Vision

Scripture can be found here…

I think it’s safe to say, health and well-being are on all our minds, pretty much all the time these days. In our community, we are all under instructions of the most recent executive order: “All businesses and not-for-profit entities in the state shall utilize, to the maximum extent possible, any telecommuting or work from home procedures that they can safely utilize.”

For us, today, that means, this. We’ve been asked to practice what’s being called “social distancing,” although I’m not sure that’s really an accurate term. What’s actually happening is physical distancing. We can stay connected with one another, as long as we have phones or computers.

We are apart, and yet we are worshiping God together. We are all at home, yet the holy work of being together for worship calls us into community.

In our passage from John, Jesus and his disciples are walking along, and they come upon a blind man. The blind man is well-acquainted with social distancing—real social distancing. In that era, a blind man would be isolated. He would live by begging. He’d live in poverty, and risk, and loneliness, without the relief of a phone call to brighten the day.

And—I ask myself, why? Why would people be so unkind, to cast out someone who was unable, in those days, even to make a living? The disciples’ question gives us the answer:

“Rabbi,” they ask Jesus, “Who sinned?”

Someone must have sinned, they reasoned, for this terrible thing to happen. And if someone sinned, well, he got what he deserved.

You can hear some of that chatter today, related to coronavirus. Whose fault is it? Who’s to blame? Who sinned? And fingers are being pointed, and everyone is choosing their favorite scapegoat.

But Jesus is swift to correct his friends. “No one,” is the answer. “Neither this man, nor his parents, sinned.” Instead, Jesus sees an opportunity. For Jesus, happening upon this poor man offered an opportunity to show the power of God. And then, using the most earthy possible materials—his own spit and some dirt from the ground—Jesus unleashes God’s power, and the man’s blindness is healed.

We also have an opportunity, thought it takes a different form. Our opportunity is to help to heal communities—even, the whole world—by our slowing down, stepping back, and taking time to be in our homes, away from the world. For those of us who thrive in community, this can be hard. For some of us, staying home with a nice stack of books and our favorite music and TV shows sounds like a slice of heaven. For others, it feels like a sentence of incarceration.

So, let’s reframe this time, these unusual days we are living through, with the help of Kitty O’Meara. She’s a former teacher and chaplain from Madison, Wisconsin, who has been called the “poet laureate of the pandemic” for writing these words, and offering this vision:

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

In an interview with Oprah Magazine, O’Meara explained her vision by saying, “It offers a story of how it could be, what we could do with this time.” And, you may be interested to know, she wrote the poem because she was feeling sad and worried and powerless. And her husband suggested, “Write. Just write again.”

And her words have been embraced by thousands upon thousands of people, as a vision they, too, want to join in making a reality. A vision that describes that what we could do—what we can do, what we are doing, is healing the world.

Tikkun Olam. This is the concept of “repairing the world,” to which all practicing Jews give their hearts. Work we usually associate with action, and gathering together, and giving. And we can still give, and support action to help one another. But now, repairing the world, healing the world, means, we stay home. And in this way, we can participate in the healing work of the one we call “the Light of the world.”

My friends, at home, whether working or resting, playing or singing, exercising or helping children or elders or partners of your own precious self: You are doing God’s work. You are helping to heal the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.