The story in the Bible is about a man blind from birth, who is healed by Jesus and then unjustly kicked out of his synagogue by its leaders. The images are healing and blindness and light. It’s a very touching, tragic, humorous and in its own way subtly radical story that is our scripture for this coming Sunday.
This Sunday the theme for worship is “Justice” and in the poem I wrote; I imagined the man reflecting on his experience. And in that experience it’s Justice and his role in it is what this man, born blind, is finally able to see. Here’s the poem. I offer it to you today as a way of preparing for your reflections this Sunday morning.
There were days
when I could take it.
Days I could take
The indignity of being pushed aside,
Ignored, overlooked, omitted
Unheeded, unnoticed,
even unseen.
There were days when I could take
Someone trashing what I said
and in their words throwing me out
like the trash
because I said it?
There were days when I could take someone saying
That I was nothing but dirt.
Or get out of here…
Or get Lost…..
There were days when I could take
most anything
most anybody.
But taking most anything does not
Make it right
Or them right
Or me right for taking it.
But now that I see…..
There are days
To stand up
And sit up
And wake up
to what is going on around you
and beside you
and within you.
You see, when you see
For the first time
with eyes touched by Jesus.
when grace has opened your eyes
to the indignity of being unseen
to the reality of injustice
It’s hard to turn away
And just take it.
May your eyes be touched by the Grace that helps us all to see and respond to the reality of injustice in our world.