A Fresh Perspective

Given the nature of reality in the world, science is able to predict certain things with great accuracy, like eclipses and full moons and the ebb and flow of tides. Our lives have been significantly improved by the discoveries and inventions that are based on predictable patterns in our world. Certain generalities regarding human behavior are also fairly predictable. For example, had we been born in India, there is more than a 99 percent likelihood that we would be Hindu, or something other than Christian. Our individual human freedom is limited by any number of factors besides just where we live, such as genetics, our early childhood experiences, the nurturing we received or didn’t receive, our opportunities or lack thereof, our education, and the list goes on and on. A lot of what we are, what we have, and who we become is based on luck of the draw, and many factors over which we have no control. However, we are not locked in. The good news we preach is good news because at the hea...

In 1972 songwriter and singer Johnny Nash, made it to number one on the pop chart singing: I can see clearly now the rain is gone. / I can see all the obstacles in my way. / Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. / It’s gonna be a bright, bright sun-shiny-day. Rarely though, do we see so clearly. Rarely do we see all the obstacles in our way or all our blind spots that prevent us from seeing. Paul says in his beautiful poem on love in First Corinthians: “For now we see in a mirror dimly.” The Gospel of John equates seeing with believing, and believing, as I have said so often, is about trusting and serving and loving. Believing is about being faithful to the way of Jesus. So seeing is trusting, seeing is loving, seeing is serving. Our capacity to see greatly impacts our capacity to trust God, and love and serve others. Our Gospel text today says that as Jesus went along he “saw” a man blind from birth. What did Jesus see? Jesus sees a man who is very vulnerable and at a grea...

Many folks, I think, regard Jesus as a huge success. Certainly Jesus attracted crowds. He healed people and there were those who were drawn to his teaching as well. But here in our Gospel story today Jesus says some things that result in many of his followers turning away. Jesus does not appear at all surprised by the loss. This is hard for those of us who buy into the notion that success must inevitably move us toward the bigger and better. As Americans we are so oriented toward material and numerical expansion that it’s hard for us to imagine Jesus teaching in such a way where his intent is to sift and filter out people. From the opening episode where Jesus feeds the multitude and then refuses to be king on their terms, there is a developing blindness and antagonism toward Jesus. Now this closed heartedness and antagonism spreads to and infects the group of disciples that have been following him. Jesus invites them to eat his flesh and drink his blood so they might enter...

In the story of the blind man healed by Jesus in John 9, the story is introduced by the statement: “As he (Jesus) walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.” Jesus saw a man who elicited compassion and understanding. On the other hand, his disciples saw a man rejected and condemned by God. “Who sinned,” they ask Jesus, “this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The disciples are the ones who are blind. In the course of the conversations and interrogations that follow we also learn that the man’s neighbors, parents, and the religious leaders who investigate this Sabbath healing are also blind.  In May of 1968 two Roman Catholic priests, Daniel and Philip Berrigan (brothers), and seven of their Christian friends—two missionaries, a midwife, a nurse, a worker in race relations, and two others—walked into the draft board office in Catonsville, Maryland at the height of the Vietnam War. As an act of nonviolent protest and witness for peace, they took some draft ...

In The Last Battle , the final volume of The Chronicles of Narnia , there is a delightful scene toward the end of the story. A group of dwarfs sit huddled together in a tight little knot thinking they are in a pitch black, smelly hole of a stable when in reality they are out in the midst of an endless grassy green countryside with sun shining and blue sky overhead. Lucy, the most tenderhearted of the Narnian children, feels compassion for them. She tries to reason with them. Then frustrated, she cries, “It isn’t dark, you poor stupid Dwarfs. Can’t you see? Look up! Look round! Can’t you see the sky and the trees and the flowers!” But all they can see is pitch black darkness.  Aslan, the Christ figure, is there with them, but they can’t see him. When Aslan offers them the finest food, they think they are eating spoiled meat scraps and sour turnips. When he offers them the choicest wine, they mistake it for ditch water.  How did the Dwarfs become so blind? The dwarfs ha...

The Shawshank Redemption is at the top of my all-time great movies list. It is pervaded with great lines and rich spiritual symbolism. The warden, Samuel Norton, is an icon of toxic Christianity. When Andy and the other prisoners make their first appearance before the warden, immediately the warden’s self-righteousness dominates the scene. He has one of the prisoners beaten for asking, “When do we eat?” Holding a Bible, he tells the prisoners, “Trust in the Lord, but your ass is mine.”  The warden presents himself as a socially respectable, church-going, Bible-quoting Christian. But it’s clear from the beginning of his appearance in the story that his Christianity is in name only. In one scene, the warden enters Andy’s cell. He takes Andy’s Bible as Andy and the warden quote Scripture verses back and forth. He does not open the Bible, which is good since the rock hammer Andy uses to tunnel through the cell wall is hidden inside. When he hands the Bible back to Andy he says, “S...