Reconnecting week 1

The first step toward seeing clearly is admitting we don’t see everything clearly.

This is week 1 of a new sermon series called Reconnecting. I hope that it’s helpful to you in your own spiritual journey… whatever that looks like.

Good morning, friends. It’s been a minute since I’ve been up here. So, if we haven’t met yet, my name is Joe, and I’m one of the pastors. I’m really glad you’re with us this morning, whether you’re here in person or joining us on the livestream.

Today we’re beginning a brand-new series called Reconnecting, and before we talk about where we’re going over the next several weeks, I want to begin somewhere a little more personal.

Now this is going to date me, but I’m a child of the ‘80s, and I can remember when cable first came to my hometown. Before that, changing the channel was a full-family event. One person turned the dials (yeah...there were multiple dials...by the time you were done you basically had an engineering degree), one person stood by the TV adjusting the antenna or rabbit ears, and someone else yelled directions from the couch. “Right there!” “No, go back!” “Too far!” Then the poor sucker holding the antenna would ask, “How’s that?” and the answer was always, “Don’t move!” You’d be stuck there through the entire commercial break because everybody knew if you let go, the picture disappeared.

And for some reason nobody ever explained to me back then, wrapping aluminum foil around the rabbit ears was supposed to make everything better. My little childhood brain was like...yeah. This is totally normal. Then if the weather changed three counties over, congratulations—you got to start the whole process all over again. You youngsters will never know that pain... you just push an app to watch something. Netflix asks you if you’re still watching... our TV’s asked if we were committed.

One day my dad yelled at me to come inside because he wanted to show me something. I ran into the living room and saw this little box sitting on top of the television. More importantly, I saw the antenna was gone. I looked at him and asked, “What’s that?” He said it was our new cable box, and all we had to do was tell it what channel we wanted, and it would change to that channel.

My dad said a channel, and the TV changed. I looked at him and said, “Do it again!” So he did. The TV changed again. I was absolutely convinced that we were living in the future. What I didn’t know was that he had the remote hidden down beside his leg where I couldn’t see it.

I need you to hear this next part. My dad sat there and let me run outside, gather every kid in the neighborhood, and bring them back into our living room to watch him perform what I was certain was some kind of technological miracle.

My parents still laugh about that story. When I told them I was telling that story my mom said they were just laughing about it the other day.

I think about that story often. Yes, it’s a reminder of how gullible I was, but it’s also a reminder of how much our understanding changes over time. One of the gifts of growing older is realizing there were things we simply couldn’t see before. Sometimes because we didn’t have enough experience. Sometimes because nobody had ever shown us another way. Sometimes because we were looking through assumptions we didn’t even know we had. However it happens, growth almost always begins the same way.

We begin to see differently.

When we’re young, we assume our parents know everything. Then, for most of us, we grow up and realize they were simply doing the best they could with what they had. The older I get, the more I realize just how much I don’t know. Life has a way of humbling us. We start a new job convinced we’ve got it all figured out, only to discover there are a hundred things we never even knew we needed to know. Or take marriage. When my wife and I first got married, I thought the key was finding the right kind of partner. There’s certainly truth to that. But over the years I’ve discovered it has far more to do with becoming the right kind of person. Maturity isn’t just about accumulating more information. It’s about allowing life to shape us into people who are more compassionate, more patient, more curious, and, if we’re paying attention, a little more humble.

It makes me wonder why we would expect our understanding of God to be the one thing in our lives that never grows alongside us.

That’s really what this series is about.

Over the next five weeks, we’re going to reconnect with some of the practices that have shaped followers of Jesus for generations. Every week we’ll recover one of those practices and ask what it looks like to experience it the way Jesus intended. Not as another religious obligation but as a way of becoming more like him. Before we do that, though, I think it’s important to acknowledge that reconnecting isn’t always easy.

For some of us, the very things that were meant to draw us closer to God and a life of love became tangled up with fear or shame. Prayer became something we did to prove our faithfulness. Reading the Bible became about having the right answers. Community became a place where belonging was conditional. Even beautiful practices can become difficult to return to when they’ve been handed to us in unhealthy ways.

