That’s When the Trouble Starts

One of the big annual events in the village of Unionville, Ontario, just north of Toronto, was the Unionville Festival weekend. It was two days of special events and shows, music concerts, games and parades. For 12 and a half years, I served as the minister of Unionville Presbyterian Church, and for us, a small, growing congregation, we took advantage of the Festival for the opportunity to do some fundraising. We set up a booth, and sold bottles of water for a dollar each, and over the course of the weekend, we were able to raise a few hundred dollars. I used to spend most of Saturday at the booth, dressed in a light blue, short sleeve, clerical collar. I wanted people to be able to see I was the minister of this church – be available to anyone who might express interest in our congregation or have a question.

Now, in that same village, we had a large and thriving Missionary Alliance church. It was very fundamentalist, evangelical and powerful. And that was the occasion for an incident that sticks in my mind, even after all these years. So, I’m at our church booth. I’m wearing a clerical collar.

It’s clear, I’m a minister; when a member of the Missionary Alliance Church approaches me and says, “I see you’re a pastor, but what I want to know is, “are you a Christian?”

“Well … it has crossed my mind once or twice …”

“Well, if you say you’re a Christian, have you been born again? What’s your witness? What’s your testimonial?”

You see, the unwritten rule at this Missionary Alliance Church is prior to becoming a member, every single person wanting to join the church would come forward during worship, and before the people, would give his or her personal testimony. Now, these testimonials would have to follow a particular formula. They all have the same plot.

“Once my life was in shambles, but then I met Christ, and it was on to victory and glory! I was sinking deep in sin, far from the distant shore, but then the master of the sea lifted me - love lifted me! And safe am I.”

Now, here’s the thing, all of these testimonies are really built on the original, first testimony that comes from the 9th chapter of John – the long Gospel story we read this morning - when the man born blind says, "Once I was blind, but now I see!" But the interesting thing is, the one person in the world who could never give one of those personal formulaic testimonies is this very man we find in the 9th chapter of John. Because the day he meets Jesus is not the day his troubles end, it’s the day his troubles begin!

What happens in the story is, Jesus and his disciples come into this little village. It's a nice village. It's a village with moral order. Things are at peace. In some ways, they are at rest. There are strong institutions here - there are strong congregations, and clergy and neighbourhoods and families. As some politicians might say, "This little village has values - strong values."

One of the values it has, is the blind man of our story - born blind! Always has been blind, always will be blind. And this is not just a physical description. This is a social role he plays. This is the village blind man. He gets to be blind and the rest of us get to see. And it's a theological issue as well, because blindness and sin are connected. So he's not only the village blind man, he's the designated sinner. He gets to be the sinner, and we get to be righteous.

That's the way communities maintain moral balance and stability. When you move to our town, we hope you will know: these neighbourhoods are bad and these neighbourhoods are good; these schools are weak and these schools are strong; these people are sinners and we are righteous.

Even the disciples buy into this assumed moral order, because as soon as they get into the community, they look at this man and they say to Jesus, "Oh master, a man born blind, who sinned? Him or his parents, it had to be one of them."

And Jesus says, "Neither," and Jesus says, "neither!"

This is an occasion for the glory of God, and this is not simply a different attitude, this is a different moral order.

And like God in Genesis, Jesus bends down to the ground and he picks up dirt and he spits in it to make mud, and he spreads it on the man's eyes and he says, "Go wash in the Pool of Siloam."

And when the blind man comes back from the pool of Siloam, he can see, and that's when the trouble starts! Because when the man who's supposed to stay blind can see, and the man who's supposed to be the designated sinner is radiating the glory of God, it throws the moral universe off kilter, and everything is called into question. And before the end of the day, he has been accosted by his neighbours, abandoned by his parents, accused by his ministers and thrown out of the synagogue. No, no, no …

The day he meets Jesus is not the day his troubles end. It’s the day his troubles begin, and he is the last person in the world to be able to "chirp," "Once I was blind,but now I see!"

What he says is, "Once I was blind, but now, now, I see!"

That's the way it is, you know, when you get drawn into the light of Jesus Christ. When you begin to see the world through the eyes of the gospel. Your eyes are opened, and you begin to see in the presumed moral order of things, that shadows are falling where you used to think there was only light. And forces are at work in the midst of what you thought were moral balance and stability. And worlds collide and you cannot be easy with it anymore.

Let me tell you a story.

The last church I served was in Toronto, in the neighbourhood of Rosedale. Rosedale is on the north side of Bloor Street, just to the east of downtown Toronto, and as you may know, Rosedale is one of the wealthiest communities in Toronto. Now, on the south side of Bloor Street, just across the road from Rosedale, is St. Jamestown – historically one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Toronto.

In Rosedale, the streets are clean, large homes are spread out over spacious lots, the parks are amazing, and the schools are well equipped with some of the highest performing academic scores in the city. A few feet away, in St. Jamestown, the streets are crammed with rundown rental apartment buildings, dirty garbage bins, parks with rusted old equipment, and some of the most poorly equipped schools with the lowest academic scores in the city. It is home to refugees, new immigrants and most residents have English as a second language, if they know English at all. Besides all that, many children, even as young as 6 or 7, came back from school at the end of the day, to empty apartments – both parents working at menial jobs until five or six o’clock in order to make ends meet.

A few years ago, the difference between these two adjacent neighbourhoods was highlighted and contrasted in the media, and the members of Rosedale Presbyterian Church were forced “to see” these disparities. They were blind, but now could see! This was the beginning of the trouble.

A group of church members said, “We have to do something about this!” But what? In that moment of “seeing,” the St. Jamestown Homework Club was born – an after school programme.

