Loading...Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now, I’m found. Was blind, but now, I see.
I once was lost, but now, I’m found. Was blind, but now, I see.
Isn’t that the truth? It is only by God’s amazing grace that we come to see how Jesus saw and to walk like Jesus walked.
It doesn’t come easy, turning our blindness, our inexperience, our stubbornness, our lack of exposure, or our knowledge, into a transformative vision of God’s world. It comes with taking risks, being willing to learn, trying new things, and being willing to turn away from what we’ve been told or taught by our elders.
I know this firsthand. For most of my life I’ve been told I am different from the rest of my family. And the funny thing is, I’m not sure I have ever understood what anyone ever specifically meant by that, but I have always felt like the odd one out. Not what we consider a black sheep. I wasn’t a troubled child or doing anything anyone could consider “wrong.” It was almost the opposite. More of a “goodie two shoes” or “little miss perfect.” At least that’s what people said about me.
I tried very hard to follow the rules our parents had. I paid attention to things most children wouldn’t notice. Heard conversations most wouldn’t hear. Took to heart snippets of information as truth about other people, people who didn’t look like my extended family, or behave like them, or who didn’t believe like us. Even stories about family members who didn’t seem to measure up to unspoken and unrealistic expectations were talked about.
The thing was, in all those experiences where I heard the tone of voice, I saw distrust, anger, judgment, and even fear towards people who were different or made different choices.
And as the eldest child in our household and second oldest grandchild on both sides, and as a girl being raised in the 1960’s and 70’s, I was obedient.
But inside me, the fear I was raised to have was churning with curiosity about the world and disappointment that there were people in the world who didn’t deserve to be included because they were different than our White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant world.
Call me sensitive, call me empathetic, call me a child of my environment, and I would completely agree. Because I was all those things. And yet, it was that last one, that child of my environment, that obedient little girl who was frequently hospitalized as an infant with croupe, who nearly died at age eight from a kidney infection, who held the attention of her elders because she was tiny and vulnerable and sickly, who deep inside saw the world so differently that she broke free of that environment, who was healed from her figurative blindness, and began to live a life seeing God’s world, God’s people, as beloved.
It took me years to let Jesus’s handful of mud made of soil and his spit to work to open my eyes. To allow myself to be exposed to the diverse world and to embrace it. Little by little I realized that I didn’t know what I didn’t know—and that I wanted to know. I wanted to learn and be changed so that I could accept Jesus’s invitation to come and follow him.
And it is still happening. I know I do not know all that I could know. I am always amazed when I have opportunities to be enlightened and to see something I thought was one way and to recognize that I had limited vision.
It is almost like getting a new pair of glasses with a new prescription. Something that was a little unclear through the old prescription has become clearer or sharper with the new one.
When I think about learning and growing, changing and becoming as being the catalysts to transformation, it can often be best described with the language of vision.
I once was lost, but now, I’m found. Was blind, but now, I see.
The man in our story was blind from birth. Religious leaders blamed it on the sin of his parents. That’s how people in that time believed. They blamed what was abnormal, what was different, on sin.
We now know because of science that there could have been any number of reasons this man was born blind that had nothing to do with sin.
And striving to not minimize this miracle by making this story more relevant to today…I do think we can consider this story as one that reminds us that we don’t know what we don’t know, and that sometimes, we have generational, politically partisan, experiential, social, and yes, even religious influences that make us unable to see—emotionally, spiritually, even physically—that God loves all God has created and that every human is wonderfully made. No one is beloved more or less than another. And all deserve respect, kindness, and justice.
I know that in my life I was not exposed to -- and may have even been intentionally or unintentionally protected from -- people or cultures different from my own. In many ways the words and attitudes expressed by the adults in my life: grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, and adult family friends, created a sense of fear towards people who I didn’t regularly encounter.
Early in our marriage, I took a job in downtown Minneapolis. It was more convenient and cost-effective for me to take the bus to work each day. My parents were worried about this choice. They knew the bus route would take me through North Minneapolis, the predominantly African American and lower income part of town, and they were afraid for my safety.
During my first few weeks riding the bus, I was anxious and on edge, because I was taught to be afraid and cautious. Now, it makes sense for everyone to have a healthy dose of awareness in all situations, but my parents had instilled a sense of blood pressure raising fear.
What I quickly learned was that yes, I needed to be aware of my surroundings, but I didn’t need to be afraid of the people getting on and off the bus. I realized that all of us were just trying to live our lives and get to where we needed to go. The bus ride through a poorer neighborhood was a way for me to learn, to have my eyes opened, so to speak, to more vividly see the truth: people are people.
When I sang in the Twin Cities Women’s Choir, I learned more about the broadness of love. That love is love. That it is okay to embrace a variety of faith experiences to find your holy truth. That families don’t look the same, and that children are beloved no matter who their parents are.
When I went to seminary, I was exposed to many different types of people with differing beliefs and backgrounds from mine. I learned to see the world as even more diverse than ever before.
The thing is, every time I’ve been involved in communities that look and act differently than how I was raised, my vision is expanded. I grow and learn and become something I wasn’t before.
Let me be clear about something. The Pharisees blamed the parents of the young man for his blindness. They went so far as to say his parents had sinned against God and that was why their son was born blind. The parents did their best to defend themselves, and Jesus was clear: they did nothing sinful to have a blind son. Sometimes, someone is born a certain way to be used as an example of God’s grace and love to teach others how to see the beloved-ness of all.
In my own story I have said that the adults were exceptionally protective and cautious in ways that made me fearful of what and who I did not know or understand. We all have stories of how we were raised, our kids have them, too. There are generational influences that formed us. For some of us, they remain strong. For others, like me, they have changed over time.
I am thankful that I no longer see the world through a fearful lens, or with blinders blocking the view. Not that I’m never afraid, but that I have a healthier relationship with appropriate fear. Not that I’m never skeptical, but that I am open to new ideas.
I believe that I was exposed to people and places and stories that have influenced me to recognize that there is so much more to learn. I will never learn it all. But if I were to consider that every time I have been reluctant to see clearly, it was Jesus taking a little bit of dirt, spitting on it to make a mud and putting that mud on my eyes so that once it is washed off I am able to see the world through his eyes.
I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now, I see.
That, my friends, is amazing grace. Amen.
