Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

            he leads me beside still waters;

khe restores my soul.  

He leads me in the right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

            I fear no evil;

            for you are with me;

            your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

            you anoint my head with oil;

            my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

            and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

 

John 9: 1-41

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?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”

He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”

They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”

Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided.

So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”

He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”

Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”

He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”

Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

 

The Myopia Club
The Rev Dr  Dianne ES Carpenter
19 March 2023
John 9:1-41

For seven years in the nineties I served the United Methodist church in Hamilton, Massachusetts.  The historic building had been located on Railroad Avenue near the parsonage.  However in the sixties one of the classic A frame structures was erected on Main Street right beside the Myopia Hunt Club.  There were several historic notable claims to fame at this location.  Fred told me that he had to go next door to the myopia hunt club to borrow their silver tea service when the queen of England came to visit and had TEA at the United Methodist church fellowship hall.  Princess Anne and Phillip had participated in one of the Olympic trials held at the myopia hunt club in 1975 that my recollection says that it was a three day Dressage event on the Polo Fields.  Steve Mcqueen and Ryan O’neal  Christopher Reeves were involved in shooting a movie or eating at the horse trial food tents.

So one day I decided I should make a neighborly call on the Myopia Hunt club that had allowed us to purchase the property on which the United Methodist church had been constructed.  I drove down their long tree lined entry to the historic clubhouse which was the original structure on their lands and when I shared that I was the Methodist neighbor pastor I had a chance to talk to the riding instructor, the cook and some other person who made the whole place run.  I left my greetings with them and never had a reason to interact with the Myopia Hunt club again.

If you look them up on line you discover that The Myopia Club originally started as a gentleman’s sporting club in Winchester, Massachusetts, in 1875-several of the founding members were short-sighted and wore glasses, which led to lighthearted banter and the official name of the club-but it soon needed more open space as the fox hunting division of the club expanded.

Because I have some pretty poor eyesight, I have a pretty significant prescription.  In my left eye -5 ½ in my right eye closer to -5 and people start to be considered legally blind at minus six.  If I take off my glasses for any reason, I am quite blind.  However, once I put my glasses on, everything comes into view! I can once again see the details of faces, read words, and distinguish colors, shapes, and pictures.

The man in our gospel today was born blind.  Day after day he sat and begged. They looked. They walked by. They wondered. But they never saw. He had never seen their faces until today. He had never seen his own face, his parents’ faces, a sunrise, the stars, his home, a smile until today. Before today, for the community, it was as if he didn’t even exist. He was a life waiting to be born, a light waiting to shine, a word waiting to be spoken. Today he became a new creation, he was enlightened, he became a living testimony to the Son of Man but they still don’t see him. For some reason they are unable to see him.

The disciples look at him and ask a theological question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Their vision is distorted by the popular belief that suffering is caused by sin and you get what you deserve.

The neighbors looked but couldn’t see past the image of the way things had always been, a blind man sitting and begging. It’s all he had ever known. It’s all they had ever known. Blinded by disbelief they keep asking him, “How were your eyes opened?”

Two times the religious leaders call him in. Two times they interrogate him. Two times he gives glory to God. They cannot see the prophet, the man from God, that this formerly blind man now sees. They cannot see the new life, the new man, the new creation that bears testimony to the man from God. Two times they turn a blind eye to this man and his God. No one, as the saying goes, is more blind than he or she who chooses not to see. They have chosen power, rules, and boundaries over the reality before them.  RESEMBLANCE Pharisees – Myopia members

I wonder if Jesus longed to give the Pharisees spiritual glasses. How sad He must have been to see them being legalistic, asking wrong questions, and settling for less. I wonder if He is just as sad when we do the same.

When Jesus healed the blind man he gave him more than sight, he allowed him to experience what he had never experienced before—connection to the world around him and those he held dear. Can you imagine what that must have been like?

This healing is cause for great celebration, but the Pharisees can only find fault. They wonder who is this Jesus man who heals, under what authority is He healing, and how it is that this blind man came to be healed on the Sabbath. In doing so, they miss the point—a man was restored and God was glorified!

Jesus mourns their spiritual blindness. These individuals who spent so much time studying the law of God couldn’t see the forest for the trees. These ones who so self-righteously proclaimed their togetherness, couldn’t seem to put 2 and 2 together.

Even this man’s own parents distance themselves from him. They can talk about their blind son but not about their seeing son. To see him, the enlightened son, meant they would have to tell the story. “We do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” They deny what is right before their eyes. Fear does that. Fear keeps us from seeing a larger reality, from living with a larger vision. So we live with tunnel vision only seeing that one thing that we most fear.

They all looked but none saw him. If they saw him they would have to confront their own blindness. This man blind from birth is not just a single individual, he is every man, every woman. The only difference between him and all the others in today’s gospel is that he knows he is blind. Until we know we are blind we can never see with new eyes. “Surely we are not blind, are we?”