Others of us don’t carry those same experiences, but we’ve begun to realize that following Jesus has never been about arriving at a finished faith. There is always more to learn, more to unlearn, and more room to grow. Maybe you’ve never felt like you had to tear everything down, but you’ve started asking questions you never asked before. That’s not something to fear. It’s simply part of growing.

We’re not trying to recreate the faith we once had, and we’re not pretending the past never happened. We’re asking what it looks like to reconnect with these practices in healthier ways. So, here’s what I’m going to ask you to do... approach these things with some curiosity instead of certainty and realize that not every question has a tidy answer. We are less interested in solving faith than we are in practicing it.

If there’s one sentence I hope you’ll carry with you throughout this series, it’s this:

The goal of following Jesus isn’t to know more. It’s to become more like him.

I love that sentence because it reminds us that Christianity has never simply been about accumulating information. Yes, of course, our minds matter. Theology matters. Scripture matters. Jesus calls us to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. But information was never meant to be the destination. It was always meant to be transformation.

Which is why the truth we’re centering on today is: The first step toward seeing clearly is admitting we don’t see everything clearly.

That brings us today’s story. We’ll be in the gospel of John, chapter 9.

“As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” (John 9:1–2)

That question may seem odd to us, but it reveals their entire way of seeing the world. The disciples assume suffering must be someone’s fault, and they assume there are only two possible explanations. So, they’re asking Jesus to tell them which one is correct. What they don’t realize is that Jesus isn’t interested in choosing between their answers and he’s about to challenge the question itself.

People come looking for answers, but Jesus often begins by reshaping the way they see the world. Before he teaches them how to think, he teaches them how to look.

That’s why I think curiosity matters so much. For your information, when I say curiosity, I don’t mean doubting everything just for the sake of doubting it, or treating every belief as equally true, or pretending nothing can ever be known. I mean remaining teachable. Holding our convictions with enough curiosity to admit there may still be more to learn. If we’ve already decided we know everything God has to teach us, we’ve stopped following a living God and started defending a finished system.

That’s exactly where the disciples are. Before anyone speaks to the blind man, they begin talking about the blind man. They don’t ask his name. They don’t ask what his life has been like. They don’t ask what he needs. They immediately turn him into a theological discussion.

To be fair to them, they’re asking the question they had been taught to ask. In the world they grew up in, suffering demanded an explanation. If someone experienced tragedy, illness, disability, or hardship, there had to be a reason. Someone must have sinned. The only thing left to determine was who.

Isn’t it amazing how often we do the same thing? We become so convinced we’ve identified all the possible answers that we never stop to ask whether we’ve got the right question in the first place. We hand God two options and ask God to pick one, never considering that God might reject the question altogether.

Back to the story. Jesus responds simply:

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” (John 9:3)

Before Jesus addresses the blindness of the man sitting beside the road, he addresses the blindness of the people standing around him. He refuses to reduce a human being to a theological explanation. Which I think is an enduring temptation of religion. Religion wants explanations before it offers compassion. It wants to know who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s in and who’s out, who’s faithful and who’s unfaithful. Jesus never seems satisfied with these categories. People see sinners, Jesus sees sons and daughters. People see enemies, Jesus sees neighbors. People see problems to solve, Jesus sees beloved image bearers.

Then Jesus does something remarkable. John tells us that he spits on the ground, makes mud, places it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. The man goes, washes, and comes home seeing. (Just an aside about this miracle that has nothing to do with the sermon. But ever wondered why Jesus did that? He could have just said it. We don’t know why for sure, but there are rabbinical writings and legends about the saliva of a first-born having healing properties. Which is an added layer to this story. Now you know and knowing is half the battle.)

But for our context, what’s striking isn’t so much how Jesus heals him. It’s what happens afterward.

If this were the kind of story we usually tell, the miracle would be the ending. Instead, John treats the healing as the beginning of the story, because it doesn’t simply restore one man’s sight. It exposes everyone else’s blindness.

The neighbors don’t know what to make of him. Some insist he’s the same man who used to sit and beg. Others are convinced it only looks like him. Then the religious leaders call him in for questioning — not to celebrate, but because Jesus healed on the Sabbath.

