The Man Born Blind

Reflecting on “The Man Born Blind” John 9:1-41

This is a phenomenal teaching passage with lessons for both the congregation and its shepherd.  Jesus is far more concerned with the people than the rules which govern their religious life.  The goal is for us to have the eyes of Jesus instead of the heart of the Pharisee.  We need to actually see the least, lost and broken and engage with them as equals rather than someone we take measured time out of our busy schedule to “do” something to.

The Lord shows us clearly that the package, that which we see from our human perspective does not necessarily reflect the image or the purpose of God. Neither is our timing God’s. To us, it is a horrible thing that this man, according to God’s will and purposes, grew up blind.  However, from an eternal perspective, the blindness is but a fleeting moment and his disability naught but a scratch. 

God may well have a purpose for each of us, as he did for this blind man, that will be completed in an afternoon…perhaps even in a instant.  He could, at this very moment, be setting you up as a marvelous sermon illustration that will bring thousands to faith, but take only an second.  He may ask us to do things that make little sense from the perspective of the world around us, but which effect things beyond us that we cannot ever conceive. All it takes for fulfillment is obedience to see the miracle of his perfect will come to fruition.

And we answer in awe, from our place of restoration, “Whether this man was a sinner I do not know. But one thing I do know…I was blind, but now I see.”  The miracle of our Lord’s undying love is seared into the minds of even his detractors.

Cuba 2013 with Pics!

Cuba Mission 2013

A team of four from the Anglican Network in Canada just returned from Cuba where we

were thrilled to witness God's work in growing and multiplying faithful Anglican congregations, the hunger for the Word, and the opportunities for us in ANiC to play a vital part.  What a privilege! Bishop Trevor Walters and Hungry for Life Team Leader, Edith Watt led a Vision Trip to Cuba from May 21^st to June 1^st.  They were joined by Kristina Nilsson from St. John’s, Vancouver, Ines Gonzales from St. Matthew’s, Abbotsford, and The Rev. Barclay Mayo from Mountain Valley Mission, Squamish. The purpose of the trip was to begin the process of developing sister parish relationships between ANiC congregations and the growing REC Cuban churches. 

This first trip concentrated on the Eastern region between Ciego de Avila and Moa.  We were unable to obtain religious visas, but were still able to visit a new church plant in Florida (pronounced Floreda), a congregation and their surrounding house churches in Hoguin and Archdeacon William Suarez’s congregation in Moa.  We joined up with Bishop Charles and Claudia Dorrington who had already been hard at it for three weeks.  The Rev. Walter Gonzalez from the Hoguin parish and Ines Gonzales acted as our interpreters. Because were restricted from doing anything religious all of the gatherings we attended were parties or meals, the first of which was  Bishop’s Charlie’s birthday celebration at San Pablo, Hoguin.  There was an amazing display of talent and committed faith and we were treated to song, drama, fervent prayer and refreshments.  Mountain Valley Mission has agreed to become the San Pablo parish’s sister church.

Our next visit was with The Rev. Alexei Gonzales Rodrigues at San Paublo de Florida.  This family welcomed us to their very clean, but crowded and basic home.  Their needs are great, but the primary one is for clean water.  The wells are polluted by surrounding outhouses and livestock and both the children and their father have health issues as a result.  This is a common issue in Cuba and one that would do with some attention as we develop these relationships.

We spent a couple of days in Moa visiting with Archdeacon William’s congregation at San Marco.  His wife Rena and a team of the church’s women hosted and prepared all our lunch and supper meals.  We were well looked after!  This is an industrial city that very few visitors get to see; a nickle mine and smelter town with all of the pollution and health issues that usually brings.   However, here is where the most exciting event of our trip occurred. 

One element of Reformed Episcopal Church’s five year plan is to help each of the larger central churches become self-sufficient through the purchase of a farm that can be run to provide both food and income for the parish and its families.  The first of these projects was instituted while we were visiting in Moa.  A farm was purchased and enough funding had been donated to complete the first season’s development as well as equipment, fencing, and livestock purchase.

The whole process was an amazing and miraculous story, much too long to tell here.  Let it suffice to say that the Holy Spirit showed up and opened doors to see God’s purposes come to fruition! 