Blindness is not about the quality of our vision or the condition of our eyes. It is not about the darkness around us but, rather, the darkness within us. How we see others, what we see in the world, the way we see life is less about the objects of our seeing and more about ourselves. We do not see God, people, things, or circumstances as they are but as we are. Until our eyes are opened by Christ our seeing is really just a projection of ourselves onto the world. What we see and how we see manifest our inner world. They describe and point to the fears, attachments, and beliefs within us.

If we wish to see God, life, and others as they really are then we must attend to what is going on within us. True seeing begins in the heart not the eyes. We must begin to acknowledge the fears, attachments, and beliefs that live within us and how they have impaired our vision.

Think about a time when you were scared, really scared. Maybe it was about your marriage, your job, the illness of loved one. That fear had a way of blinding you. Fear rivets our attention on that thing we fear to the exclusion of everything else around us. That one thing is all we can think about, all that we can see. Fear narrows our world view and our vision becomes myopic, nearsighted to the point of exclusion.

Attachments are those things or people we think we must have to be happy. We can’t imagine life without them. We have convinced ourselves that our very existence in some way depends on them. The Bible calls them idols. Modern society calls them addictions. Regardless, we will inevitably look for and see only that which fosters and affirms our attachments and will turn a blind eye toward anything that threatens them. Our vision becomes selective.

We have probably all met someone who is so fanatical in his or her beliefs that he or she cannot see another point of view. He cannot look at any other possibility. She refuses to see other ways but her own. Not only have we met these people -too often we are these people. We all have certain beliefs to which we cling. They offer the illusion of stability and security. So we no longer live in the real world, God’s world, but a world that we have created in our head.

The inner darkness of our fears, attachments, and beliefs is what keeps us from seeing. They cover our eyes like the mud on the eyes of the man born blind. In placing mud on the blind man’s eyes Jesus is holding before him the reality of his blindness. He wears thick black lenses of fear, attachments, and beliefs. We all do. Those who know this are sent to wash in the pool, to be re-created, and to see with new eyes. Once they were darkness but now in the Lord they are light. The rest will continue looking but never see, their faces caked with mud.

Don’t just look around. Look within. What do you see? How do you see? Where is the mud of darkness in your life? Name that reality. Acknowledge it and then go wash. The mud of darkness always gives way to the light of Christ.

It would be easy to think of Myopia as an ivory tower, devoid of social conscience, but nothing could be further from the truth. Conservation and land preservation have been two of the club’s raisons d’être since its inception, and today’s membership is no less passionate about those important causes. A century ago, Myopia members needed grounds to fox hunt, but in recent years the hunt, polo, and equestrian disciplines of the club have all made great efforts to champion open space for the wider community, supporting local organizations such as the Essex County Trail Association, Essex County Greenbelt Association, and Trustees of Reservation.

The founding fathers of Myopia might have been lampooned for being near-sighted, but their far-sighted approach to creating an exclusive private country club with a heartfelt community spirit was nothing short of visionary.

Myopia’s Historic Club House

NORTHSHORE MAGAZINE  

Incorporated as the Myopia Hunt Club in 1892, the building dates to 1772. It was commissioned by Colonel Robert Dodge, whose family lived there until 1886.

Myopia’s historic Club House has borne witness to 120 years of hunting, golf, and polo history, as well as created a few sporting legends of its own. By Andrew Conway

Exodus 17: 1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”

But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”

So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

The LORD said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?

John 4: 5-42

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.”

The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”

Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,

“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

In Arizona we’re at a high altitude and one of the things that Nicole kept saying to me was take a picture there’s nothing out there.  Deserts have many different appearances deserted places are deserts.lent commemorates jesus’ time in the wilderness a deserted place.

Sahara Desert.

A somewhat predictable oldie but amusing nevertheless.

A guy was lost in the Sahara Desert, desperate for water, when he saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he walked towards the image only to find a little old man sitting at a card table with a bunch of neckties laid out on it.

The guy asked, “Please, I’m dying of thirst, can I have some water?”

The old man replied, “I don’t have any water, but why don’t you buy a tie?. Here’s one that goes nicely with your shirt.”

The guy shouted, “I don’t want a tie, you idiot! I need water!”

“OK, don’t buy a tie, but to show you what a nice guy I am, I’ll tell you that over that dune there, about five miles down, there is a nice restaurant my brother runs. Go over that way, they’ll give you all the water you want.” The guy thanked him and walked away towards the dune and eventually disappeared.

Three hours later the guy came crawling back to where the old man was sitting behind his card table. The old man said, “I told you, about five miles over that dune. Couldn’t you find it?”

The guy rasped, “I found it, they wouldn’t let me in without a tie.”

