(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Disappointed Eyes, originally shared on October 12, 2020. It was the fifty-fifth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Have you ever experienced disappointment?
Maybe you’re disappointed right now in the lack of a accessible coronavirus
vaccine or treatment, or the slowness of the economic recovery, or in your
political party or the other one, or in your life in isolation.
Today we’re going to look at a hope that
does not disappoint us. In fact, it brings us a life that really is life.
I could not see well as a
child, but I didn’t know it. I thought everyone saw things as I did. Blurry
from a distance.
I remember sitting close to
the TV and up-front at the movies. I would sit close to the blackboard at
school and, if necessary, I would look through a little pin hole I made with my
thumbs and forefingers that made things sharper.
I think I was in 4th
grade when I got glasses. I vividly remember walking to school the next day and
looking at the tall trees. I could see leaves at the top! I could see stop
signs from a block away? I literally could see the big picture.
The Bible’s book of Proverbs (29:18), in the King James Version, says,
“Where there is no vision, the people parish”. One of my colleagues once said,
“Where there is no vision, there is a Lutheran parish. 😊 Hey! Now, I
don’t think that’s fair. I think that could describe a lot, may most, of our
Christian congregations. The problem is that we don’t see the big picture. Many
of us lack a vision for ministry beyond ourselves or what the world likes about
us.
The New Revised Standard
Version translation renders that same passage as, “Where there is no prophecy,
the people cast off restraint.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? “Vision” is rendered
as a voice from God and “perish” is equivalent to casting off restraint, or not
living by the Law of God.
Jesus often made the
distinction between physically seeing and not getting the point. Like, “Do you
have eyes and fail to see?” in Mark 8:18
One of my cousins is a
well-known and influential jazz guitarist. Pat Metheny. We go to his concerts
whenever he’s in town. We go backstage after the concert and wait for him and
the band to catch their breath and then to come out and see people.
There are usually a lot of
industry people backstage as well. It never fails that, as I look around the
room, I see other pairs of eye scanning the scene and, when our eyes meet, I
see this flicker of disappointment, “He’s nobody famous.” And the eyes move on.
It has never bothered me. In
fact, it strikes me as kind of funny but also sad to see so many people who are
so attached to celebrity that it is all they care to see in a person.
The origin of their
disappointment is a standard of status that is attached to the other person’s
success, or lack of it, by their standards.
The Lakers won their 17th
national championship last night. It was an exciting series ending an unusual
season. Watching those games and the contributions made by the whole team, I
thought about my favorite Laker, Derek Fisher. Derek Fisher was not flashy. He
was not a superstar. He’s just the guy you call in when you just want to get
the job done. In other words, he’s the most Lutheran of all the lakers. 😊
I once shared that story in a
sermon. A man who had been coming to worship with his wife, but who was not yet
a member, later started attending our membership classes. I asked him one day,
as I usually asked everybody in those classes, what had led him to become a
member at our church. He said, “I heard you talk about Derek Fisher and I
realized that I have been a Lutheran all my life but didn’t know it.” 😊
What is God’s standard of
success? It is a life lived for others. It is not always an easy life, but is
an abundant life. Life that really is life.
I posted a meme in Facebook that contains
the words of Yoda in the Star Wars movie, The Phantom Menace, to Anakin Skywalker
(who later becomes Darth Vader), “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate,
hate leads to suffering."
Paul, in
his letter to the Church at Rome says,
My eyesight eventually grew to
20/400 and stayed there through most of my adulthood. And then I needed
cataract surgery a few years ago. The results of having cataract surgery weren’t
as dramatic as getting glasses, but it improved. I now need glasses for reading,
but that’s it. My eyesight was made better, overall.
How do we improve the vision
of the Church? How do we open the heart of the Church to the power of the Holy
Spirit, to see the big picture of God’s work, beyond each person’s concern,
beyond each congregation’s concerns, beyond things like making the budget,
preserving a history, or attracting more young people to save the church? How
do we change the focus of the Church to call, gather, equip and make holy people
into the whole Church as it’s central activity?
We can’t
We can only open our hearts to
the living water that transforms and nourishes us and get out of God’s way.
We can only ask God to put our
hearts right and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit leading us into
service.
What do you think? What brings you affirmation
and hope? How do you respond when the world judges you by its standards? Put
your thoughts in the comment section below.
Ross Douthat, a conservative
opinion section editor and writer for the New York Times, wrote a book called Bad
Religion a few years ago. He chronicles what he believes has put the Church
in its current position. He finds that most of our wounds have been self-inflicted.
Near the end he notes that the
church has been in the same position in the past that we find ourselves in today,
with a loss of influence, a decline in numbers, and a feeling that it will soon
go out of existence except as a few museums.
He said that, in every case,
two things have brought the Church back: the Arts and holy living. The Arts
because they are a means of communication with the world. Holy living because it
is a credible witness to what the church has to offer those who know there is
something important that is missing in their lives.
What is missing is not to be made better, it
is a Savior. What is missing is not more entertainment, but something that is
real. What is missing is not something that they can make the most important
thing in their lives, but that God is everything.
God accepts us as we are, but God never
leaves us as we are. God makes us better from the inside out and, even with
lives that are difficult and rebellious, God does not abandon us. God is
steadfast.
Our hope is in God who, no
matter what, looks upon us with eyes of love.
That hope does not disappoint
us.
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