Think about that for a minute. A man who has spent his entire life blind can suddenly see, and the first question the religious leaders ask isn’t, “Tell us what happened.” It isn’t, “Praise God.” It isn’t even, “How are you feeling?” Their first concern is whether Jesus violated one of their interpretations of the Sabbath.

John tells us that some of the Pharisees concluded, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” (John 9:16a) I don’t want us to miss how remarkable that statement is. They aren’t denying that something extraordinary happened. They simply can’t receive it because it happened in a way that didn’t fit their understanding of how God was supposed to work.

I have often said that there is nothing more insufferable that a bible college freshman. You stuff this little immature, black and white thinking brain with all kinds of information and then just send them out into an unsuspecting world with no warning at all. I say that because I was one. And I can remember how maddening I was.

I got into so many arguments with my parents about how it was all “supposed to be”. Of course, I knew everything. I just finished my freshman year at Bible college... how dare you challenge me and all my knowledge! As awful as that was, it’s not the worst thing I did. During break, I can remember being at one of my best friends’ home, Liz. Her house was one of our hangout spots and when we could, the old gang would get back together and goof off. One night I was sitting at her dinner table with her and another friend, and they were asking me all kinds of theological answers. Which I thought was awesome, b/c I could answer them all. I mean, I’m in Bible college.

I don’t remember all the questions they asked but I remember the answer I regret most. They asked about all the people that would never hear about Jesus...what would happen to them. And with my full chest, without skipping a beat, I answered “Well... they’re all going to hell.” I can still remember the look on their faces as those words landed on them. I know I was just parroting back what had been handed to me but of all the things I’ve ever said in my life...that conversation stands out as one that I wish I could erase.

It’s easy to imagine we’re nothing like the Pharisees. Most of us read these stories assuming we’d be standing beside Jesus, cheering him on. I’m not so sure. Every one of us has assumptions we’ve mistaken for certainty. Every one of us has beliefs we’ve held for so long that we’ve stopped asking whether they’re still helping us become more loving, more merciful, more compassionate, or more like Christ.

That’s why I don’t think the opposite of certainty is uncertainty. I think the opposite of certainty is humility. Humility is what allows us to listen before we defend ourselves. It’s what gives us the courage to admit we were wrong and that there may still be more to see.

Looking back at those days, I wasn’t trying to be arrogant. I was trying to be faithful. I genuinely believed certainty was the goal. What surprised me wasn’t simply that I eventually changed my mind about things. It was that, as more and more of my certainty disappeared, compassion began to grow in its place. I found myself listening more than I argued. I became slower to judge people whose stories didn’t fit neatly into my categories.

One of the best things to come out of that whole journey has been the friendships I never saw coming... with people in the LGBTQ community, here in Gainesville and across the nation. People I kept at a distance years ago are now some of the people I love and trust the most. I didn’t plan that. I wouldn’t undo it either. If losing my certainty is what made room for that kind of love, then I definitely don’t want it back.

I need you to really hear this... the New Testament consistently points us in that direction. Jesus tells his disciples that people will recognize them by their love. Paul doesn’t describe the fruit of the Spirit as having flawless doctrine or winning theological debates. He describes lives marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those aren’t ideas to master. They’re qualities that emerge over time as our lives are shaped by the way of Jesus.

That’s why I keep coming back to this sentence:

The first step toward seeing clearly is admitting we don’t see everything clearly.

I wonder if one of the questions we’ve forgotten to ask in the American church is whether our beliefs are producing the kind and quality of life Jesus envisioned. We’ve spent so much energy asking whether people have the right theology that we’ve forgotten to ask whether that theology is making us more judgmental, more tight-fisted, more combative.

If our understanding of Scripture leaves us less compassionate, or less generous, or less willing to recognize the image of God in another person, then I think it’s worth having the humility to ask where we have gone wrong.

A man’s life has been restored, and all the Pharisees can talk about is whether it happened on the right day of the week. When our commitment to being “right” keeps us from celebrating healing, restoration, and human flourishing, our priorities have become deeply distorted. At that point, our theology isn’t helping us see more clearly. It’s become another form of blindness.

I don’t think we’ve moved past that blindness. I think we’re watching it happen in real time. We are living in a nation where political power has hijacked the name of Jesus to serve itself.