Wells in the Desert
12  March  2023
The Rev. Dr. Dianne Carpenter
John 4: 5-42

During the Season of Lent, we’re working our way through a series of stories in the Gospel of John. Each of them describes Jesus’s encounter with a different person: Nicodemus the Pharisee, the woman at the well, the man born blind, and Lazarus of Bethany. These are stories of people that we usually think of as marginal to the Jesus story.  None of them are one of the twelve, for example. But in the Gospel of John, it is these encounters that reveal who Jesus really is.

With large stretches of sand in the area, water is a precious necessity of life.  The River Litani and the River Jordan are the only rivers of any size in the vicinity of the land of Canaan. Wadis…flash flood areas.  Sandy area  is hilly and the road winds thru these hills. Ben Sira, in 2nd-century BCE Jewish wisdom book,  also called Ecclesiasticus (its Latin name). twice enumerates water as the first among the “principal things necessary for the life of man.”

Reference to Dr.  Beck [green areas in the desert] [modern wells- Spencer  100’ down here septic bearly clears water table] All springs, wells and fountains were landmarks in the topography of Israel. Abraham dug wells near Gerar. Abraham’s Well is a historical water well in Beersheba, Israel, associated with the biblical narrative of Abraham– Abraham’s well was seized by Abimelech’s men (Genesis 21:25), and Isaac’s servants also dug a well at Beersheba (Genesis 26:25).

 An angel found Hagar at a well in the Sinai, Beer Lahai Roi (Genesis 16:7).

Life is saved in the prospects of death  are near…

To own a well and to possess the surrounding country were synonymous terms (Proverbs 5:15-17). On the other hand, so serious might be the disputes arising out of the use or claim of a well that violent conflicts occurred (Genesis 26:21; Exodus 2:17; Numbers 20:17). If the approach of an enemy was feared, his progress might be seriously hampered, if not altogether frustrated, by stopping or destroying the wells along his route (2 Chronicles 32:3).

“Wells of water” speak of access and supply, and much more in the Bible.  When Israel traveled to a place where God had miraculously provided water in the past, they sang, “Spring up, O well! All of you sing to it…” (see Numbers 21:16-17) God’s people recognized that He was the One who had provided the water before, and that He would do so again.  ie Exodus…

McFee points out that:  “Wells are a literary device in scripture, often the site of betrothal. Isaac finds Rebekah at a well. Jacob meets Rachel at a well. Moses’ marriage to Zipphorah is connected to a well.”  So it is not a casual thing for Jesus to meet this Samaritan woman- who has had several husbands- at a well in the fourth chapter of John’s gospel.

As necessary as water is for life, loving and being loved is  also necessary for fullness of life.  Our Lenten theme is the human search for love.  We thirst after wholeness – we look for love in many places – What wells are we drinking from to quench the thirst for wholeness only to realize that power, reknown, beauty, status symbols, popularity, wealth, cars, technology, experiences, relationships…….Does not satisfy and the search goes on.

In our desperation for real connection we keep chasing after shallow connections like foreign pen pals and today on things like social media,[expand] and consistently drinking from a well that only will lead to us being thirsty again. [secret identity]

What wells are we drinking from as communities [abutters to housing for the economically challenged work forces in exclusive communities] to quench the thirst for wholeness only to realize that love of property values, are not saving?

What wells are we drinking from as a nation where gun ownership is more of a sacred right than our children and human beings?  What will it take to realize that mental health and sanity will thrive only in the context of radical love? [expand]

The Samaritan woman had no reason to trust a Jew who was hanging out at her well in the middle of the day.  She was there because she was an outsider to her own community where most of the women would draw water early in the coolness of the morning.  But this Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, gave her reason to trust him.  He showed her that he knew who she was and he loved her with THE love of the God that they each worshiped, tho’ in different ways.

Life is full of desert places where we cannot thrive: depression, loss, disappointment…we need wells of living water

People at odds over philosophical differences within our country cannot communicate until they find radical respect for one another.  Name calling and avoidance contributes only to further the disagreement and the fractured society we live in and our more fractured global community  [China/Russia vs usa.]

 Jesus reminds us that there is a deeper well–a spring of water “gushing up to eternal life.” There are deep wells of spirit and of truth that we can drink from that will perpetually slake a deep human thirst we share! 

And Jesus offers this across lines of exclusion.  There is no exclusive club that has sole access to this kind of deep well of eternal life. We have to remember to seek out deep relationships and not shy away from ones that might cross over arbitrary social taboos such as race, age or sexual identity. That is what is modeled for us in the fourth chapter of John. [Mcfee]

The reading from Exodus also reminds us that the deepest well, the most important source of nourishment, is from God. The one who can even draw water from a rock–from Massah and Meribah which, in Hebrew, literally translates to mean “Test” and “Quarrel.” Only God can draw water from impossible places! Which means we can trust that even in the midst of our own quarrels and tribulations that the real source is always present with us when our faith is tested or life is unbelievably difficult?