Much of the population struggles to make do with whatever they can muster. The average monthly family income is $21, less than a dollar a day!  They grow what they can, reuse everything, make parts they can't buy and are very, very resourceful.  There is, however a great need and just a little effort on the part of Canadian ANiC churches could make a huge difference.

 

Bishop Trevor has asked me (Barclay) to coordinate recruiting ANiC pastors and congregations who might be interested in partnering with the REC to help developing Cuban congregations to become more self-sufficient and to plant additional churches. He has also asked Hungry for Life to help ANiC and REC administer those partnerships.  It is our hope to bring representatives from three more parishes to Cuba in January of 2014.  If this is something that would interest you and your congregations please contact me at barclay@mountainvalleymission.ca or by phone at (604) 815-8309.

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Perspective

There is nothing like the experience of another culture, particularly a suffering one, to put some perspective on one’s own standards of living and expectations.  I have just spent ten days in Cuba.  Vacationers love this place…at least what they get to see of it.  The beaches are awesome. There is plentiful food, cheap booze and lots of fun things to do and see. It is literally a paradise.

However, there is another Cuba. I would be so brave to suggest that it is the real Cuba…mostly unseen and out of mind.  It is a Cuba where much of the population struggle just to survive; where the average monthly wage is about the Canadian equivalent of $21.  What we would consider “good” food is beyond the budget of most families; new clothing is scarce, needed medicine unavailable.  I was in the 184 sq. ft. rooftop home of a young family of three who considered themselves very blessed to even have their own space.

And yet, there is…at least among the Christian community in Cuba, a real sense of hope for the future. They know they are loved and called to love others in return. They hold fast to God’s promises for the future and share not only the gospel, but their meager resources with those around them.  The Beatitude passage from Luke 6: 20-26 is not only very real to them, but lived out among them.   They were thankful for our presence and our care, but it was us who received the greatest blessing because we had the privilege to see faith in action.   And then we returned home…

Answered Prayer

There are times when Christian believers are in too much of a hurry. Like our secular neighbours, we get hooked by an inappropriate desire for the immediate. Instant gratification is expected, even from our prayer. In that scenario, God becomes our servant rather than the other way around!
That is why I am becoming more and more convinced that fasting and prayer are necessarily two sides of the same coin. They are mentioned together over and over in the scriptures. Fasting requires the intentional passage of time...hours, even days, in which all the activity around food...gathering, preparation, presentation and consumption is replaced by quiet listening. Table fellowship with others is intentionally set aside so that the believer can be with and wait upon the Lord.
It is out of that deliberate space and time that the cry of my heart reaches the Lord, up from the depths of my soul to the ears of God. Then I wait for an answer; my soul waits and hopes - it listens intently and patiently over time for the "still small voice" of God to speak out of the quietness. "My soul waits for the Lord, more than the watchman for the morning." Psalm.130:6 (ESV)
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Religious Observance or Faithfulness

Many Christians never really understand the true call of the gospel or the awesome blessings available for those who assent and pattern their lives upon it. God is not in anyway interested in our pastoral disengaged  religious practices. The true state of our heart is revealed in righteous action on behalf of His people. That behaviour reveals the authenticity of our faith and the actual condition of our relationship with Him.
In Isaiah 58:1-14, the prophet makes it very clear that this is the case. The people ask why God pays no attention to their fasting and worship? The Lord responds, "Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers...Is not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness...is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover him and not to hide from your own family?  If you pour out yourself for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted...then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noon day" There is a undeniable link between a believer's behaviour and God's willingness to both hear and respond with blessing.
Jesus confirms this again in the gospel. "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe...and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. Those you ought to have done without neglecting the others...For you clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside are full of greed and self-indulgence. (Matthew 23:23-36)
Our righteousness is defined by God according to our response to the needs of the poor and homeless, the least and the lost, not by our religious fervour and liturgical observance.

