’s a grown man and can speak for himself.”

They called the man back a second time—the man who had been blind—and told him, “Give credit to God. We know this Jesus is an impostor.”

He replied, “I know nothing about that one way or the other.  But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see.”

They said, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

“I’ve told you over and over and you haven’t listened.  Why do you want to hear it again?  Are you so eager to become his disciples?”

With that they jumped all over him.  “You might be a disciple of that man, but we’re disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from.”

The man replied, “This is amazing!  You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my eyes!  It’s well known that God isn’t at the beck and call of sinners,
but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will.
That someone opened the eyes of a man born blind has never been heard of—ever.
If this man didn’t come from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.”

They said, “You’re nothing but dirt!  How dare you take that tone with us!”  Then they threw him out in the street.

On January 12, 2010 a massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti approximately 16 miles west of the capital city Port-au-Prince.  There were an estimated 3 million people affected by the earthquake, and the death toll ended up somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 people.  Haitians struggled to remove themselves from the wreckage of their homes and to repair the wreckage of their lives.  They struggled to find water, food, and family.

Many people rushed to aid the devastated population.  Yet some people had questions about the meaning of this earthquake.  One Christian leader in particular had a unique observation about Haitians.  His observation was that these people were suffering the consequences of a pact their ancestors made with the devil.  He claimed that Haitians in the early 1800's made a deal with the devil to free them from their colonial masters.  This religious leader believed that Haitians were being punished for this sin.  He made a moral evaluation of their actions, and connected them through a cause-and-effect relationship to the earthquake.

There were outcries and condemnations of this theory from many directions but the questions could not be ignored: Did this happen because of sin?  What is sin?

To explore these questions we need only listen in to the debate as it happens in our story.  At the beginning of the story, the disciples present the common view of sin.  They ask Jesus, "Whose sin is responsible for this man's blindness?"

The Pharisees - the religious leaders - do essentially the same thing.  The first thing they say is, "Obviously this Jesus can't be from God he worked on the Sabbath and that is a sin."  Their default is to attach a specific action to this concept of sinner.
                         

Yet from the beginning of the story, Jesus redirects the conversation.  He says, "You are focusing on the wrong question here.  You are looking for someone to blame when you should be searching for an opportunity to find God at work.
                         

Our instinct in the world is to always look for the cause and effect.  Where the rain falls we look for the clouds.  After the car is wrecked we look for failed brakes or a distracted driver.  After an earthquake we look for the pact with the devil.  Where the gun is fired we look for a violent video game, or some mental incapacity.

           

You can't really blame us, this is how we experience the world.  It is our instinct to point to a cause for all effects. It is our desire to know and understand all things.

So it's not really a surprise that this carries over into our experience of evil.  We don't really understand evil.  So we seek to define and categorize it.  We end up placing sin and evil as cause and effect.

But sin and evil are not things that fit into a simple system of cause and effect.  Sin cannot be simply judged and identified through an evaluation of actions.  This is what the Pharisees and the disciples wanted.

If we take this story seriously, and listen to what the characters say, we see that sin is something that exists in the lack of relationship.  One does not uncover sin by evaluating actions on a scale of morality, but rather by exploring one's relationship with God.

Though we are not in a place to judge another person, we ask ourselves the questions anyway, "How do we detect sin?  How do we detect righteousness - or lack of sin?"

To answer this, Jesus points to those around us.  We know that the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, and the commandment that follows on its heels is to love your neighbor as yourself.  Our righteousness - or lack of sin - is rooted in our relationship with God, and our relationship with God is grounded through our relationships with others.

  

Our experience of evil in the world is too complicated.  We have too many examples of bad things happening to good people.  Evil defies logic too much to fit into any system of logic.  It is too complicated to put into a flow chart.
             

Christ calls us to set aside our cause and effect.  He calls us to stop using God's name to justify the cause for this earthquake, or that hurricane, or this death, or that shooting.  He calls us to use God's name to justify caring for all people: families, friends, strangers, enemies.

He calls us to set aside this belief that we know what it means to be sinful or righteous.  That we have a corner on the market for goodness, that we are the ones that can judge.  He calls us to start paying close attention to our relationship with God, and with God's children.  

This is the only connection that can be made with our actions, for it is when we pay close attention to our relationships that they are no longer casual.  It is when we place our deep faith in God, when we understand that call as the call to reorient ourselves toward the well being of others, that our actions are those of righteousness.  That our actions truly reflect our faith.  That our actions make an impact in the world for good.

This is how the blind are healed.

This is how God's light is spread. Amen.