Opening Eyes to the Truth

Welcome to the resistance! As I’ve been saying this Lent, Jesus’ movement was more than a spiritual revival, it was a resistance movement to the powers and principalities that were oppressing and marginalizing the people. This emphasis has often been ignored, but if you understand the context and underlying tensions, the resistance becomes obvious.

Today, for our conversation, let me begin with a recap of the story of Jesus healing a man born blind (John 9:1-41).

One day Jesus came across a man blind from birth. The disciples ask whether it was the man’s fault or his parent’s fault – because this was the prevailing belief at that time: somebody screwed up and God was taking it out on the man by striking him blind. Jesus tells them, nope, no one sinned, but this looks like the perfect teaching moment!

So, Jesus healed the blind man so that he could see again. There was a big hullaballoo that happened next. The Temple authorities/Pharisees questioned the man and his parents, but despite the evidence and testimony, still chose to deny that Jesus could’ve been a person of God. Yet, the man who was healed believes in him

The summary from Jesus at the end is: “I came into this world to execute justice – to make the sightless see and the seeing blind.”

This was a thinly veiled attack on the Pharisees not only for their inability to see the action of God when it just about hit them in the face. It was also a condemnation on their lack of empathy and compassion, their old ways of thinking and seeing, and their comfort with the status quo, including the “in crowd” and “out crowd.”

“You’re not calling us blind, are you?” the Pharisees accuse Jesus (in a really whiny voice in my head.)

To which Jesus essentially replies, If you were blind, really literally blind, there would be no sin in that, regardless of what you’ve been taught. But since you say, ‘We see,’ when clearly your opinions and prior teachings are blocking your ability to truly understand what is going on here, your sin remains. It’s like you are deliberately not seeing… you are blind without even knowing it.

The most interesting part of this is that, for Jesus, this wasn’t just about enlightening people to the ways of God, it was executing justice. Transforming people’s hearts and minds, helping them to see the truth was the path of justice. As Ken Wilbur once wrote, “Transformative spirituality, authentic spirituality, is revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.”

If we use this story as a metaphor for today, who are the sightless and who are the Pharisees? Well, the “sightless” are all those who are oppressed, outcast, poor, disabled, considered less than. And society wants to blame it on them. It’s your fault you’re poor (why don’t you just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps), you’re fault you don’t get the big jobs (you’re just an emotional female), your fault you aren’t respected if you are LGBT, or have colored skin, or are old, or... Jesus’ role, the role of justice, is to show all those folks that how they have been treated is not their fault. He helps them see their worth and sacredness. He lets them know that God loves them.

The “Pharisees” today are the ones who think they have all the answers that they’re more righteous than others because they are wealthy, literate and learned, and have positions of power.

Jesus’ role, to execute justice, is to help the “signtless” see that how they have been treated is not their fault and to open their eyes to their own worth and sacredness. He lets them know that God loves them. At the same time, Jesus seeks to undo the Pharisees’ certainty and arrogance and help them to also see what God’s justice, equality and inclusion look like.

If I had to guess, I’d bet that we all see ourselves as ones whose eyes are opened. So, I hate to point this out, but as soon as we say that, we’ve become the ones who say “we see.”  We’ve become the ones who think we have all the answers, the righteous ones. I figure there’s a chance that Jesus might just look at us and say, your eyesight isn’t all that perfect… maybe you want to take a closer look.

Opening our eyes to the truth means we start with ourselves. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have our blind spots, we have areas where we’re convinced we’re right and won’t hear others out. We are all sometimes unaware of our own biases.

Cynthia Bourgeault tells a story about an Anglican priest she once knew who was “at the forefront of the civil rights movement in Philadelphia, a tireless champion of racial equality. Yet he slept with a baseball bat next to his bed in his west Philadelphia house so that none of them would get in and steal his goods. We all live with this terrible, heart-breaking hypocrisy in Christianity, when the teaching finally leaves us in the dust.”

Sometimes we can only get so far before our fears, biases, or preconceived notions catch up with us and our actions no longer match the words of Jesus we know so well.

How do we work on opening our eyes, allowing our hearts and minds to be transformed so that we live more compassionate, justice-filled lives? In my research I found a few good suggestions. The first three are from an article I found, the last is my addition:

1. Don’t follow the wake of the boat. We mostly rely on our past experiences and memories to view our present, but focusing on yesterday is like using the wake of a boat to guide us forward. Of course there are lessons that we can learn from the past, but every day is a new day. None of us is the same person today that we were yesterday. The present moment has so much to teach us if we pay attention to who we are and what we are doing right now.

2. Look horizon. Stress narrows our focus so that in the times when we most need perspective, it's difficult for us to see anything except for the problem in front of us. Facing our challenges is easier when we take a step back from the situation so that we can expand our focus again. When you can’t find a way past the obstacles in front of you, take a walk, look out a window, strive to see the farthest horizon you can see. Horizons remind us of open spaces and new ideas.

3. Don’t believe everything that you think. The average person has between 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. Eighty percent of our thoughts are usually negative and ninety-five percent of our thoughts are repetitive.

But just because we think a lot doesn’t mean that we need to believe everything that we think, or accept our thoughts as reality. We can ask ourselves: Is this thought actually true? Is this thought useful? Is there another way that I can see this situation?

4. Am I falling prey to the backfire effect? When someone tries to correct misinformation, those words can sometimes reinforce the original belief as the listener rejects the evidence and becomes more committed to their original viewpoints. This is known as the backfire effect. When someone questions us, do we dig our heels in about our original viewpoint or belief, or are we willing to fact check ourselves, or listen to another perspective?

Jesus welcomes to the resistance all who are willing to let go of their blindness, who are ready to see all people as ones of sacred worth, who are willing to open their eyes to an unconditionally loving Divine Presence, who are willing to keep moving forward in their spiritual journeys and not get stuck in old ideas and beliefs.

This is resistance through transformation - seeing the truth underlying all of life.

Love & Light!

Kaye