Temptation

"Did God really say..." (Gen.3:1 ESV).  The age-old plan of the evil one and his servants has always been to sow doubt in the hearts and minds of the unwary faithful...to make us question the biblical validity of our faith.   I remember back to my time at Emmanuel & St. Chad Seminary...to so-called systematic theology classes where we were introduced to a "hermeneutic of suspicion".  This was a liberal presumption that everything the church had taught up to the present needed to be viewed with suspicion....and, if judged by present society as the result of ancient myths, be rejected out of hand as irrelevant.  Only that which could be supported by the narrow viewpoint of contemporary social and scientific thinking could be used to shape the mission and ministry of the church.  The seeds of destruction were sown in a whole generation of future church leaders.

Any who have walked through the last 15 years of Anglican church history can see the result of this "progressive" thinking.  The seeds have not only sprouted, but grown into invasive and faith-choking weeds.  Lives and ministries have been destroyed.  Thousands of North American believers have abandoned their faith and their church...and many more remain caught in the web of deceit, concealment and distortion woven by the Anglican Church of Canada and their ECUSA partners in sin south of the border.  As the US & Canadian denominations die, the faithful are vilified and blamed because they stood for truth.  

We should not be surprised by this. Jesus told us that it would happen. "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:20b)  Thankfully, that is not the end of it. We are a people of promise and know that the trial we endure today will be redeemed, and what the "locust has eaten will be restored." (Joel 2:25 ESV) . Jesus said, "...you will be hated by all for my name's sake, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22 ESV) and..."So, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven...but whom ever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 10:32-33 ESV)  

So...the quick answer to the question, "Did God really say?"  is YES!   It does matter what we believe and how we live out that faith in the community.  What we say and what we do matters. Our lips and our lives are a witness and a testament to the teaching, sacrifice and resurrection hope of Jesus.  The thousands who have just given up in the face of the struggle need to see that God does indeed have a hope and future for them. The millions who do not know Jesus need you and me to stand firm for them...to show them that God did indeed say...and his word is true.

 

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Witness

Our congregation is working through what it means to be an authentic Christian community...using Rick Warren's 40 Days material. At one point in the teaching, Rick uses a court room analogy to describe a believer's purpose. It is a powerful illustration of what is both wrong with much of the contemporary church, and how God intends it to be.

First, we are not called to be the judge. That task is God's and God's alone. Only He gets to decide who ultimately will be in the kingdom. While it is our place to discern which behaviours are consistent with God's laws and desires...based on what has been revealed in the scripture, it is not our place to judge who will or will not be accepted by God.

In the same vein, we are not to take on the role of prosecutor either. Satan does an overzealous and consistent job of that. When believers take on the role of condemnation, the result is always hopelessness. God's plan for all of creation is a hope and a future. Our role never involves prosecution and condemnation.

Neither are we called to be a lawyer or advocate for the actions of the accused...trying to prove that what God calls sin is actually righteous, making both the sinner and his/her behaviour innocent. When a church does that we simply end us participating in the sin and leading other lost and confused people to a place of condemnation rather than forgiveness and redemption.

The role of the church, the role of the forgiven sinner...that is, those who have through and by the grace and mercy of God, received forgiveness, is to be a witness. Our calling is to reflect and demonstrate the truth of the gospel, and tell how God's love has changed our lives, and to do it is such a way that those around us can come to understand that there is indeed something beyond the pain and struggle that they are now experiencing. Our calling is to be a consistent witness so that others will want some of what we have been given.

We are not called to be the Judge, the Prosecutor or the Advocate...only a faithful witness.

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The Sabbath & Obedience

There are many today in our frenetic society who pay little or no attention to the Sabbath. I am not referring here literally to the specific days of the week set aside by the Muslim, Jewish and Christian traditions, but the concept of Sabbath rest itself. This is a weekly day where work and concerns of the world are supposed to be set aside so that concentrated attention and thanksgiving can be given to the things that God has done in one's life. Sabbath rest is necessary for reflection, listening and formulation of godly response for the coming week. Without it we are just flailing around under our own less than sufficient and sin-driven power.
Hebrews four, though, goes even farther...suggesting that not taking a Sabbath is disobedience which demonstrates a lack of faith, a hardening of our hearts which results in an inability to receive and live the good news, falling back into our pre-conversion worldly ways. Sabbath isn't an optional unimportant choice. It is an imperative of faith.
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Hopelessness is an Optical Illusion!

