Word in the World

Yesterday, I had the joy and humbling privilege of preaching at USD's weekly Mass for Peace, a time for the community to come together and pray for peace in our hearts, in our community, and in our world.  My boss had asked me to share about El Salvador, where I spent 11 days in January.  I was also to respond to that day's Gospel reading.  Below is the Gospel, and below that are the words that I shared.  (For the lovely recipients of my Post-Salvador e-mail, parts may sound oh so familiar...)

When Jesus and his disciples arrived at Bethsaida,
people brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.
He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.
Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on the man and asked,
"Do you see anything?"
Looking up the man replied, "I see people looking like trees and walking."
Then he laid hands on the man's eyes a second time and he saw clearly;
his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly.
Then he sent him home and said, "Do not even go into the village."

Mark 8:22-26

   

When I was in seventh grade, I got glasses.  They were round and gold, not to mention huge, and when added to my braces and painful shyness, I was just about the dorkiest middle-schooler of all time.  I will never forget the moment I first put those glasses on.  As I waited there for my new sight, I sat staring out the window at a brilliantly green tree planted on a huge lawn.  Yet the whole scene was fuzzy like a bad impressionist painting.  And then the moment of putting them on and looking out upon that same world. That moment was like a miracle, or grace.  To this day, I remember the shape and texture of the individual leaves, the way the wind ruffled each one gently.  I remember the individual blades of grass that just moments before had looked like worn out astro-turf.  And I remember saying to myself – “So this is the world, the world as it really is.  It is so beautiful!”  Before that day, I never even knew what I was missing.

Whether by choice or circumstance, we often don’t see as God sees.  We often don’t see what I believe God wants us to see – that is, we don’t see the poor.  We here at USD usually don’t see dirt floors, homeless encampments, or bodies wrecked by AIDS.  And the sad fact is that we hardly even notice what we’re not seeing.  Like many of you, I live on campus – on this hill that literally places us above others.  Up here, it’s easy to resist seeing people that the world teaches us are ugly, useless, or disposable.  And so the poor are made invisible – or at least made to feel that way.  And meanwhile, those of us with privilege overlook the very face of Christ. 

It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it – our resistance to gaining new sight.  It’s not unlike the unusual circumstance of tonight’s miracle story.  We’re more familiar with the story of another blind man who calls out to Jesus with persistence, wanting to be healed.  But that’s not this story.  From what we heard tonight, who knows if this man even wants to be cured, at least at first.  A whole community of people bring, maybe even drag him to Jesus, and I can’t help but speculate that the man wouldn’t have gone on his own.  Maybe he, like us, was content with the status quo, with blindness, with what he already knew.  Sure, he was missing out on a lot – but at least he knew what to expect each day.  Without the help of his community, he might have settled for superficial happiness rather than risk everything he knew in seeing with the eyes of God.  He reminds me of me, and of many of us.  We live insulated lives - we rarely touch the deepest or rawest parts.  We would rather watch supposed “Reality TV,” complete with Snookie and The Situation, than enter into the lives of the poor, and their reality of deep suffering, and even deeper joy.  And, like the blind man, sometimes it takes the invitation, and the example, of a whole community to help us begin to see. 

But a supportive community is not enough.  We hear in the Gospel that Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him away from his village, from his comfort zone, from his fear of change, from the status quo.  Only there could he fully see.  In my own life, one important place that is far from my own village is Guarjila, a small, poor town in El Salvador.  And it goes without saying that Guarjila is also way out of my comfort zone.  Each morning, while staying there, I woke not to my alarm clock but to the rooster crowing around 5 am.  By 6:00, I would admit defeat and head to the outhouse.  Then I’d help with morning chores around the house, sweeping fallen leaves off the dirt floor or carrying gallons of water from the outdoor basin in the backyard to the kitchen, which was without running water.  Somehow, reality here seemed more real.  It was the reality of God’s holy children, suffering from war, hunger, and poverty.  In the midst of that reality, how could I not start to see it, and see myself as part of it?

With patient grace, God allows the suffering of the world to enter our lives bit by bit.  Maybe that’s why Jesus doesn’t immediately cure the blind man on the first go.  To go from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, in only an instant – well, that’s enough to freak anyone out.  So, when community gives us the courage to go beyond our own village, to step beyond the status quo, then our hearts are gradually cracked first here, then there, if we let them be, by injustice, poverty, and pain.  And then, only then, can pure joy flood in.

Right now, my heart has a thousand different cracks – and the suffering of God’s people is streaming in.  Beginning to see with the eyes of God reveals to us that the suffering of the poor is the way of the cross in today’s world – because Christ was not only crucified 2000 years ago.  He is crucified today in the broken lives of our brothers and sisters.  If we, God’s people, are the Body of Christ, then His body is too often abused, starving, and forgotten.  Now, when I picture the face of the suffering Christ, I see Lucinda, my host mom back in ES.  I guess I should have warned you that seeing with God’s eyes can make you see some unusual things.  I see Lucinda who served me more food for breakfast that I could begin to finish while telling me that she wasn’t hungry because she has grown accustomed to only 2 meals a day.  I see Lucinda who suffers from headaches and post-traumatic stress disorder after the physical and psychological violence of 12 years of bloody civil war.  I see Lucinda who walks to the local mill every morning to make handmade tortillas for her elderly parents, daughter and son-in-law, 3 grandchildren, niece, great-niece, and youngest son.  Just spending time with Lucinda was a sort of painful grace.  With every day I spent with her, my eyes opened a bit wider – and there is no going back.

Yet, like a two-sided coin, suffering is paradoxically never far from joy – and Lucinda, as a face of Christ, teaches me that the crucifixion is inseparable from resurrection. It is hard to believe that this impoverished, suffering woman is the same one who guided me across the Sumpul river while I slipped and fell, as we spent our last day swimming. And this is the woman whose grandchildren buried her up to her head in sand while she laughed. And this is the woman who bought me a coke, taught me how to fry plantains, held my hand, and apparently cussed like a sailor (my Spanish wasn't good enough to catch it). Romero says that "human beings are God's other self." I guess this means that God is still persecuted today in El Salvador, and in San Diego, and around the world, even as God is the hope of children dancing, women sewing, and men on the migrant trail north. 

While in El Salvador, a wise woman named Sr. Peggy told us, “Once you know, you can’t not know.”  Once the blind man is cured, his eyes and heart are open to the world’s suffering and deep joy.  Maybe this is the meaning of Jesus’ cryptic parting words to him, and to us – “do not even go into the village.”  The truth is that we can never go back – at least not to the same place that we left.  To let God, and God’s poor people, crack our hearts and open our eyes means that we not only know but that we have no choice but to care.  Opened eyes means that we see the present-day crucifixion of God’s beloved people, that we see and that we ask God – how can we take people down from their crosses?  How are we complicit in nailing people up there in the first place? 

So God, we pray for the painful and joyful presence of the poor in our lives. Keep the poor before us always so that our eyes may stay wide open and our hearts may stay forever cracked. With our opened eyes, help us to be doers of your word in the world, so that one day, and one day soon, we might look upon God’s vivid reign here on earth and joyfully proclaim, “So this is the world, the world as it really is.  It is so beautiful!”