We’re watching voting rights being stripped from Black communities, watching escalating attacks on our queer and trans siblings, watching concentration camps being built for our immigrant neighbors and women...they want to shut you up so desperately they are pushing for the repeal of the 19^th amendment.

We’ve seen this story before.

The Pharisees weren’t villains because they didn’t care about Scripture. They were villains because they had become so committed to protecting their religious and political system that they could no longer recognize the work of Love standing right in front of them. The tragedy is that they believed they were defending God while opposing the very things God was doing.

Christians, we should be terrified of making the same mistake.

Back to the passage... John gives us one final surprise. The blind man is actually the only person in the story who seems completely open to what God is doing. The disciples are convinced they understand why he’s blind. The Pharisees are convinced they understand how God works. Everyone in the story is certain about something except the man who receives his sight.

What’s remarkable is that Jesus doesn’t hand him a theology textbook. He doesn’t explain everything that’s about to happen. He simply gives him one step. “Go wash.” The man goes, washes, and comes home seeing. As the story unfolds, his understanding of Jesus continues to grow. At first he calls him “the man they call Jesus.” Later he calls him “a prophet.” By the end of the chapter, after Jesus seeks him out again, he calls him “Lord.” His vision becomes clearer because he keeps walking with Jesus.

I’ve noticed that’s usually how life works. We want a five-year plan, but we get today’s step. We want rock-solid certainty, but we get just enough light for the next few feet. We want the entire map laid out in front of us, but we simply receive “Follow me”.

I wonder how much anxiety we would save ourselves if we stopped demanding tomorrow’s answers before we’ve been faithful with today’s invitation.

So, I’d like to invite all of us into a simple practice this week. Every morning before you pick up your phone, before you check your email, before you turn on the news or start making your to-do list, pause for just a moment and pray one simple prayer:

Jesus, what is my next faithful step today?

For some of you, that next step might be reaching out to someone you’ve been avoiding. For someone else, it might be asking forgiveness. It might be extending compassion where you’ve been holding onto judgment. It might be slowing down long enough to notice the person who’s been invisible to everyone else. I have no clue what Jesus will invite you into this week. I just know that spiritual maturity has almost never happened years at a time. It happens one faithful step at a time.

And maybe that’s the invitation John has been leading us toward all along. The people who thought they saw everything clearly remained blind. The one person willing to trust Jesus with the next step kept seeing more and more clearly.

The first step toward seeing clearly is admitting we don’t see everything clearly.

So, as we begin this journey of reconnecting together, may we be people who never stop learning to see. May we have the humility to believe there is still more for God to teach us, the courage to follow wherever Jesus leads us next, and the grace to remember that the goal of following Jesus has never been simply to know more. It’s to become more like him.

If you’re new, I end each gathering with a time of observation and reflection. I do that to allow you the time to listen to your body and to listen to the spirit. The band is playing so it’s not an awkward silence. Lights will be turned down to help create intimacy, and I will ask a few questions to guide that process. So, just like we began our gathering, I invite you to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Allow yourself to be drawn into this moment.

• Where might I be spiritually blind without realizing it?

• When was the last time I allowed God to change my mind about something?

• What evidence do I see that my faith is making me more loving, compassionate, and Christlike?

• What is one faithful step Jesus is inviting me to take this week?

God who opens our eyes, thank you for meeting us wherever we are and loving us enough not to leave us there. Give us humble hearts that are always willing to learn, eyes that are open to where you’re at work, and the courage to follow wherever Jesus leads.

As we begin this new week, remind us that we don’t need all the answers. We simply need to trust you with the next faithful step. Shape us, day by day, into people who look more like Christ. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Bring comfort to the afflicted, healing to the broken and freedom to the chained. In the name of the one who brings light where we cannot yet see, amen. And so it is.

Benediction

As you go from this place, may Christ go before you to guide your steps, beside you to strengthen your heart, behind you to remind you of God’s faithfulness, and within you to shape you into his likeness.

May your eyes be open to the places where God is already at work, your heart remain humble enough to keep learning, and your hands ready to love the people God places in your path.

Go in the peace of Christ, taking the next faithful step, trusting that the One who calls you is already waiting there. Amen.