Hopelessness is an Optical Illusion!

When life gets blurry, God wants us to see through the obstacle of our illusions to the kingdom reality.  One day, as Jesus and his disciple came upon a blind man, the disciples immediately saw an obstacle. They were captured by an illusion.  They didn’t even ask or expect Jesus to do something for the man. They didn’t ask if there was any hope for this guy. They didn’t ask Jesus to heal him. All they said was, “Who could we blame?”  They wrote the man off automatically. When you come upon a situation and the first thing you see is an obstacle that leads to a place of hopelessness, there’s nothing else to do but find someone or something to blame for it. Sadly, that is often the first response, even for Christians!  However, it is not a kingdom response. It is an elusion.

Jesus does not allow the disciples to go there. In John 9:3 (NIV) Jesus says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  In many ways an optical illusion is a lot like an elusion, because, when we are captured by what we see, we often end up avoiding the reality…trying to turn what we see into something it isn’t. An optical illusion is when what you see doesn’t equal what is real.

 

Now…a caveat here…I am not saying that the obstacles we face in life are not real.  They are very real.  Nor am I saying that the pain associated with those struggles in is not real.  It is very real.  However, as believers…as Christians, in the moment that we find ourselves in a place of hopelessness, where there is nothing to do but assign blame, we are actually dealing with an illusion. What God wants us to do is to see through it to His glory and provision. When things get fuzzy and life throws you an obstacle, we are called to push beyond the illusion of hopelessness, because Christians are a people of hope. If we don’t have hope, and there isn’t something a lot better than this, what is the point in believing at all?

More on Multiplication Through Reproduction

Here is another interesting quote from Neil Cole's Organic Church.  "Christianity is always just one generation away from extinction....Yet because of the power of multiplication, we are also one generation away from worldwide fulfilment of the Great Commission."  (p.105). Cole's premise is that if a believer were to lead just one person a year to Christ, and then disciple them to do the same, the whole world could be reached within 35 years!  

Just one disciple...that shouldn't be all that difficult....and certainly within the realm of possibility. However, that would take intention and courage, sacrifice and perseverance.  It would need to become the single most important activity of our individual journey of faith.  I am not entirely sure of the math, but it seems to me that if our little congregation of 15 were to follow this principle and each new believer in turn lead one person a year to faith in Jesus, we would be 480 strong in five years and in ten years could conceivably make disciples of the whole present population of Squamish!   

Now think about what could happen if every believer in every church in our community were to take the Great Commission seriously.  The numbers are staggering and the possibilities are endless.  And yet we struggle, bound by fear of failure and weak faith.  Do we even believe that God could use us as His instruments?  Do we trust that the Holy Spirit will resource and empower us to fulfil this calling?   Perhaps not....for if we did, things would look a lot different around here.

So, my prayer today is that the perfect love of Jesus will so infuse each of us that all fear is cast aside and that we will be empowered and enabled to disciple disciples who will disciple disciples until the whole population within our sphere of  influence will come to an abiding and confident faith in Christ.     Amen

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Community

This week as I was thinking and praying about a teaching and ministry focus for our fledgling, but growing church, it occurred to me that we were probably ready for some in depth work around what it really means to be a community of believers. At work the wee hours of this first day of the New Year I was re-reading Neil Cole's  Organic Church and came across a wonderful quote that strikes at the heart of what I have been thinking about how to transform us from a small group who gather occasionally for worship and study, into a body marked by deep and enduring relationships.

Cole speaks of church reproduction rather than multiplication, and insists that we don't need seminars and courses to learn how to reproduce. It is in our DNA...a natural part of the human condition. "Inbred in all living things is a desire to reproduce. It drives us.".   He goes on to suggest that reproduction is the product of intimacy. "Even among churches, reproduction is the product of intimacy - with Christ, His mission, His spiritual family, and the lost world." (p.93) 

So, I am thinking I will spend some considerable time over the next couple of months teaching my brothers and sisters what it means to be in intimate relationship with Jesus, with other believers and with the community around us.

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