It wasn’t easy. Where will we find the space? Will we be able to find volunteers? Who will be on the organizing committee? Will we need to hire paid staff – a co-ordinator, a cook to prepare some food for these hungry children? How will we find the money? How can we possibly run it every day?

Oh, there were nay-sayers. There were people who said - We can’t handle this responsibility! What if a child gets hurt or we have complaints? It’s too expensive! It’s bound to fail!

But as one of the original organizers of the Homework Club said to me, “We did it because of what we were beginning to see." She went on, "That's what it means to be a Christian. When you see things, you act on your convictions."

By the time I left Rosedale Presbyterian Church in 2011, the St. Jamestown Homework Club was into its fourteenth year of operation – a place of refuge, encouragement and hope for the children of that impoverished neighbourhood.

Now back to the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John.

The religious authorities gather around the man who used to be born blind and say, "Who are you to teach us? You who were born in sin. You're not our spiritual counsellor!"

That's the way it is when you get in the light of Jesus, your eyes are opened and moral worlds collide and you can't rest easy anymore. That would be okay I suppose, if Jesus would hold our hand through it. If, like the old hymn says, he would take our hand and “walk with us through the storm.”

But do you notice what happens in this story? No sooner is the man healed, then Jesus disappears, leaving the man to handle this on his own. Jesus stirs up the pot, turns on the heat, then gets out of the kitchen! Why, why? Biblical scholars are quick to point out, the original readers of the Gospel of John would have recognized this instantly. This was exactly their experience! They too had been accosted by neighbours, abandoned by parents, accused by their ministers and thrown out of their congregations,and Jesus is nowhere to be found.

But there's a deeper theological reason. Jesus wants us to know, having your eyes opened so you can see, is not like some before and after diet ad - "before, I was blind, but now, after, I can see!"

The only way our eyes are opened is in the middle of the fray,in the middle of the struggle, our vision becomes focused and our faith becomes shaped by our eyes wide open. When God opens your eyes, it’s not when your troubles end, it’s when they begin.

Let me tell you another story.

A few years ago my wife Judy and I visited New York City and one of the things we wanted to do while we were there was to see some of New York's great churches. We went to visit Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. This is one of the "Avenue Churches." They were churches built in the 19th century on Park Avenue and Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue, and they catered to the silk stocking, carriage trade. You ought to see the neighbours there now - St. Regis Hotel is across the corner, down the street is Sach's and Tiffany's, and right across the street is the Trump Tower. When we were there, there was a big banner hanging.

It was a picture of Donald himself saying, "You're fired!"

The front of Fifth Avenue Church is a big and beautiful Romanesque arch covering a wide porch, and for years many of the homeless of New York city have chosen that as the place they sleep at night. Members of the church would have to step over them when coming to evening meetings and services. And then, a few years ago, by the grace of God, Jesus opens the eyes of that church, and for the first time, they see. They really see who is on the porch. And they decide they’re going to be hospitable to these guests and strangers. So they petition the city to start up a homeless shelter.

And the city says, "Okay, ten beds, that's it, ten beds."

So, they build ten beds, but there’s more than ten people on the porch, so they try to place them in other shelters. However, they soon find out many of these people are what social workers call "service resistant homeless." They're afraid of the shelters and suspicious of the authorities. They want to sleep on the porch of the church.

"Alright," says the church, "you will be our guests here, and we will seek to know every one of your names, and every one of your stories. To the best of our abilities, we will protect you, and when morning comes, there will be coffee and hot showers for you inside the church. Welcome to God's house."

Well, that's when the trouble starts!

First, it’s the neighbours: What's going on down at Fifth Avenue Church? Isn't that the church that used to be blind? No, it must be a different congregation! No, I think it's the same congregation,I liked them better when they were blind, didn't you?!

Then it gets around to the authorities.

One cold rainy night in December, the New York City police department with billy clubs arrive and begin knocking down the cardboard shelters on the front porch and running the homeless off of the porch and back out into the street. And the church responds with outrage, and they protest the city’s actions.

And the city says, "You're running an illegal shelter on your front porch, and you can't do that."

And it comes into court. And in court, the city says, "You are authorized only as a house of worship. This is not your mission!"

And Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church said, "You ask God about our mission."

And the judge says, "You know, you're right," and rules in favour of the church!

The city appeals and loses. And they appeal again, and lose. Four times it goes to court. After the fourth victory, some members of the congregation gather on the front porch with the homeless one night for a service of thanksgiving.

And after a prayer of thanksgiving, one of the homeless - a woman who says she wants to be a gospel singer - spontaneously leads the group in "Amazing Grace” – you know the words - what it says, "Once I was blind, but now, now, I see."

And when they finish singing it, one of the members of the congregation cries out, "Look up!"

And when they look up, this woman says, "It's a sign! – a sign that the founders of this church knew we'd be here tonight."

And when they look up, what they see is something the members of the church have never seen before. On the roof’s arch is a beautiful mosaic of the angels of God keeping watch, and the eye of God protecting. Many of them have been through that door hundreds of times and have never seen it.

But one of the homeless men says, "Yeah, we see that every night, when we're flat on our backs on the porch."

Now back again to John, chapter nine: "And when they threw the man who had been born blind out of the congregation - the man was flat on his back.”

And the one who protects and saves him – Jesus of Nazareth - finds him and says to him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

"I would like to! Who is he sir?"

Good news! Good news! "I am he," says Jesus, "l am he ..."

And we live in his light, and he opens our eyes, but be careful, because when he opens your eyes, you'll never rest easy again.